“With the disappearance of the artificial barriers in the way of friendship between the sexes, and of the economic motive to sexual relationships—which are perhaps the two chief forces now tending to produce promiscuous sexual intercourse, whether dignified or not with the name of marriage—men and women will be free to engage, unhampered, in the search, so complicated in a highly civilized condition of society, for a fitting mate.”—“Evolution in Sex,” p. 13.
PAGE [79] (note).—Desire of Congress Less Strong in Woman.
“I will mention here that from various late sources of information I conclude that sexual insensibility in women is much commoner than usually assumed. Of course I mean by this, insensibility as from the sexual standpoint: of the sense of pleasure and satisfaction in congress, as well as the desire for congress. This desire is much less frequent in woman than generally supposed. But the soulside of love on the other hand is often more prominent in females than in males.”—A. Moll, “Contrare Sexual-empfindung,” 2nd edn., p. 325.
PAGE [83].—“In This Serf-Life Their very Natures Have Been Blunted.”
“Not so the wife; however brutal a tyrant she may be chained to * * * he can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations. * * * No amount of ill-usage, without adultery superadded, will in England free a wife from her tormentor.”—Mill’s “Subjection of Women,” 1869.
Clitheroe Case, 1891.—After the refusal of the wife to cohabit, the husband said: “I therefore took my wife, and have since detained her in my house, using no more force or restraint than necessary to take her and keep her.”
The Lord Chancellor said: “I am of opinion that no, such right or power exists in law”—and ordered the lady to be restored to her liberty.—“Woman Free,” by Ellis Ethelmer, p. 144.
PAGE [95].—The Monogamic Marriage.
“In attempting to estimate the moral worth of a people, a race, or a civilization, we are much more enlightened by the position given to woman than by the legal type of the conjugal union. This type, besides, is usually more apparent than real. In many civilizations, both dead and living, legal monogamy has for its chief object the regulation of succession and the division of property.”—Letourneau, “Evolution of Marriage,” p. 186.
Conjugal Unions Among the Animals.—“Among many of the animal species the sexual union induces a durable association, having for its object the rearing of young. In nobility, delicacy, and devotion these unions do not yield precedence to many human unions.”—Ibid., p. 19.