chapter IX.

[48] By violent sports I mean any form of jumping, hockey, football, lawn tennis, golf and lacrosse. In all these games the movements of the body are too jerky and too jarring, and muscular effort is too long sustained. Even for men football is very bad, for women it is barbarous. In young girls Nature makes an effort to compensate the excessive demands made by violent sports on the muscles and bony structure of the legs and pelvis, by proceeding to a premature stiffening of the fleshy, and a premature ossification of the bony parts—both of which processes not only arrest full subsequent development, but also make for unnecessary rigidity in the pelvic and upper femoral regions—effects which are heavily paid for later on unless the girls remain unmarried. The fact that even among males, sailors show smaller hip measurements than soldiers—the former being habituated from earliest youth to much more violent bodily exertions than soldiers—shows what a difference this natural compensation for early muscular strain makes in a sex in which pelvic development is neither as vital nor as characteristic as it is among girls. Another danger arising from violent sports for young women, which is not mentioned in the text, consists in the jerking and jarring of the spine, small and imperceptible sprains of which, particularly near the ilium, often lead to very obscure but severe nervous disorders in later life. The fact that young girls enjoy violent sports is often adduced as an argument in favour of their adoption at school and elsewhere. But surely young people, as I have shown, are so catholic in their positiveness, that their mere liking for an occupation or amusement should not constitute in itself, and without further inquiry, a sufficient ground for allowing them to pursue it. Neither should parents allow themselves to be influenced by the fact that a conclave of women doctors has recently decided in favour of violent sports for girls. The decisions come to by middle-aged matrons or middle-aged spinsters concerning the care and discipline of young girls, should never be trusted. It is always difficult to be quite certain about the motives, whether conscious or unconscious, that have animated women of this age in their dealings with young girls. On the whole, unless it be her mother, the advice of any middle-aged woman concerning a young girl ought to be treated with suspicion. See p. 246 (footnote).

[49] With regard to the effects of diet on constipation, I give some useful hints in chapter V of _A Defence of Aristocracy_.