Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/115
a free atmosphere and on a plane of equality. This condition is now more and more becoming the rule.
There is, however, another tremendously important factor in the matrimonial relations, and that is a sound, rational knowledge of sex life, and what it involves. Progress in this respect is bound to be slower, because more formidable obstacles are to be encountered. It is necessary that every agency in the interest of marital happiness be directed toward the surmounting of these obstacles.
The success of the monogamic form of marriage from the social standpoint depends upon the equality of its constituency; the success of love in marriage from the individual standpoint depends upon a mutual understanding of, and compliance with, the laws of sex, upon which the intimate relations of marriage are so largely based.
Both of these requirements, the social and the individual, are essential for the preservation of love in marriage.
The Realities of Marriage. Sex, as we have already seen, is the magnetism which draws all life together. Whether the union is successful or not depends to a great extent upon many correlated factors.
As human beings are not exceptions to this law, sex, then, is the magnetic, cosmic impulse that draws men and women together in marriage. (If they marry without this impulse, then it is merely an "arrangement" made usually for economic, social or other considerations.) The universality of this impulse and the hopes and expectations behind it have been referred to above. The correlated factors that have the potency to make a marriage a success or a failure are based primarily on an understanding of the nature and manifestations of sex.
Bear this in mind. It is important. To those who are contemplating matrimony, it is of vital importance. Women