Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/171

 practical is still an uncertainty, in spite of the theories of the learned or of the charlatan. But there is no disputing recurrent heredity in similisexualism. One of the first duties of a woman especially is to avoid any strenuous thought as to the sex of her unborn offspring. Her refraining may save it unspeakable misery, shame, and failure in life.

Not less imperative, while frequently involving a melancholy sacrifice, is the caution to the Uranian who wishes to marry, be it for one reason or another. The chances of his transmission of similisexualism are many. If the similisexual impulses are inborn, it is safest (if often a most unwilling conclusion) to regard them as ineradicable, more or less, even when early taken in care by the watchful parent. If a man believes that in "the blood, the bone, the soul of his breed", even if not obviously in himself, the similisexual instinct has been active, he should question his right to marry. His son or daughter may suffer what he has escaped. If he do not forego marriage, then he may wisely avoid offspring. Or, as the least of compromises, the parents must double their vigilance in the nursery and schoolroom. The maternal opportunities for watchfulness and for counteraction are less lasting. Of this topic more will be said in other chapters of this book. A striking study of inherited similisexualism in a young lad, occurs in the "Psychopathia Sexualis" of Krafft-Ebing (eleventh edition, p. 266) too long to quote here.

Unless the Parent has clear ideas of similisexual traits and habits, the sharpest eye can fail to notice them in the child. A boy or girl assumes "the mask" with curious precocity. Children are loyal to each other, as they are secretive, in sex-secrets. Similisexual practices among little boys and girls, to say nothing of larger ones, are concealed, by instinct.