Note 57 — Chapter III
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
Some important modifications have taken and are taking place in this matter. The bases upon which the present marriage system rests are changing. This is due to different reasons. In the first place woman is coming little by little to occupy a higher and more independent social position. Next, the importance of housekeeping in the economic life is diminishing. The only moral basis for marriage is little by little coming to be mutual love and sympathy, for true love can only exist between persons free and equal.57 There is a constantly increasing number of persons who, in place of stigmatizing as immoral a union that is non-legitimate, but contracted because of mutual love and sympathy, consider it, on the contrary, as superior to a legal marriage contracted for economic reasons.