Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/110

two human beings. Each should know something of the physiological facts of his, or her, sexual nature, and of the opposite sex, and also of the psychology of the sexes. All of this, with the incidental useful knowledge that would be vouchsafed in a general conception of sexual problems, would tend to cultivate a basis of understanding, a sense of insight and a practical grasp of vital facts that are now left entirely to the hazards of chance.

Nevertheless, despite the obvious desirability of preparation, little or none has been given to young people. Then when the ship of matrimony has drifted into dangerous waters, or has become hopelessly wrecked, the same static-minded people who say, in effect, that nothing should be told about the vital problems of life, or no sexual information given, are the first to rise in dismay and lament over the disintegration of modern marriage and presage the collapse of our civilization.

Innocence and Modesty. In the traditional upbringing of girls, the ostensible purpose of which is to fit them for the responsibilities of womanhood, there has been a confusion of innocence with ignorance, and of modesty with prudery. This misconception of terms has not only resulted in untold misery to womankind, but it has tended to place a premium upon the very conditions which caused the misery.

The term "innocent" is an obsolete one from the standpoint of modern intellectual development, and its use in relation to the upbringing of an individual in our modern social environment is bound to lead to confusion. It is a relic of another age, when girls and women were not supposed to know anything outside of domestic "duties."

One may properly be innocent of a crime, or of moral