Nevertheless, we may say that the simplest civil action by one conjoint against the other is veritably monstrous when it is not accompanied by an action for divorce. When once the couple have come to legal disputes, their marriage is in reality dissolved and its continuation is an absurdity.
Venereal Diseases.—A very important question from the humanitarian and hygienic point of view is that of venereal disease. A man (or woman) who knows himself (or herself) to be affected with a venereal disease in an infectious state, and who in spite of this has connection with a woman, should be regarded as a criminal, at least if the woman with whom he has connection is not affected with the same disease.
Here the law should intervene by awarding heavy damages to the party who has been infected; eventually it may be treated as a criminal offense. In such cases claim should be made by the injured party, but unfortunately this is seldom done owing to feelings of shame. In the future, however, we may hope that the law may be improved for the benefit of humanity, for this would be one of the most efficacious means of combating venereal disease, and hence avoiding much misfortune for families and children.
It would also be desirable to prevent the procreation of syphilitic infants, for instance, by the use of preventatives (vide Chapter XIV).
Prostitution.—Another difficult question is that of the relation of civil law to prostitution. All State regulation of prostitution is to be absolutely condemned; but what position should civil law take up with regard to free prostitution? We have already seen what an abominable social evil is this commerce in human bodies, as regards social morality. But it is absolutely useless to try and abolish this commerce without attacking its lord and master—money. The venality of man implies the commerce of his body, and as long as everything can be got for money, coitus can be bought. It is, therefore, this venality which must be attacked, not only by condemning it in words but by cutting its roots. If the State will not withdraw its protecting hand from prostitution, it might at least combat proxenetism and the public manifestations of prostitution, by all the legal and administrative measures at its disposal. It would thus reduce the matter to intimate personal relations.
Let us hope that, little by little, a social organization more just to labor and wages, combined with the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, will, in the future, annihilate the causes of commerce in human bodies.
Children as a Reason for Civil Marriage.—To resume; we find that civil marriage should, by progressive reforms, become a much more free contract than it is at present, having for its object a common sexual life. The law should abandon its useless and often harmful chicanery concerning the questions of sexual relations and love, and regulate more carefully the duties of parents toward their children, and thus protect future generations against the abuse of the present generation.
The difference which exists between marriage and free love should gradually disappear, by instituting natural intimate relations on the basis of sentiments of social morality, instead of maintaining the pretended divine origin of a social institution. It is difficult to avoid a smile when we hear the term "divine institution" applied to the marriage of a rich girl with a man who has been bought for her. (Vide Chapter X.)
Various propositions have been made to give more dignity to the unions of free love, which now exist and which always have existed. Modern women have remarked that the absurd custom of naming the celibate woman differently to the married stigmatizes in society a number of poor women and innocent children, and that it would be quite as just to apply the term "damoiseau" to celibate men as "mademoiselle" to non-married girls. An unmarried woman who has a child, and who has only committed the sin of obeying nature, is branded with the stamp of shame.
It is the children who constitute the true bond of marriage and give it a legal character. When there are no children all legal and State interference with conjugal affairs loses its sense so long as no one is injured, and civil marriage can then be greatly simplified. I maintain that so long as a sterile union, of whatever kind, between responsible persons is voluntary, provokes no conflict between those who have contracted it, and causes no injury to a third party, the law has no right to meddle with it; because this union does not concern society nor any of its members, excepting the two parties interested, who are in accord.