‘Do you still have that first edition I bought you, Paul?
It wasn’t hers to give! was Jo’s first indignant thought. Then she remembered how uncomfortable her father had been at Lethe’s insinuation that they shared a passion for more than reading. Jo was well aware that his discomfort came about because, however hard Paul tried to resist, part of him was still beguiled by Lethe.
Ali was desperately trying to see where the book had landed, but everyone was milling about as they took their seats, and then silence fell and her chance to find it was gone.
Jo slipped the book under her overalls, wondering how to get it back to Ali after the tour, but even as she was thinking that, another idea began to grow. Her mother and father had quarrelled about Lethe.
‘Lethe has an arrow in you yet, Paul Lakota, and you know it well.’
Paul picked up his cue, glad to hide behind words half-remembered from his college days. ‘Ali, I may think of her softly from time to time, but I will cut off my hand before I reach for her again.’
As she thought of the mayhem and misery Lethe had caused her family, Jo’s idea crystallised. Perhaps if the book disappeared, things would be different! Without a mutual interest, maybe the attraction between Lethe and Paul would just fizzle out.
In a split second, the decision was made. Jo would not be giving the book back to Ali.
She tried to concentrate on what Titus was saying but something was concerning her. She had a very powerful sense that Sebastian was close by, but he was nowhere to be seen. Jo wished he would show himself. She wanted to go back to her parents and without him she did not know how.
Meanwhile Titus was in full flow. ‘I am sure you all know the Biblical story of Abraham, known as the father of many nations, and his wife Sarah. Abraham and Sarah were very old when a visitor told them they would conceive a son. Sarah laughed, incredulous, and the visitor reminded her that nothing is too difficult for God. Later she laughed again, this time for joy, declaring, ‘God hath made me to laugh. Everyone that heareth will laugh with me.’ And here at The Abraham and Sarah Project we want childless couples to laugh with joy when, against all the odds, they too conceive a child.’
Titus warmed to his subject. ‘In the 1600s, women who were childless were treated with suspicion. They needed to prove their piety. For centuries, infertility was seen as the woman’s problem. Most men were assumed to be fertile. Even as recently as the 1800s, barren women were still being accused of unbalanced living. Apparently irregularity, excessive or luxurious living upsets the bodily constitution. Of women, that is. We men, of course, are made of sterner stuff and can easily accommodate luxury, excess and irregularity. Well, that’s my excuse.’
Most of the men in the audience laughed heartily at Titus’s joke. Jo noticed, however, that several of the women looked rather tight-lipped.
‘On a serious note,’ Titus continued, ‘new discoveries and surgical instruments shifted attention to anatomical causes of infertility such as defects in the uterus and cervix. And in 1850 Marion Sims developed the Sims speculum, and with it, was able to widen the aperture of the cervix. He believed that blockages prevented fertilisation. He shocked his colleagues by experimenting with artificial insemination. Despite these advances, there was still a wide-spread belief among doctors that a woman's personal misbehaviour caused most cases of infertility.’
Titus paused and chuckled. ‘All you young ladies troubling your pretty little heads with thoughts of women’s rights, beware! In 1873 Harvard’s Edward Clark warned that heavy mental activity in the teenage years could wreck a girl’s reproductive system. He said. The results are monstrous brains and puny bodies ... If the reproductive machinery is not manufactured then, it will not be later... The brain cannot take more than
It wasn’t hers to give! was Jo’s first indignant thought. Then she remembered how uncomfortable her father had been at Lethe’s insinuation that they shared a passion for more than reading. Jo was well aware that his discomfort came about because, however hard Paul tried to resist, part of him was still beguiled by Lethe.
Ali was desperately trying to see where the book had landed, but everyone was milling about as they took their seats, and then silence fell and her chance to find it was gone.
Jo slipped the book under her overalls, wondering how to get it back to Ali after the tour, but even as she was thinking that, another idea began to grow. Her mother and father had quarrelled about Lethe.
‘Lethe has an arrow in you yet, Paul Lakota, and you know it well.’
Paul picked up his cue, glad to hide behind words half-remembered from his college days. ‘Ali, I may think of her softly from time to time, but I will cut off my hand before I reach for her again.’
As she thought of the mayhem and misery Lethe had caused her family, Jo’s idea crystallised. Perhaps if the book disappeared, things would be different! Without a mutual interest, maybe the attraction between Lethe and Paul would just fizzle out.
In a split second, the decision was made. Jo would not be giving the book back to Ali.
She tried to concentrate on what Titus was saying but something was concerning her. She had a very powerful sense that Sebastian was close by, but he was nowhere to be seen. Jo wished he would show himself. She wanted to go back to her parents and without him she did not know how.
Meanwhile Titus was in full flow. ‘I am sure you all know the Biblical story of Abraham, known as the father of many nations, and his wife Sarah. Abraham and Sarah were very old when a visitor told them they would conceive a son. Sarah laughed, incredulous, and the visitor reminded her that nothing is too difficult for God. Later she laughed again, this time for joy, declaring, ‘God hath made me to laugh. Everyone that heareth will laugh with me.’ And here at The Abraham and Sarah Project we want childless couples to laugh with joy when, against all the odds, they too conceive a child.’
Titus warmed to his subject. ‘In the 1600s, women who were childless were treated with suspicion. They needed to prove their piety. For centuries, infertility was seen as the woman’s problem. Most men were assumed to be fertile. Even as recently as the 1800s, barren women were still being accused of unbalanced living. Apparently irregularity, excessive or luxurious living upsets the bodily constitution. Of women, that is. We men, of course, are made of sterner stuff and can easily accommodate luxury, excess and irregularity. Well, that’s my excuse.’
Most of the men in the audience laughed heartily at Titus’s joke. Jo noticed, however, that several of the women looked rather tight-lipped.
‘On a serious note,’ Titus continued, ‘new discoveries and surgical instruments shifted attention to anatomical causes of infertility such as defects in the uterus and cervix. And in 1850 Marion Sims developed the Sims speculum, and with it, was able to widen the aperture of the cervix. He believed that blockages prevented fertilisation. He shocked his colleagues by experimenting with artificial insemination. Despite these advances, there was still a wide-spread belief among doctors that a woman's personal misbehaviour caused most cases of infertility.’
Titus paused and chuckled. ‘All you young ladies troubling your pretty little heads with thoughts of women’s rights, beware! In 1873 Harvard’s Edward Clark warned that heavy mental activity in the teenage years could wreck a girl’s reproductive system. He said. The results are monstrous brains and puny bodies ... If the reproductive machinery is not manufactured then, it will not be later... The brain cannot take more than
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