Voices in Time

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“And tell me also, what was the intention
In creating organs of generation,
When man was made in so perfect a fashion?
They were not made for nothing, you can bet!
Twist it how you like and argue up and down
That they were only made for the emission
Of urine; that our little differences
Are there to distinguish between the sexes,
And for no other reason—who said no?
Experience teaches that it is not so.
But not to vex the scholars, I’ll say this:
That they were fashioned for both purposes,
That’s to say, for a necessary function
As much as for enjoyment in procreation
Wherein we do not displease God in heaven.
Why else is it set down in books, that men
Are bound to pay their wives what’s due to them?
And with whatever else would he make payment
If he didn’t use his little instrument?
It follows, therefore, they must have been given
Both to pass urine, and for procreation.

“But I’m not saying everyone who’s got
The kind of tackle I am talking of
Is bound to go and use it sexually.
For then who’d bother about chastity?
Christ was a virgin, though formed like a man,
Like many another saint since time began,
And yet they lived in perfect chastity.
I’ve no objection to virginity.
Let them be loaves of purest sifted wheat,
And us wives called mere barley bread, and yet
As St. Mark tells us, when our Savior fed
The multitude, it was with barley bread.
I’m not particular: I’ll continue
In the condition God has called us to.
In married life I mean to use my gadget
As generously as my Maker gave it.
If I be grudging, the Lord punish me!
My husband’s going to have it night and day,
At any time he likes to pay his dues.
I shan’t be difficult! I shan’t refuse!
I say again, a husband I must have,
Who shall be both my debtor and my slave,
And he shall have, so long as I’m his wife,
His ‘trouble in the flesh.’ For during life
I’ve ‘power of his body’ and not he.
That’s just what the Apostle Paul told me;
He told our husbands they must love us too.
Now I approve entirely of this view—”

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