"'Last, not least, women and men would form elaborate societies for the prevention of frivolous breaches of faith. At present no woman has a serious interest in watching another woman's man. It would be quite different in Free-Love-Land. The unofficial supervision and control of men and women would be as rigorous as in monastic orders. As a man will pay off debts contracted at a card-table with infinitely greater anxiety than any ordinary debt of his to a tailor or a grocer, just because such gambling debts are not actionable; even so conjugal debts would, in Free-Love-Land, be discharged with a punctuality that now is practically unknown.
"'The commonplace assertion that legal marriage preserves men and women in a virtuous life has been refuted these six thousand years. To the present day one is not able to deny the truth of what once a Turkish woman replied to a Christian lady. The latter asked the Oriental: "How can you tolerate the fact that your husband has at the same time and in the same house three other wives of his?" The Turkish lady replied: "Please, do not excite yourself unduly. The only difference between me and you is this, that I know the names of my rivals, and you do not."
"'In Free-Love-Land alone is there virtue. Men and women select freely, obeying only the dictates of infallible Nature. The result is order, health, joy, and efficiency. How can any person of sense believe in the present marriage systems, when one considers the countless lives of old maids sacrificed to the Moloch of modern legal monogamy?
"'In England there are about four times more old maids than in any other country; except in New England, in the United States, where every second woman is born an old maid. Has anybody ever seriously pondered over the great danger to Society and State implied in an excessive number of old maids? I leave it to you, and I dare say to everyone of you who has, no doubt, bitterly suffered at the hands of some one old maid in his or her family.
"'Old maids are either angels of goodness, or devils in human form; the real proportion of either must be left to the Lord Chancellor to decide. But who, or what produces old maids? Our legal monogamy. Give us Free Love, and you shall have heard the last word of old maids. Refuse Free Love, and we shall have to form our old maids into regiments and send them against the Germans. Plato said that the unsatisfied womb of a woman wanders about in all her body like a ravenous animal and devours everything on his path. Our present marriage system makes more victims than victors.'
"The good bag of bones wanted to continue in the same strain, but was stopped by a young policeman who threatened to take her into custody unless she discontinued her oratory. She threatened to love him freely; whereupon he ran away as speedily as he could manage, but was at once followed by the valiant she-orator, who nearly overtook him, crying all the time 'I love you freely'—'I love you freely.' The whole crowd followed, howling, screaming, laughing, and singing songs of Free Love. So ended the discourse on Free Love.
"A few weeks later," continued Alcibiades, "I made the acquaintance of what they call a society lady. She was, of course, a specialist. She had found out that her physical attractions were of a kind to show off best at the moment of entering a crowded room. She was, to use the phraseology of the chef, an entrée beauty. Her name was Entréa. At the moment she entered a salon, she gave, just for a few minutes, the impression of being strikingly handsome. She walked well, and the upper part of her head, her hair, forehead, and eyes were very pretty. She knew that on entering a room, the upper part of the head is precisely the one object of general attention. This she utilised in the most methodic manner. She entered with an innocent smile and lustrous eyes. The effect was decidedly pretty.