Section III MARRIAGE AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (continued 2)

May not something be done now, when in so many directions we are being forced to consider these questions, to establish sanction to meet new needs? Partnerships other than marriage have had a place as a recognised and guarded institution in many older and more primitive societies, and it may be that the conditions brought upon us may act in forcing upon us a similar acceptance.

We have got to recognise that our form of monogamous marriage cannot meet the sex-needs of all people. To assert that it can do this is to close our eyes to the known facts. Something has got to be done. The extending of the opportunities of honourable love must be faced before we can hope for more moral conditions of life. It is the results that have almost always followed these irregular unions that have branded them as anti-social acts. But the desertion of women with the inevitable resulting evils, which has arisen so frequently from the conditions of secrecy under which they now exist, would be put an end to. One reason why extra-conjugal relationships are discredited is because it is often almost impossible to avoid disaster. Make these partnerships honourable and there will be much greater chances of honourable conduct. I spoke just now of the sacrifice of women. But in love there is no such thing as sacrifice for a woman; there is the joy of giving. The sacrifice arises out of the conditions of concealment and blame under which the duties and joys of love so often have had to be fulfilled.

I do not see how we can forbid or treat with contempt any partnership that is openly entered into and in which the duties undertaken are faithfully fulfilled. It is our attitude of blame that has, in the past, so often made this honourable fulfilment of obligations impossible.

I have sought to put these matters as plainly as may be in the conviction that nothing can be gained by concealment. Anyone who writes on the subject of sexual conduct is very open to misconceptions. It is not realised that the effort of the reformer is not to lessen at all the bonds in any sexual partnership, rather the desire is to strengthen them. But the forms of the partnership will have to be more varied; unless, indeed, we prefer to accept unregulated and secret vice. We shall, I do most sincerely believe, have more morality in too much wideness than in too little.

I can anticipate a further objection that will certainly be raised. Why, I shall be asked, if sexual relationships are to be acknowledged and protected outside of marriage, preserve marriage at all? I have answered this question already. Monogamous marriage will be maintained because the great majority of women and men want it to be maintained. I affirm again my own belief in the monogamic union: the ideal marriage is that of the man and woman who have dedicated themselves to each other for the life of both, faithfully together to fulfil the duties of family life. This is the true monogony: this is the marriage which I regard as sanctified. But, I, regarding it as a holy state, would preserve it for those suited for the binding duties of the individual home so intimately connected with it.

The contract-partnerships I have suggested will do nothing to change the sanctity of any true marriages. There will always remain a penalty to those who seek variety in love, in that unrest which is the other side of variety. And the answer I would give to those who fear an increase of immorality from any provision for sexual partnerships outside of permanent marriage is, that no deliberate change in our sexual conduct can conceivably make moral conditions worse than they are at present. As a matter of fact every form of irregular union exists to-day, but shamefully and hidden. The only logical moral objection that I can think of being advanced against an honourable recognition of these partnerships is that, by doing away with all necessity for concealments their number is likely to be larger than if the old penalties are maintained. This is undoubtedly true: it is also true that it is the only possible way in which they can cease to be shamefull. Prohibitions and laws, however stringent, can do nothing. The past has proved their failure; they will fail still worse in the future.

Nor is the change really so great or so startling as at first it may appear to be. Our marriage in its present form is primarily an arrangement for the protection of the woman and the family. What I want is that some measure, at least, of the protection now given to the legal wife, shall be afforded to all women who fulfil the same duties. I am not seeking to make immorality easier; as I have before insisted, that is very far from my purpose. These changes for which I am pleading will make immorality much harder, for it will not be so easy as now it is to escape from the responsibilities of love.

No one can suppose, of course, that this change can be other than gradual. There will be no stage at which a large section of society will give up the accepted custom and stand perplexed as to how they shall readjust their sexual conduct. Any movement towards openness and honesty must be gradual. The process of change will be in the future, what has always happened in the past, the slow abandonment of worn-out conventions, and a trial of new paths, first by the few, to be followed by an ever-increasing number. When the need for a change arises then does a change come.

I assert again there need be no fear.

It is one of the deepest and healthiest instincts of men and women that they have always fought for liberty to love, and have rebelled whenever the restrictions and conditions of society have borne too hardly upon them. There is first a period of dull acquiescence, followed certainly by a reaction towards pleasure and sin—the grabbing to take what has been withheld by any means and in any form; but afterwards comes rebellion—the true movement towards purity; the deep desire of a return to health, necessitating always the breaking through from all hindering barriers, so that the intolerable burden of sin may be cast; a glad imperative effort to gain liberty, to live rightly and joyously.

It is the young who to-day have a new consciousness of the right of freedom. They will never again accept the ancient restrictions. And it is well. We, who are older, whose steps are faltering and whose eyes grow dim with waiting for the vision we have seen, look to them to gain liberty, to re-establish the sanctity of love, which we have tried to do and failed.

But the young must shake off every symptom of the prevalent and contagious anaemia of fatalism that limits everything to the personal issues, before they can formulate and carry through any really constructive work of reform. They must learn to distinguish more clearly between cause and effect, the means and the end. At present they place the horse after the cart and mistake the power for the product. We are all apt to suppose conduct and feelings are the outcome of conditions and laws. They are not: they are the origin of them. When we have all got the desire for right and honourable conduct and honest conduct and honest feelings both about marriage and every form of sexual partnership, we shall get living and helpful laws.

What is the use of tinkering with what is moribund? A great teacher has said, “Let the dead bury their dead; come and preach the good and the new thing.”

CONCLUSION REGENERATION

I have dared to think of a regeneration of our sexual lives through education and a fuller understanding of the meaning of love. But by education must be understood all that influences the desires and imagination, so that in every direction we shall be turned to seek health and clean living.

Our supine acceptance of so many things that are wrong ought to arouse us to shame. What are we going to do?

Are we content to go on in the muddles that so long we have accepted without much consideration? Are we satisfied to allow all the evil to continue because we are too lazy and too dishonest to face them in truth and demand a clearance? We are all responsible; you, my readers, and I. If we demand saner and more practical conditions we shall get them.

But do we care—I mean care sufficiently to seek and to find the way of escape? Ah, that is the question!

Fear has been the hot-bed wherein have been forced rank plants of shame, dishonesty and trickery, of uncleanness, of concealments, of persecution and punishments—plants of persistent but unhealthy growth, that insistently and riotously spring up to hinder the workers, who strive ever to clear the soil of the fair Garden of Love, from the rank and choking growths.

What wonder, indeed, that we have lost our way so that still we are wandering in the jungle, unable to steer a straight course through the rough and tortuous paths left to us as a legacy from the past. It is this confusion that is hindering us to-day. And our real task is to cut through the jungle, and force clear paths, so that again we may have good roads in an open country on which we may walk gladly and fearlessly.

Yet, it were unwise to be too hopeful. We cannot be architects of life. Each generation will make new mistakes, even do they escape the follies that are old. We can see a very short way along the path of life, and often we are confused. The wisest amongst us are only bricklayers, and the best can but lay two or three bricks in a lifetime. Our work is to do that if we can. We can guess very feebly at the whole design. Many mistakes must be made by us, as they have been by those before us, and often it may be the duty of a new generation to pull down the work that in sorrow we have toiled to build up.

FOOTNOTES:

INDEX

A

Adoption of Children 61; law needed 61 et seq.; fears and dangers in 62 et seq.

B

Birth control 37 et seq., 163.

Boys, seduction of 113 et seq., 119 et seq.

C

Cats, 15; their qualities compared with those of women 16 et seq.

Child, effect of birth control on 39; feeling of inferiority in 49; inferiority and crime in 49; must rebel 51 et seq. 82, 94, 103; adoption of, law of needed 61; faults and crimes of 73 et seq. 99; in prison 73 et seq.; at modern school 79 et seq.; at play 81; sex education of 87 et seq., 107 et seq.; early manifestation of sex in 88 et seq.; savagery of 97; marriage founded on 136 et seq.

Concealment, evils of 178 et seq.

Curiosity, 101, 109 et seq.

D

Dangerous Age, the 29 et seq.

Doctors and Patients’ secrets 157 et seq.

Dogs, 59, 60.

E

Economics, mania for, 158 et seq.

Education, sex 87 et seq.

F

Father, daughter’s feeling for 54; the intruder 55 et seq., 95; after birth of child 56; conflict with son 56; authority of, necessary 57; effect on child 91 et seq. 93; danger of being too fond of child 104.

Faults of children 43 et seq., 73 et seq. 99.

Freedom for children 80 et seq.

G

Gentleman, the temporary 165 et seq.

Girls, and seduction of boys 113, 118; playing with love 127 et seq. See also Child.

Garrell, Vera M. (on “Youth and Marriage”) 175.

H

Husband, the old-fashioned 161 et seq.

J

Jealousy, 44, 55, 68, 93, 95, 103, 109, 136.

L

Law, reform in relation to parentage 35 et seq.; reform in relation to adoption 61 et seq.; of adoption in other countries 67 et seq.; in relation to mothers’ pensions 71; in relation to seduction 113 et seq.; in relation to age of consent 117 et seq.; White Slave Traffic 118 et. seq.; marriage law in other countries 170.

Lyttelton, Dr. (on sex instruction) 107.

M

Marriage, joy in 33; 133 et seq. result of children 136 et seq.; causes of failure in 139; altered views on 141 et seq.; unfaithfulness of men in 145 et seq.; of women 149 et seq.; too easy 169 et seq.; problem of unions outside 174 et seq. See also Birth Control.

Michaelis, Karin 29 et. seq.

Mother, and child who steals 43 et seq.; danger of being too fond of child 52 et. seq. 104; supreme with child 55, 72, 92; perfect and (childless) 59; difficulty of adoptions for 61 et seq.; love, effect on child 91; and sex instruction 108 et seq.; after birth of child 145 et seq.; image of, sought in wife 161.

N

Neil, Judge 71 et seq.

O

Old-fashioned husband 161 et seq.

P

Pensions for mothers 71 et seq.

Play 81; love in 127 et seq.

Pleasure, search for 31, 133.

Punishment of children 73 et seq., 84 et seq.

Parent, See Father and Mother.

R

Racial types, best seen in women 20.

Rebellion of children, necessary 51 et seq.; 82; 94.

Remorse, as temptation 46; not necessarily good 98.

S

Schools, poor law 72; for delinquent 77; modern and their errors 79 et seq.

Sex, education 87 et seq.; early manifestation of 88; right age for 107 et seq.

Solitary confinement condemned 77.

Son, who steals 43 et seq. See also Child.

Spain 19 et seq.; dancing in 21; workers (women) in 23 et seq.

W

Wife, the modern 161 et seq.

Wife, the young 163 et seq.

Women, their qualities compared with those of cats 16 et seq.; in Spain 19 et seq.; racial types best seen in 20; as workers in Spain 23 et seq.; approaching age, in terror of 30; search for pleasure in 31; false purity in 32; repression in 33; legal position of 35; childless 59; difficulties in adopting children by et seq. 61; seduction of men by 113 et seq., 118, 123; myth of superior purity 113 et seq.; child more than husband to 145 et seq.; attitude to sexual disease of 158 et seq.

Women, See also Birth Control, Marriages, Mother, Wife, the modern, Gentleman, the temporary.

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