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The author of this book prefers to remain unknown. His purpose is best stated in his own words: 'All of which may not be of
interest to the uneducated girl, but I am not writing for her, because she will never read this book. I am writing for women who can think and are puzzling over their problems. These paragraphs may help them to formulate in their minds just what it is that they are seeking.' (p. 162). The illustrative material of the book is based on several questionnaire surveys and the writer's own experience with patients who came asking advice. He handles the problem of generalities by addressing his various chapters to unmarried women in different age groups and includes also widows and married women.
The author is not a little proud of his broadmindedness which he holds up as an example to other physicians. He whole-heartedly condemns the 'repressive hand' of the church which has 'succeeded in casting its blight of joylessness on a surprisingly large percentage of the marriage beds of this country' (p. 21). His manner of writing is facile and occasionally slipshod.
The analyst will find nothing new in this book. The suggestions for the women for whom it is written are not essentially different from the platitudes which have been chanted down the ages. The ideas are based on common sense, hygiene, and tolerance, and the woman who does not readily respond to any one of these approaches to her problems is labelled 'psychopathic' and cursorily disposed of in the section entitled 'Women who had better remain single'.