Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/569

 She grew deeply depressed, morally, by coitus. She had never supposed marriage to "mean" this phase. Weariness of life, etc., ensued. The husband could not comprehend her riddlesome demeanour, and really loving his wife, did his best to calm her. Physicians gave their opinions that with pregnancy Mrs. R— would be relieved of her impressions. She was friendly toward her husband, suffered his caresses, but in sexual relations with him was from her side cold, passive, and exhausted and dispirited after coition, with spinal irritation and nervousness. Then a journey united Mrs. R— to her former female friend. Intense and joyful excitement followed. The husband hurried a separation, finding the friendship "peculiar." He discovered that the correspondence between the two was exactly like that between a pair of lovers. Meantime his wife became pregnant. Her child was an abortion. Her nervous state at the time of my consultation with her was morbid, and there had occurred anatomical disorders that were discovered on exploration. Mrs. R— declare that she had married without understanding the sexualism of matrimony; that she respected and loved her husband intellectually very much, and would do anything in the world for him, if he would only spare her sexually. She had hoped for a more sexual feeling for him, in time. After the mis-birth mentioned, her status has improved. But still her future seemed "terrible,' to her. Her highest happiness was still her correspondence with her female friend."

The following case, from the same high authority, indicates a type of considerable 'normalism' mingled with feminosexualism:

… "Mrs. M— forty-four years old, is a lady of superior social position, and accomplishments, as well as of fine moral nature. She consulted me in hope of benefit. She was descended from a highly-gifted family, especially in musical, literary and artistic talents. She was morbid as a child, a good scholar, and she defines herself as at this early time an Urnind. Early in her sexual development she passionately admired only young girls and beautiful women, falling into psychic love for such, and with enthusiastic friendships for them. But so naively and slowly did her actual knowledge of sex come, especially as she was convent-educated, that till she was 19, Mrs. M— had absolutely no real understanding of the sexual distinction between man and woman. Especially in consequence of this ignorance, she fell a victim to a man who passionately loved her. She married him, to live with him in "eccentric" marital relations, and bore him a child. Here her more normal self obtained, more or less. After a few years, she became a widow. Therewith