“It is especially interesting to study the various modes of conjugal and familiar association among birds. This may be easily inferred from the ardor, the variety and delicacy they bring to their amours. * * * There are some birds absolutely fickle and even debauched—as, for example, the little American starling (Icterus pecoris), which changes its female from day to day. * * * Other species, while they have renounced promiscuity, are still determined polygamists. The gallinaceae are particularly addicted to this form of conjugal union, which is so common in fact with mankind, even when highly civilized and boasting of their practice of monogamy. Our barndoor cock, vain and sensual, courageous and jealous, is a perfect type of the polygamous bird.” * * *—Ibid., p. 26.
“Nearly all the rapacious animals, even the stupid vultures, are monogamous. The conjugal union of the bald-headed eagle appears even to last till the death of one of the partners.” * * *
“With the female Illinois parrot (Psittacus pertinax) widowhood and death are synonymous, a circumstance rare enough in the human species, yet of which the birds give us more than one example. When, after some years of conjugal life, a Wheat-ear happens to die, his companion hardly survives him a month.”—Ibid., p. 27.
“Bad fathers are rare among birds. Often on the contrary the male rivals the female in love for the young; he guards and feeds her during incubation, and sometimes even sits on the eggs with her. The carrier pigeon feeds his female while she is sitting; the Canadian goose and the crow do the same; more than that the latter takes his companion’s place at times, to give her some relaxation. The blue marten behaves in the same manner. Among many species male and female combine their efforts without distinction of sex; they sit in turn, and the one who is free takes the duty of feeding the one who is occupied. This is the custom of the black-coated gull, the booby of Bassan, the great blue heron, and of the black vulture.”—Ibid., p. 30.
“In regard to mammals, there is no strict relation between the degree of intellectual development and the form of sexual union. The carnivorous animals often live in couples; but this is not an absolute rule, for the South African lion is frequently accompanied by four or five females. Bears, weasels, whales, etc., generally go in couples. Sometimes species that are very nearly allied have different conjugal customs; thus the white-cheeked peccary lives in troops, whilst the white-ringed peccary lives in couples. There is the same diversity in the habits of monkeys. Some are polygamous and others monogamous. The Wanderoo (Macacus Silenus) of India has only one female and is faithful to her until death. The Cebus Capucinus, on the contrary, is polygamous.”—Ibid., p. 33.
PAGE [101].—“The Destinies of a Life-Time.”
“Unlike the Catholic Church in its dealings with novices, Society demands (in marriage) the ring, the parchment, and the vow as a preliminary to the knowledge and experience; hence adulteries, the divorce court, home-prisons, and the increase of cant and pruriency in the community. Unless a woman knows what a man’s body is like, with its virile needs, and realizes to the full her own adult necessities, how is it possible that she can have the faintest conception as to whether the romantic passionate impulse a man awakens in her is the trinity of love, trust and reverence, which alone lays the foundations of real marriage?”—Edith M. Ellis, “A Noviciate for Marriage,” p. 13.
PAGE [106].—“Contracts of Some Kind Will Still Be Made.”
“It is therefore probable that a future more or less distant will inaugurate the regime of monogamic unions, freely contracted, and, at need, freely dissolved by simple mutual consent, as is already the case with divorces in various European countries—at Geneva, in Belgium, in Roumania, etc.—and with separation in Italy. In these divorces of the future, the community will only intervene in order to safeguard that which is of vital interest to it—the fate and the education of the children. But this evolution in the manner of understanding and practicing marriage will operate slowly, for it supposes an entire corresponding revolution in public opinion; moreover, it requires as a corollary profound modifications in the social organism.”—Letourneau, “Evolution of Marriage,” p. 358.
“The antique morals which hold woman as a servile property belonging to her husband still live in many minds. They will be extinguished by degrees. The matrimonial contract will end by being the same kind of contract as any other, freely accepted, freely maintained, freely dissolved; but where constraint has disappeared deception becomes an unworthy offence. Such will be the opinion of a future humanity, more elevated morally than ours. Doubtless it will no longer have any tender indulgence for conveniently dissimulated adultery, but, on the other hand, it will no longer excuse the avenging husband.”—Ibid., p. 127.