The closing chapter of her work is devoted by Ellen Key to the formulation of practical recommendations regarding the new marriage laws. She indicates as a starting-point of her dissertation that the ideal form of marriage is the perfectly free union between a man and a woman. But this ideal can in the meanwhile only be attained through transitional forms. In this the opinion of society regarding the morality of the sexual relationship must find expression, and thus remain as the support for undeveloped personalities; but at the same time, these transitional forms must be sufficiently free to favour a progressive development of the higher erotic consciousness of the present day.
There always remains, therefore, the necessity for laws, to some extent limiting individual freedom; but these laws must admit of an advance towards perfection in respect of the freer gratification of individual needs. The sense of solidarity demands a new marriage law adapted to new modern erotic needs, since the majority are not yet prepared for complete freedom. But it is only the needs of modern civilized human beings, and not abstract theories concerning the idea of the family or the “historic origin” of marriage, that should be determinative in this matter.
In the marriage of the future, above all, the economic and legal subordination of woman must be abolished. Woman must supervise her own property and arrange her own work, and she must in the main care for herself in so far as this is compatible with her maternal duties. She must, however, have this assurance—that during the first years of the life of every child she shall be cared for by society, and this under the following conditions:
She must be of full age.
She must have performed her feminine “military service” by a one year’s course of instruction in the care of children, in the general care of health, and, whenever possible, in sick-nursing.
She must either care for her child herself or provide another thoroughly competent nurse.
She must bring proof that she does not possess sufficient personal property, or sufficient income from her work, in order to provide for her own support and half of her child’s support, or else that the care for her children compels her to discontinue her professional occupation.
Only in exceptional cases should this support of motherhood be provided for a longer time than during the three first and most important years of the life of the child.
The funds for this most necessary of all kinds of insurance must be provided in the form of a graduated income tax, graduated so as to make the wealthier classes pay the most, and the unmarried should pay just as much as the married.
In every community the central authorities of this insurance should consist of “boards for the care of children.” The members of these boards should be two-thirds women and one-third men; they should distribute the funds and supervise the care of the infants and older children; in cases in which the mother was not properly fulfilling her duties to the child, they could cut off supplies, or remove the child from the mother’s care.