CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XI
Free love as a burning question of our time — Definition — Free love not equivalent to extra-conjugal sexual intercourse — Defamation of free love and sanction of extra-conjugal sexual intercourse by the coercive-marriage-morality — The immoral duplex morality for man and woman — Its momentous influence upon the sexual corruption of the present day — Free love as the only source of help — Actual realization of free love among the proletariat — Strengthening of the sense of responsibility in consequence of free love.
History of free love in the nineteenth century — William Godwin’s fight against coercive marriage — His free union with Mary Woolstonecraft — Shelley’s polemic against conventional sexual morality — John Ruskin on free love — Goethe’s marriage of conscience — His “Wahlverwandtschaften” (“Elective Affinities”) — The remarkable proposal for a temporary marriage in this romance — Perhaps based upon a Japanese custom — Malayan temporary marriage — Influence of Schlegel’s “Lucinde” — Karoline’s marriage wanderings — Free love in Jena and Berlin — Communistic-socialistic ideas regarding free love — Rétif de la Bretonne, Saint-Simon, Enfantin, and Fourier — George Sand’s “Jacques” — The “Es-geht-an-Idea” of the Swedish author Almquist — Schopenhauer’s fight against coercive marriage — His one-sided standpoint — His description of the disastrous effects of monogamic coercive marriage — His apology for concubinage — Criticism of his view of the rôle of women in marriage reform — His theory of tetragamy — First communication of a hitherto unpublished note of Schopenhauer’s on tetragamy — Criticism of this theory.
Free love based upon only-love, the watchword of the future — Bohemian love — Does not correspond to the ideal of free love — Importance of social and economic factors in the sexual relationships of the present day — Efforts for sexual reform — The literature of free love — Charles Albert’s communistic foundation of free love — Liberation of love from the dominion of the state and of capital — Ladislaus Gumplowicz — Bebel’s “Die Frau und der Sozialismus” (“Woman and Socialism”) — The psychologico-individual foundation of free love — Eugen Dühring — Edward Carpenter’s “Love’s Coming of Age” — His ideas regarding self-control and spiritual procreation — Ellen Key’s work, “Ueber Liebe und Ehe” (“Love and Marriage”) — Detailed analysis of this work — Her critique of nominal “monogamy” — Her idea of “spiritualized sensuality” — “Erotic monism” — The unity of marriage and love — Sexual dualism owing to coercive marriage and prostitution — General diffusion of erotic scepticism — Recognition of love as the spiritual force of life — Importance of relative asceticism — Love’s choice — Medical certificates of fitness for marriage — Immoral love — The right to motherhood — Preliminary conditions — Necessity for free divorce — Unfortunate marriages — Importance of divorce to children — New programme of the rights of children — Ellen Key’s new marriage law — Endowment of motherhood — Authorities for the protection of children — Division of the property of husband and wife — Discontinuance of the coercion to live together — Secret marriages — Conditions under which marriage is to be contracted — Divorce — Council of Divorce — Jury for the care of children — Sexual responsibility — “Marriages of conscience” — Examples from Sweden — Public notification of “free” unions — Legal recognition of “free” unions in Sweden — Increase in the number of “marriage protestants” — Importance of free love to the vital advance of humanity — General characterization of Ellen Key’s book — Its importance in connexion with sexual reform in Germany — Formation of “The Association for the Protection of Mothers” — Directors and committee of this society — Preliminary appeal and programme of the association — The periodical Mutterschutz — The formation of local groups — The “Umwertungs-Gesellschaft” (Revaluation Society) of the United States — Its characterization of modern marriage — The Berlin “Union for Sexual Reform” — Helene Stöcker’s “Love and Woman” — Conception of the sexual problem in the sense of Nietzsche — No revolution, but evolution and reform — Deepening of woman’s soul by means of the older love — The affirmation of life of the new love — The economic and social grounds for the necessity of social reform — Friedrich Naumann, Lily Braun, and others, on this subject — Increase in enforced abstinence from marriage — The “maintenance question” a crying scandal of our time — A characteristic letter — The radical evil of conventional morality — Insurance of motherhood — Homes for pregnant women and for infants — The rights of the “illegitimate” child — Suggestions regarding a statistical inquiry relating to free love and illegitimate offspring in the upper classes — Examples of celebrated personalities.
CHAPTER XI
The problem of “free love” is the burning question of our time. Upon its proper solution depends the future of civilization, and our ultimate liberation from the ignominious conditions of the amatory life of the present day, dependent as these are upon coercive marriage. This is our firm conviction, our profound belief, one which we share with many, and those not the worst minds of our day.
Free love is neither, as malevolent opponents maintain, the abolition of marriage, nor is it the organization of extra-conjugal sexual intercourse. Free love and extra-conjugal sexual intercourse have nothing whatever to do one with the other. Indeed, I go so far as to maintain that true free love, as it must and will prevail, will limit casual and unregulated extra-conjugal sexual intercourse to a far greater extent than coercive marriage has ever succeeded in doing. Above all, free love will ennoble sexual intercourse.
For the longer, in existing economic conditions, we cling to the antiquated “coercive marriage,” which has so long been in need of reform, the smaller is the number of those who desire to marry, the more advanced becomes the age of marriage, the greater becomes the general sexual wretchedness, the deeper shall we sink into the mephitic slough of prostitution, towards which the increasing promiscuity of extra-conjugal sexual intercourse inevitably leads us.