THE SOCIAL MARRIAGE
I am not surprised that some make shipwreck, but that any come to port.—Stevenson.
SOCIAL marriage is based on the idea of a high and lofty friendship, an indissoluble partnership, an intimacy of relationship unknown in any other phase of existence.
Such a marriage was not intended by Nature. A new element is introduced when a social marriage occurs of which Nature had no thought, and we should reckon with this, not without it.
This new element is the intellect. Nature does not recognize it in the cosmic urge. So the meeting of man and woman on an intellectual plane, on a basis of the sweetest friendship imaginable, is the only condition by which Nature can endure the social marriage tie—which so often binds, imprisons, and makes slaves.
Even at this time man considers that he owns a woman; that he has purchased her freedom, her will, her habits, her aspirations, her time, her love, her energies, her future, every activity of her life. She is in very truth under a master. And the woman, as well, usually considers this true.