(no subject)

[slemslempike]

I can't get the right keywords for this on Google it seems, so coming here to ask.

In older books when they say "he can't have children, you know" is this basically meaning that the he in question can't get an erection? This is apropos of reading Cecil by Elizabeth Eliot, and then recalling Rosamund's husband in the Abbey books (though this turned out to be a false alarm).

If that is the case, would teenageish girls (or indeed anyone) reading these books be expected to grasp (as it were) this meaning or would it be assumed that they would take the inability to have children at face value?

And when did it become possible to know about male fertility?

Comments

[oursin]

Epididymitis, a bacterial infection of the testes, can be caused by the spreading of other bacterial conditions, including STIs, but other UTIs and a range of other diseses. So it could have been a lot of things and family doc solemnly saying 'Alas, he can never be a father' after examining inflammed family jewels.