What Should I Tell My Daughter?
SIR,—In the original article by Dr Wilson he asserted that 'young men nowadays are not prepared to settle for a chaste kiss at bedtime.' with the implication that the girl must perforce submit to his will. This is surely a most shocking suggestion in these days of equality between the sexes—why the hell should she? In any case it is a very sweeping statement and I see no reason to doubt that some of these young men have principles as had many of their forebears.
As an adolescent and young man in the years 1910-1915, I learnt certain principles, ideals, a code, if you like, to follow. These were: (a) Fornication was a sin against the moral law (hell-fire didn't come into it).
(b) One should respect all women (even though one knew that many were not angels), protect them against themselves if necessary and not take advan- tage of weakness or temptation.
(c) It would be despicable to seduce a girl, i.e., to be the first to take away her virginity and -thus to spoil her for her future husband or lower her self- esteem.
(d) That the double standard of morality was wrong. A woman should expect no less of her future husband than he would expect of her (I admit this is a high ideal indeed).
All power to Anne Henderson for wanting to make a stand. May I suggest to her and to any other girl who is being pressed by some young man to go further than she wants, that she just tells him plainly that she is not that sort of girl and dsks him to lay off. If he still persists, then he is not worth bothering about; there are plenty of others about who will respect her feelings. With the experience of forty-eight years of happy married life, I am more and more convinced that the principles stated above are sound, difficult though they may be to practise.
If adhered to they leave one with a good conscience
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