This fact speaks more than the contradictory statements which the fanatics of party politics hurl at each other's heads.
Inquiry into Paternity.—It will be objected that inquiry into paternity is often very difficult and dangerous. I do not deny this; but, when women have obtained their natural rights, and when the education of young girls is guided by the principles which we have enunciated in Chapter XVII, the matter will become much easier. Moreover, even now, we can with energy and good will determine paternity in most cases. Although the great improvement in means of transport assists fugitives, it also favors the discovery and arrest of individuals all over the world. International relations between all civilized states are improving from day to day. When the world is more completely conquered by civilization, we may hope that it will become increasingly difficult for evildoers to escape their duties.
Regarding this question from all points of view it is impossible for us to give up this primordial condition for the preservation of human society, which consists in making parents responsible for the nourishment and education of their children.
The famous ideas of phalanstery and promiscuity, so often advanced, originated in theoretical and dogmatic minds which had lost their instinctive sense of human nature, and ignored what natural science and ethnology have revealed to us.
But the responsibility of parents extends to another domain—the duty of not procreating children who are unhealthy in body and mind. We shall return to this question later on.
Guardianship.—An excellent institution of our present legislation is that of the guardianship of orphans, lunatics, etc. It requires to be developed extensively and with care. On the contrary, an evil custom is the right accorded by certain countries to parishes charged with poor and abandoned orphans, of delivering them by public tender to the man who offers the lowest pension—and only requires them for work. This system results in odious abuse, such as neglect, mendicity and ill-treatment.
The fate of illegitimate children who are "farmed out" is still worse. A tacit alliance is established between rapacity on the one hand and social sexual hypocrisy on the other. A number of infanticides and abortions result, either from poverty, or from sentiments of shame due to our moral customs. Here, civil law and penal law should combine and take energetic humanitarian measures to put a stop to this sad abuse. An excellent institution is that of homes in the country established for unmarried mothers and their children, and for abandoned mothers in general.
Free Love and Civil Marriage.—When all the propositions we have drawn up have been realized by social legislation, the difference which now exists between marriage and free love will be little more than a form. The consequences of these two kinds of union will become the same, both for parents and children; the only distinction will consist in the existence or non-existence of official control. True monogamy will lose nothing, but will gain much.
We shall not then have obligatory monogamy as at present, absolute in form, artificially maintained by the aid of prostitution, that is by the most disgusting form of promiscuity which renders monogamy illusory; but we shall have in its place a relative monogamy much more solidly built on the natural rights of the two sexes, it is true more free in form, but fundamentally much stronger in the natural and instinctive duties dictated by a truly free and reasoned union, as well as by the duties by which parents will be bound to their children.
Form and Duration of Civil Marriage.—Although it may be true that monogamy constitutes the most normal and natural form of family union, and offers the best conditions for lasting happiness, both for parents and children, we must be blindly prejudiced not to admit that it is unnatural to consider it as the only sheet anchor in sexual relationship, the only admissible form of marriage, and to make it a straight-jacket. History and ethnography show us that polygamous races are strongly developed and are still developing; on the other hand, it is true that polyandrous races degenerate.