Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    102/610 (page 52)
    MARRIAGE. ments, cannot exist where there is true love ; for, its effects are to combine all the energies and all the sources of happiness. True love is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother/’ and itbindeth stronger than the band around the sheaf of wheat. Another evil in domestic life arises from the fact that husbands and wivc3 do not make sufficient endeavour to adapt themselves to each other; but each is continually exerting him or herself to bring others under his or her influence, tailing to adapt themselves to their companions, but requiring perfect adapta- t!on from them ; and, in this way, neither are accommodated or agreeably entertained. ° It is too frequently the case that husbands are favonrably disposed to render their wives happy, but are so ignorant of their real characters, dispositions, capacities, and organisations, that they require impossibilities, and fail to fulfil their own obligations. A thorough knowledge of each others’ character is absolutely necessary for perfect happiness ; and, as Phrenology and Physiology unfold the true nature of man, they are the sciences, above all others, that should be studied in con- nection with our social relations. Let all, then, come to this book of Nature, and, unfolding its pages, learn from it their duty as social beings, studying their own nature and that of others. Witnessing, as I do, daily in my profession, and as I have done for fifteen years past, the debasing result of the continued violation of our social relations, I am constrained to speak thus plainly, and urge the claims of abused Nature and her broken laws ; and had I the voice and trumpet of an angel, the united 'talents of the nation, and the reformation of a man depended on my influence and efforts, I should not cease my exertions till I had made every man and woman acquainted with the laws of Phrenology and Physiology. I entreat you, therefore, one and all, to make yourselves thoroughly acquainted with your own organisation, to act according to the laws of your being, and to “ be not unequally yoked together.” The male and female organisations are such as to conform most happily to the different circles in which they move, and the different duties to be per- formed by each respectively. The male has the broader shoulders and chest; he is also taller propor- tionally, possesses larger lungs, heart, and larynx ; his voice, in consequence, being rougher and more sonorous. The situation of the female makes her ■dependent upon the male. Feminine is used in contradistinction to masculine ; the one having reference to vigour, strength, and robustness—proper requisites for the male, and the absence of which renders him contemptible, and subject to the disgraceful epithet of feminine ; the other being characteristic of softness, mildness, delicacy, beauty, and all other womanly qualities. Tha female is more narrow in the chest : her neck is of less volume ; her limbs throughout are more rounded and delicate, and she has the wider pelvis ; in consequence of which her step is less firm and decided. The human body is divided, anatomically and physiologically, into three distinct divisions : 1st, the Abdominal; 2nd, the Thoracic ; 3rd, the Cephalic regions. First. The Abdominal region. It embraces the whole of the digestive and chyle-making apparatus, together with the organs of generation. This region predominates in the female, giving the capability of manufac- turing an extra supply of nutrition—a power which, as mothers, they must possess in order to maintain their offspring. Some writers have fallen into a manifest error (particularly Dr. Alexander Walker), by confounding the func- tions of these organs with those comprising the Thoracic region, and stating that the “ vital system ” is larger in the female than in the male. They make nutrition and vitality—two terms wholly distinct in their signification— synonymous. Second. The Thoracic region. This important part of the body is th*