As regards the conditions of life, _L. Mayer_ affirms that the duration of sexual activity among well-to-do women is on the average a year and a half longer than among women of the working classes.
_Metschnikoff_ has drawn attention to the remarkable disharmony in the development of three of the phases of the sexual life of woman, inasmuch as the sexual impulse, the union of the sexes, and the capacity for procreation, which, considering their nature and purpose, might have been expected to be attuned so as to act in harmony, exhibit as a matter of fact no such relation; the different factors of the sexual function develop independently and unharmoniously. In a child not yet fitted to fulfil the function of procreation, the sexual impulse will none the less make its appearance, and be liable to misuse. In the girl the pelvis does not attain that complete development which fits it for the process of parturition until toward the age of twenty, whilst puberty occurs at the age of sixteen. “A girl of ten is capable of aspiring to play the part of a woman, but not before the age of sixteen is she fitted to play that part, nor indeed fitted to become a mother before the age of twenty.”
In general, we may say, regarding the women of our own part of the world, that in those who are healthy, who lead a regular life, are well fed, free from the pressure of anxieties, with their sexual functions sufficiently exercised, the duration of the sexual life is longer than in women whose circumstances are the reverse of those just enumerated. It is a sign of decadence when women of the well-to-do classes, leading a life of ease, manifest a diminished duration of the sexual life. The greatest physical power and the highest ethical development are associated with a lengthening of life in general, and associated also with a lengthening alike in the sexual life of woman and the sexual potency of man. A decline in morals and culture entails a diminution of sexual vital capacity, this being true alike of individuals, of families, and of nations. Woman is venerated and valued the more, the longer the duration of her sexual life; a woman in whom the sexual life is short quickly loses value and significance, both in domestic and in social circles.