The passion of sex can only be safely and healthily gratified by marriage; illegal relations produce physical danger, mental degradation, and social misery.
The family is the indispensable foundation of a progressive nation, and the permanent union of one man with one woman is essential to the welfare of the family.
Marriage during matured early vigour is essential to the production of a strong race.
Individual morality can only be secured by the prevalence of early purity, and national morality by the cumulative effects of heredity.
In Moral Education the first step to secure is the slow development of sex; the second, its legitimate satisfaction through honourable companionship, followed by marriage.
There are special duties which devolve upon women as mother, sister, ruler of a household, and member of society for securing the conditions necessary for the attainment of early purity in sons and daughters.
There are special duties laid upon men, not only as parents, but as citizens, for the attainment of national morality.
The fact must be clearly perceived and accepted, that male purity is a fundamental virtue in a State; that it secures the purity of women, on which the moral qualities of fidelity, humanity, and trustworthiness depend; and that it secures the strength and truth of men, on which the intellectual vigour and wise government of a State depend.
Whether it be regarded in relation to the physical and mental status of Man, or the position and welfare of Woman, there is no social evil so great as the substitution of Fornication and Celibacy for Chastity and Marriage.
These are fundamental truths. But in those grown old in watching the spread of evil, despair often takes possession of the mind, and the question arises, Can evil ever be overcome with good? Can we hope to change this widespread perversion of human faculties? When we observe the raging lust of invading armies, more cruel than the ferocity of the most savage beasts; when we study the tumultuous passions of early youth, the rush for excitement, for every kind of gratification that the impulse of the moment demands, can we believe that there are forces at our command strong enough to quell the tumult, to guide the multitude, to sustain the weak, to change the fierce brutishness into noble manhood and womanhood?