The Lover's World

Alice Bunker Stockham 1833-1912 was an obstetrician and gynecologist from Chicago, an enthusiastic fighter for a marital and sexual reform. In 1886, her self-publishing company released "Tokology, A Book for Every Woman". This health guide became a bestseller. In 1896, she published Karezza. Ethics of Marriage, an outstanding plea for sexual reform and birth control. Her magnum opus "The Lover's World, A Wheel of Life", published in 1903, is based on her former works comprehending all of her theoretical and practical knowledge as a medical doctor, social reformer, and spiritual thinker. Stockham's opus combines medical, ethical, anthropological, social, philosophical, cross-cultural, mystical, and religious perspectives. It is a key work for understanding the social, political, and intellectual situation in the United States and partially also in Europe about 1900. Her ideas are still very challenging nowadays regarding the crucial relation between sexuality and love, a controversial topic of all time.

Stockham was the fifth woman in the U.S.A., who got the degree of a Medical Doctor. Apart from her special field gynecology and obstetrics she was engaged in charity and interested in spiritual topics. She also practiced homeopathy, fought against alcoholism, served probably sometimes as a trance medium and was an active feminist, a suffragette. She adhered to the so called New Thought Movement. In 1886, she joined the first course on Christian Science organised by Emma Hopkins in Chicago. Leo Tolstoy, a personal friend of her, was so impressed by her ideas that he that he initiated a translation of her book "Tokology" into Russian and wrote a preface. She is an outstanding figure in the history of the life reform movement regarding sexuality as a spiritual challenge in particular.