In "The New Horizon in Love and Life," Mrs. Havelock Ellis writes "It is more than probable that the evolved relationship of the future will be monogamy—but a monogamy wider and more beautiful than the present caricature of it, as the sea is wider and more delicious than a duck pond.
"The lifelong, faithful love of one man for one woman is the exception and not the rule. The law of affinity being as subtle and as indefinable as the law of gravitation, we may, by and by, find it worth while to give it its complete opportunity in those realms where it can manifest itself most potently. We are on the wrong bridge if we imagine that laxity is the easiest way to freedom. The bridge which will bear us must be strong enough to support us while experiments are tried.
"What is the gospel in this matter of sexual emancipation for men and women in the new world where love has actually come of age? It is surely the complete economic independence of women. While man is economically free and woman still a slave, either physically, financially or spiritually, mankind as a whole must act as if blindness, maimness and deafness constituted health.
"The complete independence of husband and wife is the gospel of the new era of marriage. This is the actual matter which philosophers, parents, philanthropists and pioneers so often ignore when teaching the new ideals of morality. When a woman is kept by a man she is not a free individuality either as child, wife or mistress. Imagine for a moment a man kept by a woman as women are kept by men and a sense of humor illuminates the absurdity of the situation between any class of evolved human beings."
As a clever patient of mine whom I regret I cannot mention by name said one day: "married happiness, to be lasting, requires more than sexual cooperation of both mates, it must resolve itself into cooperative egotism."
Footnotes
[1] See Mary Sinclair's "The Life and Death of Harriet Freau."