The sexual question

by Auguste Forel

For educational reasons, the natural family may be imitated in these artificial ones, by giving to each couple children of both sexes and different ages. The result is perfect: I have seen in Vienna artificial families of ten children formed in this way. This shows again the rule confirmed by the exception; it would be better for the good seed to be more fruitful and the bad sterile.

The normal condition must, however, always be for parents to bring up their own children. But here the State and the school should come to their aid, and even intervene with authority; for society is under the obligation of educating its children to a certain degree of culture, and maternal or paternal authority should not have the right to prevent or even attenuate this social work. Obligatory and gratuitous education is thus a duty of the State which is becoming more and more recognized everywhere, although it is still very incomplete and often badly carried out.

The State should, moreover, protect the children by restricting the power of parents more than is done at present. The child should not be allowed to become an object for exploitation by its parents. It has also the right to be protected against all unmerited punishment and ill-treatment. Corporal punishment, which is still practiced in some schools, is a relic of barbarism which ought to disappear.

The State should severely enforce the duty of the procreators of children to nourish their offspring. Rich or poor, no father or mother should escape this duty, whether the child is legitimate or illegitimate. In our imperfect social condition, it is still much too easy for the man to escape and abandon his child to the mother, or to public charity. He should be compelled to provide for the life and education of his children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, if he does not bring them up himself. If unable to provide money, he should do the equivalent in labor. Such measures, strictly enforced, would be more efficacious than all the complicated laws on sexual relations, in maintaining monogamy and fidelity.

I repeat, that these measures should apply to all unworthy parents from whom we are obliged to remove the children. These parents are not always of the poorer class.

It may be objected that I am unjust in charging such duties to poor people who can often hardly keep themselves. I agree that in the present state of society it is quite impossible for many parents to undertake such important duties. But duty means right, and it is evident that we must place rights by the side of the duties which we impose on parents.

True justice in this question can only be attained by the essential progress of socialism. By socialism, I do not mean certain vague communistic doctrines, nor the Utopias of anarchists who imagine that "man was born good," but simply an essential social progress in the struggle against the domination of individual capital, that is to say, usury applied to the labor of others owing to the possession of means of production, which is now left to speculators. Men should be enabled to enjoy the product of their labor, so that they can lead a human life worthy of the name, in sexual matters as in others. But this is not all.

From the social point of view, it is absolutely unjust that men who procreate children should alone bear the burden of the future generation. We know the egoistic proverb of the celibates, who say: "I have the right to take life easily, to enjoy myself and be idle, if I renounce the happiness of having children, either of my own accord or from necessity." This proverb, which may be transposed into "after me the deluge," cannot be recognized by any healthy social legislation. It is the duty of the State to relieve large families, to facilitate the procreation of healthy children, and to impose more work and taxes (for instance, artificial families) on sterile individuals. The old laws were better than ours in this respect.

I have mentioned above the excellent custom, which exists at the present day in Norway, of only charging half-price on the boats to married women and other female members of the same family. I cannot here enter into the details of this question, but if such reforms are some day realized, if universal compulsory education, pensions for old age, orphans and invalids, etc., are introduced, then no man will have valid motives for escaping the duty of feeding his children and bringing them up decently in family life. This will be left only to the idle and vicious.

Moreover, I can support my propositions by facts. If we compare the nature of delinquents, abandoned children, vagabonds, etc., in a country where little or nothing has been done for the people (Russia, Galicia, Vienna, etc.), with that of the same individuals in Switzerland, for example, where much has already been done for the poor, we find this result: In Switzerland, these individuals are nearly all tainted with alcoholism or pathological heredity; they consist of alcoholics, incorrigibles, and congenital decadents, and education can do little for them, because nearly all those who have a better hereditary foundation have been able to earn their living by honest work. In Russia, Galicia, and even in Vienna, we are, on the contrary, astonished to see how many honest natures there are among the disinherited, when they are provided with work and education.