19th Century Scientists May Have Needed A Kick In The…

Surprise! Ok, on to the post…

Would the members of the Boston Female Moral Reformers perceive Hester Prynne as the victim of a licentious man? Maybe, maybe not. These members, however, would look upon Hester with disgust, because she protected the man that caused her to bear the burden of the scarlet letter. Members of the BFMR would also undoubtedly find much of the fault in the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale for the sole purpose of courting a married woman,  “[Woman] has undertaken to banish licentious men from all virtuous society.” (page 113)

I failed to find anything along the lines of an exception clause that began, “However if the woman proceeds to fall in love with the licentious man…”

The tone of “Licentious Men” is one of a feminist manifesto, urging all victims of the perverse nature of men to rise up and take action against such wrongs. But the contrast between this and the following document by William Alcott is so extreme that I found the documents written by Alcott as well as Graham, humorous quite often.

Alcott, a little too self-assured that every reader won’t question anything, attempts to describe a female-exclusive disease called ‘nymphomania.’ Causes include “frequent visits to balls or theatres, disappointed love,” and “the abuse of aphrodisiac remedies, or of spirituous liquors.” To Alcott, all causes are behavioral actions that somehow trigger the salacious area of the nervous system. What’s the remedy for such inappropriate behavior? Take a cold bath.

Why has this not been the inspiration for a screenplay on 19th Century self-proclaimed scientific figures acting like primary school boys attempting to justify what cooties are?

I remember my basketball coach telling us to take cold showers, for the similar purpose of toning down the testosterone levels. It’s amazing how such pseudoscience has become centuries old.

Now juxtapose the frustration heard in the voice of the Boston Female Moral Reformers against the condescension of William Alcott. It’s amusing.

It doesn’t stop there. Let’s proceed to Graham. When engaging in premarital sex, “Debility, abortion, barrenness, and painful diseases of various form, would be the inevitable result in the female.” (Page 115) I searched long and hard to find out what would happen to the male, to conclude that he’d contract the disease that developed internally in the female because illogically Graham states that anything a female carries “would prevail on every hand.” I hope this guy wasn’t buried in Boston.

Masturbation, according to Graham, would cause “the most ruinous irritation, and violence, and exhaustion, and debility to the [male] system.” (page 117) I would like to counter that with Van Buskirk’s experienced of being ‘shaked.’ Sometimes members of the armed forces need one once in a while. Maybe if Roger Collingworth, coincidentally a physician, prescribed one of these to himself, he would not have craved for exacting revenge on the man who knocked up his beautiful, young wife — who he let migrate to the ‘New World’ on her own.

The views of 19th Century feminists and same-era males lead to criticize Hester Prynne for two completely different things. Feminists such as the Boston Female Moral Reformers would blame her for not throwing her male counterpart under the bus, because she doesn’t deserve all the blame for their actions. Males see Hester at great fault, because she is a married woman who was not forced to have sex, and perceivably over the reasonable age to be considered having lack of judgement. It is reflective in the document that we’ve just read.

Tags: Licentious, Onanism, Promiscuous Intercourse, Scarlet Letter, Scientists

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