Note 52 — Chapter VII · The Marriage of the Positive Girl and the Positive Man

See Ch. Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage (London, 1891): “Christianity, which taught that the earthly country was of no account, and taxed with impurity all that related to sexual union, made marriage a sacrament, and consequently an institution quite apart from humble considerations of social utility.... We shall see how hurtful the influence of Christianity has been on marriage, and we shall come to the conclusion that in order to manage earthly affairs well, it is not good to keep our looks constantly raised to the skies” (pp. 205-6). See also p. 245: “Abandoning the modest reality, it [Christianity] lost anchor from the first and was drowned in a sea of dreams. Marriage, instead of being simply the union of a man and woman in order to produce children, became mystic.”