None the less it is a mistaken, and ultimately an irreverent as well as
a fatal misconception. It was Jesus who said, "He which made them at
the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall
a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they
twain shall be one flesh." There is a place in the holy life for the
free, happy, and full expression of the instincts and desires that are
rooted in our sex natures. The assumed inevitable opposition between
bodily and spiritual functions has no real existence. We cannot
spiritualize the body away. To neglect or simply to repress it is a
course that comes to no good. What we can do is to accept, understand,
and then use it rightly. And when we do so it turns out that the free
and happy exercise of bodily function will harmonize with all the rest
of our life till body, soul, and spirit attain to harmony and unity. I
think this reluctance to accept our real natures is wrong and
unreasonable, but my chief feeling about it is a sense of pity that
women for reasons which seem to them good should none the less miss the
joy and exaltation which might be theirs, and should compel their
husbands to suffer also.
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