Excerpt from The Sexual Life of Woman in Its Physiological, Pathological and Hygienic Aspects The sexual life of woman - the appearance of the first indica tions of sexual activity, the development of that activity and its culmination in sexual-maturity, the decline of that activity and its ultimate extinction in sexual death the entire process of the most perfect work of natural creation - has throughout all ages kindled the inspiration of poets, aroused the enthusiasm of artists, and sup plied thinkers with inexhaustible material for reflection. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

The origins of the incest taboo have puzzled many of the most influential minds of the West, from Plutarch to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, David Hume, Lewis Henry Morgan, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Edward Westermarck, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. This book puts the discussion of incest on a new foundation. It is the first attempt to thoroughly examine the rich literature, from philosophical, theological, and legal treatises to psychological and biological-genetic studies, to a wide variety of popular cultural media over a long period of time. The book offers a detailed examination of discursive and figurative representations of incest during five selected periods, from 1600 to the present. The incest discussion for each period is complemented with a presentation of dominant kinship structures and changes, without arguing for causal relations. Part I deals with the legacy of ecclesiastical marriage prohibitions of the Middle Ages: Historians dealing with the Reformation have wondered about the political and social implications of theological debates about the incest rules, the Enlightenment opted for sociological considerations of the household and a new anthropology based on the passions, Baroque discourse focused upon sexual relations among kin by marriage, while Enlightenment and Romantic discussions worried the intimacy of siblings. The first section of Part II deals with the six decades around 1900, during which European and American cultures obsessed about the sexuality of women. Almost everyone concurred in the idea that mother made the family what it was; that she configured the household, kept the lines of kinship vibrant, and stood at the threshold as stern gatekeeper, and many thought that she managed these tasks through her sexuality and an eroticized relationship with sons. Another story line, taken up in the section "Intermezzo," this one about the physical and mental consequences of inbreeding, appeared after 1850. To what extent do close-kin marriages pose risks for progeny? At its center, lay the incest problematic, now restated: Is avoidance of kin genetically programmed? Do all cultures know about risks of consanguinity? As for the twenty-first century, evolutionary and genetic assumptions are challenged by a living world population containing roughly one billion offspring of cousin marriages. Part III deals with one of the perhaps most remarkable reconfigurations of Western kinship in the aftermath of World War I: The shift from an endogamous to an exogamous alliance system centered on the "nuclear family." An historical anomaly, this family form began to dissolve almost as soon as it came together and, in the process, shifted the focus of incest concerns to a new pairing: father and daughter. By the 1970s, when the father/daughter problematic swept all other considerations of incest aside, that relationship had come to be modeled, for the most part, around power and its abusive potential. As for "incest," its representations in the last three decades of the twentieth century no longer focused on biologically damaged progeny but rather on power abuses in the nuclear family: sexual "abuse." By the mid-1990s, Western culture at least partly redirected its gaze away from father and daughter towards siblings, especially towards brothers and sisters and the sexual boundaries and erotics of their relationships. Correspondingly, siblings became a "model organism" for psychotherapy, evolutionary biology, and the science of genetics.

Excerpt from The Sexual Life of Woman in Its Physiological, Pathological and Hygienic Aspects The sexual life of woman - the appearance of the first indications of sexual activity, the development of that activity and its culmination in sexual-maturity, the decline of that activity and its ultimate extinction in sexual death - the entire process of the most perfect work of natural creation - has throughout all ages kindled the inspiration of poets, aroused the enthusiasm of artists, and supplied thinkers with inexhaustible material for reflection. In the following pages, this sexual life of woman will be considered both in relation to the female genital organs, and in relation to the feminine organism as a whole; in relation both to the physical and to the mental development of the individual; and in relation alike to the state of health and to the processes of disease. Thus from the standpoint of clinical investigation and of practical experience, the book will be a contribution towards the solution of the sexual problem, nowadays recognized as one of supreme importance. It is thirty years since I published a work on the histological changes that occur in the ovaries during the climacteric period (Archiv. für Gynecologie, Vol. xii, Section 3); and ever since that time, the influence exerted upon the general health of women by the physiological and pathological processes occurring in their reproductive organs, has been to me a favourite subject for observation and experiment. The result of these studies is incorporated in my monographs, "The Climacteric Period in Women" (Erlangen, 1874), "Sterility in Women" (2nd Ed., Vienna, 1895), "The Uterus and the Heart" (Leipzig, 1898), and in various contributions to medical periodicals. I now have a welcome opportunity of drawing a general picture of sexual activity in women, and of illuminating this picture both by the light of my own experience and by numerous references to the works of other authors. In passing, I have devoted considerable attention to questions of education and personal hygiene, both of which are greatly influenced by the processes of the sexual life. Thus, I hope, the work will be rendered more interesting to the physician, and the general picture it is intended to convey will be more fully characterized by contemporary actuality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.