The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Health Bulletin February, 1927
words, stop and find out whether or not
your l>o.v is one of the four out of the
ten who is free from either of these
terrible diseases. You ean easily find
out by simply having; him spend ten
minutes with your own clean family
physician if you have any doubt in
your mind after your own friendly
fatherly inquiry of your boy.
It is not the woman of the street—the
scarlet woman—ordinarily you netnl
fear. If a boy has had any training
or warning whatever there is not much
danger from that source. The chief
danger to the boy lurks in the very
young girl of loose morals, often in his
class in high school or among his associates.
The girl who is undisciplined,
highly sexed. ready to leap
into an automobile full of strange
youngsters and take a night ride for
the thrill, emotional, unstable, from the
>ATong sort of home and above all
dangers, pretty, is generally the siren
that gets the average unthinking boy.
She is the kind that reads trashy literature
in the daytime, and undertakes to
emulate the cheap heroine at night.
She is the kind whose mother in.sists
on presenting her brother with a pocket
flask when he starts off to college.
(A Raleigh gentleman overheard a
conversation between two young college
freshmen, mere babies with their
freshie caps, in a drugstore not long
ago. Said one to the other : "I have
a very pretty flask." The response
from the second was, "My mother gave
me one before leaving home but I
broke it the very first night here.")
What chance has the boy or girl from
that home to escape all the evils on the
calendar of the Devil Not one in a
million. But the serious consideration
is that such an unbalanced young girl is
equally as willing to permit liberties
with one of the six infected young men,
as she is with one who has thus far
escaped. She becomes a carrier of disease.
She more frequently moves in
fair to good society according to present-day
standards, than not. Irreparable
damage is done before either boy
or girl has reached a really responsible
age.
The boy, your boy, every man's boy,
must be warned against such a girl
before she appears in his circle. Afterward
will be too late. Not one warning
is sufficient but repeattnl insistent
warning that character and clean living
is not compatible with such conduct.
The most heartbreaking realization
of all to many parents is an awakening
to the fact that ignorance is no protection
to their daughters. No matter
how clean and sweet and pure your
daughter may be, the chances are at
least even for her to marry one of the
young men who has been or is now
infected.
Safeguard Man-iage
Every normal boy and girl expects
at .some time to marry. They all know,
subconsciously at least, that the spark
of human life is of Divine origin, that it
is a holy trust given to them to carry
on their part in the Divine plan. A marriage
that does not eventuate in the
birth of healthy, happy children, is an
incomplete marriage. The only way
to guarantee such a happy outcome
is to make sure that both parties to
the contract are healthy and free from
any venereal disease taint.
It is a thousand times more important
for the father of a prospective
bride to make sure that the man his
daughter is to marry is free from any
possible taint of syphilis or gonorrhea,
than to worry about his commercial
standing. On the other hand the parents
of the groom if himself a clean
young man ought to be more concerned
about the clean character of the girl
their boy marries than they are about
her social standing.
North Carolina has a good marriage
law but it has two fatal defects when
it comes to practical execution. One
is that it is simple and easy to evade
by slipping over into an adjoining
state, where such a law is not operative,
for the marriage license and ceremony.
The other is the law does not go
far enough. Old-fashioned Southern
chivalry, whatever that may be, to the
contrary notwithstanding, both
parties
to the contract should be made to produce
a certificate of freedom from
venereal disease from a physician of
unquestioned integrity before entering
into the marriage relationship. Better
be safe than sorry. It is much easier
and much less embarrassing to have a