[323] Sex and Society, pp. 306, 307.
[324] Quoted by Bloch, Sexual Life of Our Times, p. 80.
[325] Sexual Life of Our Times, pp. 80, 81.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER X
THE SOCIAL FORMS OF THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
I.—Marriage
The difficulty of the problem of marriage—Facts to be considered—Marriage and the family among the animals—Among primitive peoples—Progress from lower to higher forms of the sexual association—An examination of the purpose of marriage—The fear of hasty reforms—Practical morality—Marriage an institution older than mankind—The practical moral ends of marriage—The racial and individual factors—No real antagonism between the two—What is good for the individual must react also for the benefit of the race—Various systems of marriage—Monogamy the form that has prevailed—The higher law of the true marriage—Conventional monogamic marriage—Its failure in practical morality—Coexistence with polygamy and prostitution—Chief grounds for the reform of marriage—An indictment by Mr. Wells—Our marriage system based upon the rights of property—This not necessarily evil—The Egyptian marriage contracts—The Roman marriage—The influence of Christianity—Asceticism and the glorification of virginity—Confusions and absurdities—The failure of our sexual morality—Mammon marriages—Sins against the race—Two examples from my own experience—The iniquity of our bastardy laws—The waste of love—Free-love—Its failure as a practical solution—The reform of marriage—The tendency to place the form of the sexual relationship above the facts of love—The dependence of the consciousness of duty upon freedom—The sexual responsibility of women.