Note 836 — Chapter XVIII · PROBLEMS OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY (continued 2)

For examples see Sewell, in Westminster Review, CXLV, 182 ff., suggesting a form of private contract; and Besant, Marriage, 19, 20, who asks: "Why should not we take a leaf out of the Quakers' book, and substitute for the present legal forms of marriage a simple declaration publicly made?... but as soon as the laws are moralized, and wives are regarded as self-possessing human beings, instead of as property, then the declaration may, with advantage, seek the sanction of the law." She mentions the well-known cases of Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughter and Shelley, Richard Carlile, and that of George Henry Lewes and George Eliot. Mrs. Caird would not go so far. The state, she concludes, hes no right to interfere in the marriage contract. "How can it withdraw its interference without causing social confusion? The answer seems plain. By a gradual widening of the limitations within which individuals might be allowed to draw up their private contracts, until, finally, moral standards had risen sufficiently high to enable the state to cease from interfering in private concerns altogether."—The Morality of Marriage, 126. Donisthorpe, "The Future of Marriage," Fort. Rev., LI, 263, recommends a system of free private contract for one year, renewable at the pleasure of the parties. He is criticised by Malmsbury, ibid., 272-82. Cf. also "Marriage and Free Thought," ibid., L, 275 ff.