us. We as a sex have created this infamy. We as a sex still continue to
condone it.

And there is only one cure for it. It is that we should stop uttering
or believing the lie that we must indulge our passions and should act
upon the truth that continence outside marriage is perfectly possible,
and that we owe it to women, to ourselves, and to God to achieve it.





CHAPTER VIII



A GIRL'S EARLY DAYS



By early days I mean the years between sixteen and twenty-one or
thereabouts, and I am sure there ought to be a chapter in this book on
this subject, though I am not at all sure that I can write it. I only
make the attempt because I have been urged to try, and because a book
that did not recognize how distressing the "emotional muddles" of this
period often are, would be a very unsympathetic production.

Most men very quickly become clearly conscious of desires springing
from their sexual natures, but most girls only do so very slowly. What
a girl is conscious of at this period is a new stress of emotion. She