The dutifully pious young lady of to-day does not believe in polygamy. When she sells her chastity in the marriage market, she is guaranteed a legal monopoly. That satisfies her conscience. She does not inquire whether or not the man is offering her damaged goods. Indeed, she half suspects that he has sown wild oats in the company of other women. Henceforth, these are to have no claim on him. So her jealous sense of honor is satisfied.

Polygamy, though Biblically sanctioned, dishonors woman, by making her the property of man. It lays it down that one man has the right to own a number of women as his lawful wives, and have connection with others as his unlawful passions dictate. Under polygamy, the aim of every woman is to be a lawful wife if she would be counted “respectable.”

Monogamy, though legally established, dishonors woman, by making her the property of man. It lays it down that one man has the right to own one woman as his lawful wife, and have connection with others as his unlawful passions dictate. Under monogamy, the aim of every woman is to be a lawful wife if she would be counted “respectable.”

The position of the wife under both systems is the same. She purchases her position by her chastity. The chastity of the man is another matter. A wife cannot be divorced from her husband through his having committed adultery alone. There must be, in addition, the proven charges of cruelty and desertion. Should the wife commit adultery, the husband can obtain a divorce, and monetary damages against the corespondent, as a solatium for his injured feelings.

Woman is the property of man. In marriage, she has no name of her own, no right of parentage. Any man who, being unmarried to a woman, attempts to force caresses on her is penalized for assault. judge and jury have decided, however, that a husband is entitled to a show of his wife’s affections. He has purchased that right, and may abuse her body, in consequence, for years.

Not a few atheists attack the Bible for its polygamous teachings, on the ground that they degrade woman. They denounce Mormonism for putting the teachings into practice, as a “horrible example” to other Christian systems. Of course, they deny that marriage is a sacrament of the church. Today, after years of struggle, the State has been compelled to accept their view, that marriage is only a secular contract. What good has this “reformed outlook” done woman? In what way has it affected the hypocrisy of marriage?

Let no man, says the Church sacrament, put asunder those whom God hath joined together. In other words, let the Godfearing lawyers do it, if you are rich enough to pay them. Surely if God exists, it should be left to him to join the chosen ones together. Only blasphemy can expect the priest, who does not know God’s will, to do it. Only impiety can dread, that, without an idle ceremony, God cannot join together those whom he wishes to have united.

The secular contract is as binding as the Church sacrament. It is as substantially dishonoring to woman. It is equally false. To. object to mentioning God’s name in the ceremony, when you do not object to the slavish covenant it involves, is cant of the worst possible description. To demand secular instead of ecclesiastical marriage, when virtue demands the abolition of all marriage, is humbug. Marriage gave a Christian preacher the power to deprive Annie Besant of her children. Had she been unmarried, she would have owned both herself and her children. As it was she was his property, and her children belonged to him. It was not ecclesiastical marriage that did this, as distinct from secular marriage, but marriage-the legalized sex relationship. Yet Annie Besant, in an eloquent pamphlet on “Marriage: As it Was, As it Is, and As it Should Be,” published in 1882, pleaded for a written contract between the parties to a marriage union.

Annie Besant urges marriage reform, and simple divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. Simple divorce is merely a legalized form of pure and simple mating in the terms of free love, for it is marriage and separation at will. Only the mating and separating are registered. This timid, incomplete, and hypocritical approach to the solution of the problem is the last hopeless gesture of property society. The need for divorce means that monogamy is no more satisfactory to mankind than polygamy. Actually, different mating systems should exist side by side in a sane and civilized society.

It is the woman’s place to take care of the children. She must bear unwanted children, and care for them amid much misery. If she neglects this duty, she is sent to prison, and her children to the workhouse. Her husband can plead that he was not responsible for his wife’s neglect. Woman suffers all the penalties of a parent. She enjoys none of the rights.

Under a promise oi marriage, a young woman consents to cohabit with the man to whom she has been engaged for a number of years. He fails to make good, and the victim of his lust becomes a social outcast at a moment when she needs most friendship. No one owns her or her offspring. Were there no marriage laws, such callous outrage would be impossible.

Dissenting cant views her as an “unfortunate.” It is wrong. Moral conventionalism follows suit. It is wrong. The secular marriage has no meaning if it is not destined to serve the same end. It is as hypocritical as the ecclesiastical sacrament.

If woman did not lose her identity when she married, no one» could object to her bearing children in her own right. If she owned her body in marriage, there would be no shame attached to owning it out of marriage.

But if woman owned her body, the marriage profession would be gone. There would be no harlots to sell their bodies for a night. There would be no respectable women to sell their bodies for life. Children could not be la-belled bastards for a fictitious offense, and women would be betrayed no more. Rape would disappear, -both by contract, and without it.

Men and women would not commit adultery and practice desertion to escape a wedded prostitution that did not exist. Irrational promises would not -be terminated by unnecessary divorces. Papers would not carry notices of men and women’s intentions to sleep together. They would not announce the abandonment of the practice, or record reasons for changing partners.

Women’s boast of marriage respectability is man’s exhibition of his dishonor. It the father, son, husband, and sweetheart, did not outrage some women, other women would not be able to avow their honorable unions. Marriage bribes some women and degrades others, that man may parade his sex infamy.

Human nature is shamed and dishonored not by this or that ceremony of marriage. It is outraged by the institution itself. The moral of well-being of mankind demands the abolition of marriage. Woman must own her own body. She must choose the father or fathers of her children. If name they must have, that name should be hers. Only this means not reform but revolution.