Chapter 3

“Marriage,” wrote the late Dr. E. P. McLoghlin, “is not an empty form; it is an indissoluble, untruthful, and unfounded contract, terminable only by death or dishonor. Untruthful and unfounded because the contractor saith, ‘I will love.’ He cannot do this; to love is beyond the power or domain of will. He may say, ‘I do love.’ But ‘I will love,’ he cannot and ought not to say. ‘The law which would make her his.’ I neither acknowledge the righteousness, nor even the possibility of any law save that of mutual consent——that is, affection. I do not desire to make any woman mine; it must be her love for me, and my love for her, which alone can dictate an inviolable relationship between us. In the presence of that love, either soluble or indissoluble bond, other than the influence of that love, is as insulting as it is necessary; in the absence of that love, any bond is as untruthful and useless as it is immoral.”

The foregoing argument is unanswerable. Whenever it or any similar line oi reasoning is advanced, no one attempts to reply to it. Every defender of the legal institution will admit its validity, and then proceed to question its morality.

First, do we believe that one man should possess a woman or that she should be common property? This is supposed to bring the blush of shame to the cheek, and expression of horror to the eyes. A little calm reflection will dispose of it.

We have not proposed that woman should be common property. That is polyandry. Under polyandry, a woman no more owns her body than under polygamy or monogamy. All three systems decline to entertain the notion that woman should dispose of her own body as she thinks fit. In every case, it is the man’s not the woman’s desire, which counts. The woman may desire to have connection with only one man, with no man at all, or with several men at different times. That is her own affair. We propose that she should dispose of her body accordingly. To no man would belong the privilege of invading this right. How then can one talk of no ownership but self-ownership being collective ownership?

Next it will be urged that this involves promiscuity. But does not the. division of woman into two camps—“respectable” and otherwise—argue the. existence of promiscuity? It promiscuity does not degrade man to-day, why should it degrade woman tomorrow? At least, it would be an honest promiscuity, and woman could select a healthy parent for her child. Since the free woman could never be run to the marriage cover, her body could never be outraged or her person degraded.

Having urged that freedom involves promiscuity, the defender of legal marriage takes a lofty attitude. Promiscuity would degrade human‘ nature. Maybe; but if human nature is above promiscuity, how could freedom reduce it to this condition? If monogamy is the result of personal dignity, and cultured feeling, freedom can give only full and free expression to that dignity and feeling. Then only those alliances not based on either dignity or culture will disappear in a state of freedom. If the woman lives with a man because she loves him, not because she is tied to him, given freedom to decide, her choice will be unaffected. Wherein, then, is it wrong for a woman to own her body not up to the time she sleeps with a certain sex-mate, but for all time?

Let us canvass, fully, the significance of this word, “promiscuity.” Annie Besant, pleading for monogamy, has pointed out, how, in the lower ranges of animal life, difference of sex is enough to excite passion. Here there is no individuality of choice. Among savages, this is negated. It is still the female that is loved, but individual beauty decides the connection. We rise to the civilized man; and find that he needs, in addition to sex difference, and beauty of form, completion of his higher nature. He needs satisfaction for heart, mind, and tastes.

From this it is argued that, the more civilized the nature, the more durable does the marriage relationship become. It may easily prove otherwise. The exclusive marriage union is a standard set up by the prudery which objects to mixed ‘bathing and a pre-nuptial knowledge of sex physiology. It implies that the joy of sex can never be known unless, in every instance, it results in a certain act. Behind this view, is the idea of the hunter, of courtship, of the slavery of woman. As men and women mix more freely, as the charm of health and the lights and shades of character express

themselves more variously, in wider and wider circles of social intercourse, it does not follow that monogamy will disappear entirely. But it does follow that the prime consideration will he healthy minds and healthy bodies, joy, laughter, romping children, and social service. That a man has been father of one woman's child, is no reason why, if his character completes that of another woman, he should not ‘be father of her child. It will not affect the pain of bearing the child, or the pleasure of caring for him.

“What about the children?” asks the moralist of to-day. Well, what about them? Is the child’s right to live to turn upon the fact that he needs food, clothing, shelter, and attention? Or, is it to be decided by the fact that his father had had sex connection with but one woman? Where consideration of the children is supreme, the moral code of the parents does not matter. But if the question is the legality of some birth over others, it is sheer cant to talk about the children. Nature never created bastards. It was social respectability and prurient prudery.

That the matter has an economic aspect we are aware. Its discussion will destroy the moral pretensions of the upholders of marriage, and bring us clown to the materialistic factor. We shall discover then that injustices attributed to free love, are common to class society. Marriage will be revealed as a vice, reflecting vicious economic circumstances.