Is it because we are afraid to define the terms we use so glibly? We talk
of promoting chastity, for example. _What is chastity?_ Surely chastity is
happy, healthy sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who love one
another; and unchastity is sexual intercourse between those who do _not_
love one another. No sexual intercourse at all is neither chastity nor
unchastity; it is the negation of both, and it ends in extinction. Why
trouble so much about a negation that inevitably means racial death? Why
not devote ourselves to life and love; to the building of a happy healthy
human family--a family that instinctively realises that the clean
blood-stream of a nation is its most priceless possession?

But the national blood-stream can never be clean until there is a complete
knowledge of sexual control and sanitation among all of us, and especially
among women. One of the very first things which women must learn to
understand is the control of conception and the control of venereal
diseases. They must learn how to prevent the birth of the unfit; how to
secure the birth of the fit; and even though their husbands are infective
they must learn how to break the chain of infection in their own bodies,
so that what is bad for the race does not become worse. If women are brave
enough and wise enough, they can in most cases _wipe out the scourge of
venereal diseases from their own hearths and homes_, and ensure that every
child born is at least physically fit. But this cannot be done without
_knowledge_, and that knowledge is at present lacking.

The following pages are written with the object of imparting useful,
practical knowledge to sensible and serious women. The women who accept
and apply this knowledge can rest calm in the sure and certain faith that
it is their offspring who will build up the coming race.