"From the earliest civilization the notion has prevailed that the most highly religious act a woman could perform was to make the sacrifice involved in celibacy. We see it in one of its most beautiful developments at Rome. There, to the Vestal Virgins was entrusted the maintenance of the sacrificial flame; to them were accorded the highest honors of the Roman state, the most favored places at all state functions; they alone, except the consuls, were preceded in the street by lictors, and if, in walking through the streets of Rome, they met a criminal going to execution, he was immediately set free. The sacrifice required by this institution was chastity. So, in the Christian Church, those of both sexes who desired to give themselves particularly to the worship of Christ secluded themselves in convents and took the vow of chastity. Yet what a barren piece of sentimentality it was! We respect it still, because there was in it the element of sacrifice; but a woman capable of such self-sacrifice as this commits a crime against the body politic by refusing to become the mother of children; it is just from such women as these that we want to raise new generations, capable of carrying the torch of civilization onward in its march. The real sacrifice to be demanded of these is not chastity; it is the surrender of personal inclination to the benefit of the commonwealth. The real sacrifice consists in refusing to leave the maternal function at the mercy of a momentary caprice, and, on the contrary, in consecrating it to a noble purpose and to the general good. But you can hardly understand all this till you have heard the story of Latona, who founded the cult—the first and greatest saint in our calendar."
The Pater did not persuade me; it was horrible to me that it should be in the power of any man or men, by appealing to a woman's willingness to sacrifice herself or by the exercise of priestly craft, to condemn her to marriage without love, which, to my mind, is its only justification.
"And you think," said I, protesting, "that it is right to sacrifice the love of a woman for life?"
"No," interrupted the Pater, "not for life! There you labor under a mistake. Let me tell you what happens: if a woman accepts the mission she becomes attached to the temple of Demeter, and while attending upon the ritual is slowly prepared for the act of sacrifice; this is a period of seclusion and prayer. Not that we believe in the existence of a goddess Demeter, but that Demeter represents to us that divinity in our own hearts which puts passion under constraint, and makes of it, not a capricious tyrant, but a servant to human happiness—our own happiness best understood, believe me—as well as the happiness of the community. And so the Vestal—for so we entitle her—invokes and keeps herself in communion with this special divinity within us each, and without us all, until her heart is lifted into a consciousness of her mission as the highest possible to her sex. Compare that, my friend, with the maternity which is often the undesired consequence of a caprice or ceremony. But as I have already hinted, the sacrifice is neither imposed at all, nor is it suggested for a lifetime.
"Indeed, the Demetrian ceremony, once consummated, often results in permanent marriage; upon this point the woman has the first word; though, of course, the ultimate conclusion must rest upon the consent of both. For example, the woman decides the question whether the bridegroom shall become known to her. Some women, in whom the instinct of the mother predominates over that of the wife, elect never to know the father of their child; and as soon as pregnancy is assured, cease all relations with him. Others, indeed the great majority, become mystically attached to the man who, in the obscurity of the Demetrian temple, has accomplished for them the mission of their motherhood; they ask to see him; and if upon fuller acquaintance both consent, a provisional marriage is celebrated between them."
"Provisional marriage!" exclaimed I, aghast again.
"All our first marriages are provisional," answered the Pater with magnificent disregard for my indignation. "What can be more preposterous—more fatal to happiness—than to commit a man and woman for life to bonds accepted at an age when the mind is immature, and under an impulse which is notoriously blinding. It became a commonplace paradox in your time that the fact of being in love was a convincing argument against marriage; for a human being in love is one who has been by so much deprived of reason—by so much deprived of the exercise of the very judgment most necessary to select a life companion. Look back at the consequences of your institution of marriage: in your time it was already in process of dissolution; the facility of divorce had already destroyed the indissolubility of marriage, and made of it a mere time contract. And divorce, that the clergy of your day regarded as a trespass of Immorality on the sanctity of the marriage tie, was, as a matter of fact, the protest of Morality against the immoral consequences of the indissolubility of the marriage tie. No, there are two essential elements in sexual morality: one is temperance; the other is sacrifice. All are expected to practise the one; the few only are capable of practising the other. The art is to frame institutions which recognize this and to accommodate the institution to the temperament of the race——"
"Yes," interrupted I, "but this is just where you fail; how are you accommodating your Demetrian institutions to such temperaments as those of Lydia and Chairo? Do you not see that by imposing them in such cases as theirs you are risking the wreck of your entire system?"
"You are perhaps right," answered the Pater. "I am not initiated into the secrets of the priesthood; but it may be easily guessed that upon the application of the system there may well be divergence of opinion. We have already seen the system result in infamous outrage in the South, and give rise to the necessity of government intervention—a very dangerous thing in such questions."
"But how do you practise this system of provisional marriage?"