Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics

by Durant Drake

CHAPTER XVII

CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TEMPERANCE

In the indulgence of the appetites is a manifest necessity for health and efficiency-temperance in work and play, in eating and drinking, in novel reading and theater going, in whatever activity desire may suggest. But two appetites stand on a different footing from the others, and demand more than temperance. The love of alcohol and the other narcotics, being, as we have seen, a pathological and highly dangerous appetite, productive of scarcely any real good, must be completely rooted out of human nature, as it readily can be, to the great advantage of mankind. The other great appetite, that of sex, cannot be treated so cavalierly; to eradicate it or deny its fulfillment would be to put a speedy end to the human race. The solution of the problems of sex is therefore not so simple, the remedying of the evils of which sexual passion is the source not so feasible. On the one hand, we have to recognize the sex instinct as normal and necessary, the source of the keenest, and, indirectly, of some of the most lasting, pleasures of life; the denial of its enticements to the extent which our Christian ideal demands provokes perennial resentment and rebellion. On the other hand, we are confronted by the incalculable evils which unrestrained lust produces, and forced to admit the imperious necessity of some strictly repressive code. To many, the gravest dangers in life lie here; the sex instinct is the great rebel, promising a glorious liberty, a melting of the barriers between human bodies and souls, an ecstasy of mutual happiness that nothing else can offer. Yet beyond these transient excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it is for his life." So much is at stake here that we must be more than ordinarily sure that we are not biased, that we are not binding ourselves by needless restrictions. But after whatever doubts and wanderings, the man of mature experience comes back to the monogamous ideal with the conviction that in it lies not only our salvation but our truest happiness. A thousand pities that so many learn the lesson too late! Nothing in the whole field of ethics is more important than for each generation, as it stands on the threshold of temptation and opportunity, to see clearly the basic reasons for our hard-won and barely maintained code of chastity. A reverence for authority, a deep- implanted sentiment, a recurrent emotional appeal, and a barrier of scruples and pledges may keep many within the lines of safety. But the morality of sentiment and authority must always be based on a morality of reason and experience. We must therefore begin by recapitulating the fundamental reasons for our monogamous ideal.

What are the reasons for chastity before and fidelity after marriage?

(1) The most glaring danger for a man in unchastity is disease. The venereal diseases are among the most terrible known to man; they are highly contagious-one contact, and that not necessarily actual intercourse, sufficing for infection-and at present only very partially curable. Practically all prostitutes become infected before long; the youngest and prettiest are usually diseased; the chance of indulging in promiscuous intimacies without catching some form of infection is slight. The only sure way of escape from this imminent danger is by the exclusive love of one man and one woman. Moreover, these diseases are, in their effects, transmissible from husband to wife and from wife to children. Many women's diseases, a large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene.]

(2) For a girl the danger of disease is not all. There is the additional danger of pregnancy, which means, and must mean, for her not only pain and risk of life, but lasting shame and disgrace. Even paid prostitutes, who are willing to employ dangerous methods to prevent conception, and soon become nearly sterile through disease or overindulgence, often have to resort to illegal operations, at the risk of their lives, and not infrequently come to childbirth. The virgin who gives herself to her lover under the spell of his ardent wooing is very much more likely to conceive. It cannot be too bluntly stated that the barest contact may suffice for conception; for a momentary intimacy two lives, or three, have often been ruined.

(3) The reason why society cannot afford to be lenient with illegitimacy is that there is no proper provision for rearing children born out of wedlock. The woman and the child usually need the financial support of the man; they always need his love and care. If the man marries the girl he has wronged, there is not only the disgrace still attaching to her (and rightly to him, still more), but the fact of a hasty and unintended and probably more or less unhappy marriage. Certainly in every such case the girl has a right to demand that the man shall marry her; whether or no she will wish him to, or will prefer to bear her burden and disgrace alone, is for her to determine. But this is sure that any man who takes the chance of ruining a foolish and ignorant or oversusceptible girl "and all for a bit of pleasure, as, if he had a man's heart in him, he 'd ha' cut his hand off sooner than he'd ha' taken it" [Footnote: George Eliot's Adam Bede, from which these words are taken, ought to be read by every boy and girl.]- ought to be despised and socially ostracized by his fellows. Except for the penalty of disease, women have always borne the brunt of sexual follies, though men have been the more to blame. It is high time that this injustice were remedied to such extent as law and public opinion can do it.

(4) The employment of paid prostitutes for man's gratification keeps in existence the unhappiest and most degraded class in the world. Brutalized and worn by their abnormal life, treated with coarse indignities which they cannot resent, deprived of their birthright of genuine love, of wifehood and motherhood, stricken with disease and doomed to an early death, thousands of the prettiest, reddest-blooded, most promising young girls of our land, the girls who ought to be bearing healthy children and rearing the future citizens of the State, now walk the streets painted and gaudily bedecked, seeking their miserable livelihood, and snaring the heedless and restless youth of the cities, the "young men void of understanding," to their common degradation. This human wastage is worse upon the race than war; and all the more pathetic because it consists of girls scarcely past the threshold of their maidenhood. When we consider further the indescribably horrible cruelty of the "white-slave trade," which the insatiable lust of men has brought into being, we may begin to realize to what the absence of restraint upon this appetite has led.

It is quite conceivable that within the near future the venereal diseases will be rendered entirely curable by the progress of medicine. It is possible that some certain and harmless method of preventing conception will be found and become so universally known that the danger of unintentional childbirth will become practically nonexistent. Such a situation would remove the most obvious reasons for chastity, and would insure a rapid growth of free-love sentiment. It would be pointed out that free love would do away with the shameful existence of the paid prostitutes, and that thus all four of the basic reasons above given for chastity would no longer exist. To discuss such possibilities may seem premature. But as a matter of fact, even now every one who indulges in "free" love hopes to escape disease and conception. And there is an increasing propaganda insisting on the removal of the old conventions and the permission of promiscuous love. The spirit of adventure is in the air; and with even a good chance of escaping the penalties, there are many who will seize their opportunities for enjoyment, preferring a present pleasure with its spice of risk to a dull negation of desire. We must then go on with the argument and point out that even where these terrible results are escaped, the way of free love is not the happiest way.

(5) Freedom from restraint in inter-sex relations inevitably leads, in the majority of men and women, to an overindulgence which seriously impairs health and efficiency. The one salient motive for the opposition of ancient codes to sex license was the necessity of preserving the virility of the young men for war. Today athletes are enjoined to chastity. But, indeed, if a man would succeed in anything, he must check this so easily overdeveloped impulse. Promiscuity means a continually renewed stimulus; the passion, which quickly becomes normal and intermittent when it spends itself upon one object, is apt to become an abnormal and almost continuous craving when it is solicited by a succession of novel and piquant attractions. The advocates of free love assert that it is unnatural repression that creates an undue and morbid longing; that freedom to satisfy the instinct would tend to keep it in its properly subordinate place. But the contrary is, in reality, true. More usually, as Rabelais has it, "the appetite comes during the eating." The absence of temptation will leave an instinct dormant which free opportunity to indulge will develop into a dominant appetite. And nothing more quickly drafts strength or ambition than absorption in sex pleasures; we need to put our energies into something that instead of being inimical is forwarding to the rest of our interests.

(6) Sexual intemperance coarsens, blunts delight in the less violent and more delicate emotions. The pleasures of sex, though of the keenest, are not lasting, like those of the intellect, of religion, art, and manly achievement. But if recklessly indulged in, they inevitably sap our interest in these other ideals. Except where they spring from and reinforce true affection, they are an opiate, taking us into a dream world that makes actual life stale and tasteless. "Hold off from sensuality," says Cicero; "for if you give yourself up to it, you will be unable to think of anything else." There is so much else that is worthwhile, life has so many possible values, that for our own final happiness, we cannot afford to let this instinct usurp too great a place. The vision of God is worth many hours of transient and shallow excitement; and that vision comes only to the pure in heart.

(7) But even for the greatest pleasure in sex itself, incontinence is a blunder. The one telling argument for free love is the sweetness of the delights that the chaste must miss; the bodily intimacy that soothes the lonely heart, the adventurous excitement of breaking down barriers, of dominance and surrender, with its quickened breathing and heightened sense of living. But the plea comes usually from the inexperienced; it is the yearning of youth toward the lure of the untried ways, of the untasted joys. Actually, where passion is unbridled, the halo and the vision quickly vanish; the sated impulse becomes a restless craving for more violent stimulation, a thirst that no mere physical intimacy can ever assuage; or it leaves the heart cloyed and despondent and resourceless. This is the natural history of undisciplined passion; it cheapens love, it robs it quickly of its exquisiteness and charm. The faithful lover, on the other hand, by checking premature intimacies, and keeping true to the one woman who calls or will some day call out all his love, knows a steady joy that bulks in the end far greater than the flaring and fitful and quickly disillusioned passions of unearned love. Where the veil of mystery is not too rudely drawn aside, the ability to respond to the charm of girlhood and of ripe womanhood may be long retained; the pleasures of sex that count for most in the end are not the moments of passion, but the daily enjoyment of companionship with the opposite sex, the assurance and comfort of mutual fidelity, the love that feeds on daily caresses, endearing words, and acts of tender service. And these lasting joys do not accrue to the man or woman who is not willing to wait, or who squanders his potentialities of love in reckless and fundamentally unsatisfying debauchery. This is the paradox of love; whoso would find its best gifts must be willing to deny himself its gaudiest. The old love of twos, the loyalty of man and wife that bring to each other pure hearts and bodies, is best.

(8) There are, besides, certain practical consequences of which experience warns. Free love would mean that the pretty and well- developed girls, the handsomer and physically stronger men, would be besieged with solicitations and almost inevitably debauched by excess of temptation, while the less attractive would starve for love. It would mean jealousies, deserted lovers, and broken hearts. Free love is especially hard on a woman; she readily becomes attached, and craves loyalty. Inconstancy, though it is so natural to man as often to need the pressure of law and convention for its repression, is not only the worst enemy of his own happiness, but the inevitable source of friction and clash between men and between women. If freedom to break the troth that love instinctively plights is allowed, the chances are numerous that one or the other will some day discover another "affinity" that, at least for the time, seems closer and better suited to him; unless a stern loyalty prevents, one or two or three hearts may be broken. Our monogamous code-whose iological value is clearly indicated by its adoption by most of the higher animals (not counting the domesticated animals, whose morals have been hopelessly ruined)-stands among the wisest of our ideals.

What safeguards against unchastity are necessary?

Overwhelming as is the argument for monogamy, it runs counter to such violent impulses that it needs every prop and sanction that can be given it. It must shelter itself under the law, keep on its side the conscience of men, and be hallowed by alliance with religion. All this is partially attained by the social-religious institution of marriage. The wedding ceremony itself, adding as it does dignity and symbolism, the memory of a beautiful occasion, and the witness of friends to the plighting of mutual vows, is of appreciable value. We must now consider the practical question how, in the face of almost inevitable temptation, the young man and woman may keep chaste during the years prior to marriage. If pre-marital chastity is maintained, there is comparatively little danger of infidelity when chosen love and loyalty to vows come to reinforce the earlier motives.

(1) Certain abstinences, that might not seem in themselves important, are necessary. Little familiarities, kisses and caresses, must be avoided; they are a playing with fire; and the youth never knows when the electric thrill will vibrate through his being, awakened by a touch, that will summon him to a new world wherein he must not yet enter. The finest men do not take these liberties, nor do well-bred girls permit them or respect those who seek them. Vulgar jokes and stories must be despised, as well as all allusions to vice as a natural or amusing thing. Alcohol, gambling, and all unhealthy excitements must be shunned. Above all, the imagination must be controlled; nothing is more dangerous than the indulgence in voluptuous dreams. Longings so fostered, so pent up without outlet, are too apt to break out, in despite of scruples and resolves, if a favorable and alluring opportunity occurs. The battle against sin is won more in private than in the actual moments of temptation.

(2) But in this matter, as always, we must not merely avoid evil, we must overcome evil with good; we can best hope to escape the sirens not as Ulysses did, by having himself bound to the mast, but as Orpheus did, by playing a sweeter music still than they. The best antidote to impurity is a pure love, the next best the dedication to a love yet to be found. The passionate youth must speak in the vein of the Knight in Santayana's poem:

"As the gaudy shadows Stalked by me which men take for beauteous things, I laughed to scorn each feeble counterfeit, And cried to the sweet image in my soul, How much more bright thou wast and beautiful."

Normal friendships with pure girls are vitally necessary for a man, and comradeship with men important for women. Normal interests of all sorts are necessary; the man or woman who has a full, all-round life, who cultivates wholesome intellectual, aesthetic, religious activities, is in far less danger of an unregulated passion. Human energy must find some happy outlets, or it will tend to run amuck; what we become depends largely on what we get interested in. In particular, the abundant physical activity of robust health makes it much easier to banish immoderate desires.

(3) There are certain safeguards that the community should erect. (a) Among these are the conventions that control intimacy between the sexes. On the one hand, the wholesome comradeship of boys and girls, above desiderated, must be encouraged, not only for the removal of that loneliness and morbid curiosity which are among the greatest of sex irritants, but in order that husband and wife may be wisely chosen. On the other hand, the attractiveness of the other sex may easily draw too much attention from the studies and sports that ought to make up the bulk of the activity of youth; and too great freedom of companionship leads to an unnecessary amount of temptation. The fearless, heart- free friendship of chaste youths and maidens is a priceless boon. But close lines must be drawn, and a certain amount of wise chaperonage is necessary. Too free a physical intimacy between the sexes leads almost irresistibly on, with many, to actual intercourse; the instinct is too imperious to be withstood when opportunity is too easy, if there are not many barriers to be broken first.

(b) Another duty of the community lies in the fight against the public sources of sensual appeal not merely the houses of prostitution and street solicitation, but the vile shows, indecent pictures and books, and other means by which the greed of money panders to the sex instinct. The questions concerning the drama, the ballet, and the nude in art will recur when we come to discuss the general relations of art and morality. Closely parallel are the problems concerning the costume of women; these are phases of the eternal conflict between beauty and morality. What is pretty is tempting. How can we have enjoyment without being wrecked by it; how can we make life rich and yet keep it pure? Some line must be drawn; just where, we have not space to discuss.

(c) Education on matters of sex must probably be attended to in the public schools. It were better done by parents, perhaps; but parents cannot be depended upon to do it. The dangers that await indulgence, the cruelty and brutality of prostitution, should be universally but cautiously taught; too many boys and girls wreck their lives for l ack of such knowledge. It is indeed a delicate task to instruct adolescents in these matters; there is, as Professor Munsterberg has well pointed out, a grave danger of stimulating, by calling attention to it, the very impulse which it is desired to curb, of dissipating the fear of the unknown which may be greater than that of clearly understood, and thereby, perhaps, avoidable dangers, and of breaking down barriers of shyness and reticence, which form one of the most effective of safeguards. Personal attention to the individual needs of boys and girls of widely differing temperaments and mental condition is imperative. But in general, it is to be remembered that almost every boy and girl learns, somehow, long before marriage, the main facts concerning sex-relations. And it is far better that that knowledge should be imparted reverently, accurately, unemotionally, and with due emphasis upon perils and penalties, than that it should be gained in coarse and exciting ways, or remain half understood and with a glamour of mystery about it.

What are the factors in an ideal marriage?

Celibacy is neither natural nor desirable; a happy marriage should be the goal of every healthy man's and woman's thought. The economic situation that prevents so many from marrying till nearly or quite thirty is thoroughly unwholesome and must in some way be remedied. Marriage in the early twenties is not only an important safeguard against unchastity; it is physiologically better for the woman and her offspring. The danger and pain in childbirth to a woman of twenty or twenty-five are less than in later life, and the children have a better chance of health. Moreover, young people are mentally and morally more plastic; they have not yet become so "set" in their ways as they will later become, and are more likely to grow together and make easily those little compromises and adjustments which the fusing of two lives necessitates. And it is always a pity that the two who are to be life comrades should fail to have these years, in some ways the best of their lives, together.

Yet this sacred and exacting relationship must not be hastily entered, for nothing more surely than marriage makes or mars character and happiness. Too early marriage is apt to be impulsive and thoughtless. It is true that many confirmed bachelors and maiden ladies lose through an excess of timidity the great experiences and joys which a little boldness, a little willingness to take a risk and put up with the imperfect would have brought them. No man or woman is perfect; no one can expect to find a wholly ideal mate; it is foolish to be too exacting, and it is conceited, implying that one is flawless one's self. Nevertheless, the counsel of caution is more commonly needed. Happily we have pretty generally got away from mariages de convenance, marriages for money, or title, or other extraneous advantages. And we have recognized the right of the two who are primarily concerned to make their own choice without interference, other than friendly counsel and warning, from others. But we still have many marriages from which the basic desiderata are in too great degree absent.

(1) There should be genuine sex attraction; not necessarily a violent passion, or love at first sight, but some measure of that instinctive organic attraction, that unpredictable and irrational emotional satisfaction in physical proximity, which differentiates sex love from the love of men or women for one another. Not that "platonic" relations between husband and wife are not possible or permissible; but if a young couple are not linked by this sweetest of bonds, they not only miss much of the charm and mutual drawing- together of marriage, but they stand in gravest danger of an eventual arousing of the instinct by another-and that means either a bitter fight for loyalty or actual tragedy. It is never to be forgotten that husband and wife have to spend a great part of their life in the same house, in the same room. No degree of similarity of interests can take the place of that mere instinctive liking, that pervasive content at each other's presence, that enjoyment in seeing each other about, and in the daily caresses and endearing words that rightly mated couples know.

(2) But this underlying physical attraction, however keen at first is not of guaranteed permanence; it must be buttressed by common tastes and sympathies. To like the same people, to enjoy doing the same things, to judge problems from the same angle, to cleave to similar moral, aesthetic, religious canons is of great importance. A certain amount of contrast in ideas and ideals is, indeed, piquant and stimulating; and where marriage is early there is likelihood of an adequate convergence in Weltanschauung. But too radically different an outlook upon life may lead to continual friction, to loneliness, and mutual antagonism. The two who are to be comrades in the great experiment of life must be able to help each other, strengthen each other's weaknesses, and admire each other's aims and achievements. In particular, religious fanaticism is an intractable enemy of marital happiness. As Stevenson puts it, "There are differences which no habit nor affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian must not ntermarry with the Pharisee. The best of men and the best of women may sometimes live together all their lives, and, for want of some consent on fundamental questions, hold each other lost spirits to the end."

(3) It scarcely needs to be added that there must be on both sides a high standard of morality. Truthfulness, sincerity, self-control, the willingness to work, to sacrifice personal desires and pull together for the common welfare of the house, are essential, as well as fidelity to marriage vows and abstinence from all intemperance and lawbreaking. Common tastes can be formed after marriage; even the organic attraction is pretty sure to be awakened in some degree if the pair are not actually repulsive to each other; but low moral ideals at the age of marriage are seldom radically transformed afterward and render any happiness in home-making insecure.

(4) Perhaps some day it may become incumbent upon the suitor to weigh the matter of the heredity back of the lady of his choice, and consider whether she is best adapted, by mating with him, to give birth to normal and healthy children; or for the maiden sought to regard with equal care the antecedents of the suitor. But-fortunately for lovers' consciences-we know too little at present about heredity and the breeding of human beings to give much useful advice or make any demands of the prospective couple, except to insist that those who are tainted with hereditary disease or feeble-mindedness shall refrain from marriage. To this subject we shall recur in chapter XXX.

Is divorce morally justifiable?

If marriage were always undertaken with adequate caution, there would seldom be need of annulling it. But since mistakes are bound to be made and unhappy unions result; since, further, matters arising after marriage often tend to push couples apart and engender a state of friction or absolute antagonism, a necessary postscript to the questions concerning marriage must be that concerning divorce. It is matter of common knowledge that there is a marked tendency in recent years toward a loosening of the marriage bond; the ease with which divorces are granted in some States has become a national scandal. Among the causes for this are the lessening of allegiance to religious authority, the loss of the older fears and restraints, the growing spirit of adventure and iconoclasm. With the breaking-up of traditions, the lure of freedom has been strong, especially upon the so-long- dominated and docile sex. Women are becoming better educated and asserting their rights everywhere; they are now able to earn their living in many independent ways, and are in a position to break loose; the era of the subjection of women is over, and it is natural that many, particularly of the idle and frivolous, should turn this new-won liberty into license.

But, indeed, human nature being as it is, there would inevitably arise, and have always arisen, many cases of strain and friction in marriage relations. As Chesterton says, a man and a woman are, in the nature of the case, incompatible; and that underlying incommensurability of viewpoint easily results in clash where a deep-rooted affection and a habit of self-control are absent. Innumerable couples have suffered and hated each other and made the best of it; nowadays they are deeming it better frankly to admit and end the discord. And the problem, Which solutionis better? is by no means an easy one. We can but make here a few general suggestions.

(1) Divorce must certainly not be so easy as to encourage hasty and unconsidered marriage, or to turn this most sacred of relationships into a mere experimental and provisional alliance. "Trial marriage" is a palpably reprehensible scheme, involving an unwarrantable stimulus to the sex appetite; many men would enjoy taking one woman after another, until their passion in each case had exhausted its force with the lapse of novelty; women, who are not so naturally promiscuous, would suffer most. What would become of the children is a question whose very posing condemns the proposal. But a lax divorce law provides practically for trial marriage; one or the other party may enter into the contract and pronounce the solemn vows without any intention of keeping them when it shall cease to be for his or her pleasure. Not in this way is to be got the real worth of marriage; the conscious and earnest effort, at least, must be to keep to it for life. An easy short cut to freedom would tempt too many from the harder but nobler way of compromise, conciliation, and self-subordination. If one is weak and erring, or petulant and unkind, the other must patiently and lovingly seek to help, to educate, to uplift; seventy times seven times is not too often for forgiveness; and many a marriage that seemed hopelessly wrecked has been saved by magnanimity and tactful affection. There is a fine disciplinary value in these forbearances, and much opportunity for spiritual growth in the persevering endeavor toward harmony and mutual understanding. Many a man and woman who might have been lost if divorced, has been saved for a better life by the unwillingness of wife or husband to desert under grievous provocation. There comes an ebb to most conjugal disputes; men and women grow wiser, and often gentler, with age; while there is any hope for readjustment and revival of love it is wrong to break marital vows. Many a divorce has been as hasty and ill considered as the marriage it ended, and has left the couple in the end less happy and useful members of the community. Particularly when there are children should the parents sacrifice much for the sake of giving them a real home, with both mother- and father-love.

(2) Yet there are cases where love is hopelessly killed and harmony is impossible; cases where much suffering, and even moral degeneration, would result from continuance of the married life. Where a man transfers his love to another or indulges in infidelity to his vows; where he crazes himself with liquor or some other narcotic, and will not give it up; where he treats his wife with cruelty or contempt, or through selfishness or laziness deserts or refuses to support her; where she refuses to perform her wifely duties, gives herself to other men, makes home intolerable for him—in short, in any case where mutual loyalty and cooperation are hopeless of attainment, it is surely best that there should be separation. It does not make for the welfare of the children, or for the sanctity of marriage, that such wretched travesties of it should continue. Moreover, for eugenic reasons, we must urge the freeing of wives from husbands who have transmissible diseases, inheritable defects, or chronic alcoholism. Nor should the fact of one mistake preclude the injured party from another opportunity for happiness and usefulness. Whether the guilty man or woman, the one wholly or chiefly to blame for the failure, should be permitted to remarry is another matter; but probably, on the whole, it is better than the alternative encouragement of immorality and illegitimacy.

(3) The community should exert its influence toward the remedying of the present anomalies and uncertainties by making both marriage laws and divorce laws more stringent, and uniform throughout the country. Statutes that will render impulsive marriage impossible, by requiring an interval to elapse after statement of intention to marry, and making a clean bill of health necessary; divorce laws that shall refuse to pander to caprice and willfulness, but shall make it easy, without scandal or needless publicity, to deliver a woman or a man from an intolerable and irremediable situation, and that shall not be appreciably more lenient in one State than in another, will go far toward curing contemporary evils. It may yet be that the Constitution will be so amended as to permit the National Government to control these matters and thus replace our present chaos with order.

Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XXVI. Scharlieb and Silby, Youth and
Sex. C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap. VII. Anon, Life, Love,
and Light (Macmillan), pp. 84-96. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, chaps.
XXIV-XXIX. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chaps. XI, XII. C. F.
Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chap. III. Felix Adler, Marriage
and Divorce, The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage. N. Smyth, Christian
Ethics, pp. 405-15. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, part III, chaps.
VIII, IX. W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, chap. XIV. Stevenson,
Virginibus Puerisque. G. E. C. Gray, Husband and Wife. J. Rus, The
Peril and Preservation of the Home. Thompson and Geddes, Problems of
Sex. H. Munsterberg, "Sex-Education" (in Psychology and Social Sanity).
H. G. Wells, "Divorce" (in Social Forces in England and America). C.
J. Hawkins, Will the Home Survive? Biblical World, vol. 43, p. 33.
International Journal of Ethics, vol. 17, p. 181. For the data: United
States Department of Commerce and Labor, Reports on Marriage and
Divorce. Publications of the National League for the Protection of
the Family (Secretary S. W. Dike, Auburndale, Massachusetts)
and of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (105 West 40th
Street, New York). Howard, MATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. Sutherland,
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE MORAL INSTINCT of the Moral Instinct,
chaps. vii, ix. Lestourneaux, EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.