Scholars on Sex

For a conference on Education for Marriage and Family Social Relations called jointly by Columbia University's Teachers College, American Social Hygiene Association and American Home Economics Association, 250 educators, physicians, religious and social workers journeyed from far & near to Manhattan last week. Agreed that divorces can be prevented, lives made happier by planting sex and family education in every school in the land, they sat down in seven committees to work out a plan of instruction. On the third day rose the question of whether engaged couples, barred from marriage by Depression or other causes, should be encouraged to have sexual relations.

Up stood Gynecologist Robert Latou Dickinson of Manhattan, 73-year-old secretary of the National Committee on Maternal Health. In 1895, said he, he had quizzed 50 couples of high intelligence, found that one pair in five had consummated their marriage before the ceremony. In 1930 he had questioned 50 more couples, found the ratio grown to one in three. This year he had repeated his quiz once more. Every other couple, he learned, were as good as married. Conference air grew tense as slim, spry Dr. Dickinson declared: "The doctors are too timid to face the situation. These couples are not promiscuous. Only three had gone beyond the one man-one woman relationship. They are so faithful that they have developed a substandard of morality, such as we would not have believed possible."

Up stood Psychologist Lester Winthrop Dearborn, 40, of Boston, stocky, soft-spoken president of Massachusetts Society for Social Hygiene. To consult him in Boston, he reported, had lately come 200 engaged couples. As with Dr. Dickinson's, half his couples were not waiting on ceremony. "Does continence make for happiness?" cried Dr. Dearborn. "The answer is 'No.' The problems of those who had practiced continence were exactly the same as those who had not. I know of five young students of theology who confessed they had had relations with women they later married."

An ominous rumble ran through the room as Dr. Dearborn, happily married but childless, plunged on: "If my own son or daughter came to me for advice, I would not advise them against premarital relations. Nine-tenths of all the men I know don't care whether their wives were virgins before they were married. It is . . ."

"Mister Chairman!"

"Mister Chairman!"

All over the room conferees were on their feet, shaking fists, pointing fingers, shouting and shrilling.

"Premarital relations do not . . ."

"The real question is . . ."

"In the name of ten million decent . . ."

Most cries of approval seemed to come from women, most cries of shame from men. "Petting," boomed an unidentified bass, "is cruelty to man."

When peace was restored the conference approved "in principle" its committees' plan for a course in sex and family education to last from first grade through college. A few delegates made reservations. Director Lyman Lloyd Bryson of California Association for Adult Education feared that "the tendency toward over-intellectualization of sex education for children has robbed the sex process of emotional drive."

Professor Ernest Rutherford Groves, 57, lecturer on marriage at University of North Carolina, twice married and the father of four, thought there was too much emphasis on physical sex. Said he: "The chief problems of sex adjustment are the mental attitudes. Sex as mere technique can be taught in 15 minutes."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.