[105] Mariner, op. cit. ii. 107.
[106] Kubary, ‘Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ in Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. der königl. Museen Berlin, i. 78.
[107] Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 130.
[108] Dorsey, ‘Siouan Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 226.
[109] Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte ii. 666. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 490. According to Salic law, the fine for the rape of an ingenua puella was 62½ solidi, or only a little higher than the fine for a connection with her to which she herself consented (Lex Salica, Herold’s text, xiv. 4; xv. 3); whereas the fine for adultery with a free woman was 200 solidi (ibid. xv. 1).
There is yet another party to be considered, namely, the offspring. One would imagine that to every thinking mind, not altogether destitute of sympathetic feelings, the question what is likely to happen to the child if the woman becomes pregnant should present itself as one of the greatest gravity. But in judging of matters relating to sexual morality men have generally made little use of their reason and been guilty of much thoughtless cruelty. Although marriage has come into existence solely for the sake of the offspring, it rarely happens that in sexual relations much unselfish thought is bestowed upon unborn individuals. Legal provisions in favour of illegitimate children have made men somewhat more careful, for their own sake, but they have also nourished the idea that the responsibility of fatherhood may be bought off by the small sum the man has to pay for the support of his natural child. Custom or law may exempt him even from this duty. We are told that in Tahiti the father might kill a bastard child, but that, if he suffered it to live, he was eo ipso considered to be married to its mother.[110] This custom, it would seem, is hardly more inhuman than the famous law according to which “la recherche de la paternité est interdite.”[111]
[110] Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 157.
[111] Code Napoléon, § 340.
The great authority on the ethics of Roman Catholicism tries to prove that simple fornication is a mortal sin chiefly because it “tends to the hurt of the life of the child who is to be born of such intercourse,” or more generally, because “it is contrary to the good of the offspring.”[112] But this tender care for the welfare of illegitimate children seems strange when we consider the manner in which such children have been treated by the Roman Catholic Church herself. It is obvious that the extreme horror of fornication which is expressed in the Christian doctrine is in the main a result of the same ascetic principle which declared celibacy superior to marriage and tolerated marriage only because it could not be suppressed.
[112] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 154. 2.