According to Eberstadt, there are above all two things characteristic of modern civilized marriage—in the first place, the higher rank allotted to the husband in the married state, and, in the second place, the increased demand for prenuptial purity and for conjugal fidelity on the part of the wife. The husband demands from his wife, in addition to his own mastership in the married state, also sexual continence before marriage and unconditional fidelity during marriage. But the husband does not recognize that corresponding duties are imposed on himself.
This difference of judgment regarding extra-conjugal sexual intercourse on the part of husband and wife respectively, depends entirely upon the perfectly sound experience that simultaneous cohabitation on the part of a woman with several men obscures paternity, and therewith the foundations of the family, quite apart from a not uncommon physical injury to the child. This natural difference between man and woman, in respect of sexual intercourse and its consequences, will always endure. A man can simultaneously cohabit with two women without thereby interfering with the formation of a family; but a woman cannot with similar impunity cohabit with two men. It is possible that the demand for the virgin intactness of the wife at the time of marriage is based upon the old experience that by sexual intercourse, and still more by the first conception, certain far-reaching specific changes are induced in the feminine organism, so that the first man impregnates the feminine being for ever in his own sense, and even transmits his influence to children of a second male progenitor. (Cf. in this connexion G. Lomer, “Love and Psychosis,” p. 37.)
“It is not the brutality of man,” says Eberstadt, “which has imposed a higher responsibility upon woman; Nature herself has done this. Nature has endowed man and woman differently in respect of the consequences of sexual intercourse. The fruit of intercourse is entrusted to the woman alone. Now, one who has special responsibilities has also special duties. Certain breaches of conjugal responsibility are more sternly condemned when committed by the man; certain others—especially such as concern care for the offspring—are more severely judged in the wife. The relative positions in respect of sexual intercourse are different in man and in woman, for reasons which are physical and inalterable. Seduction, ill-treatment, abandonment of a wife, and adultery, are punished in the husband by law and custom. The wife, on the other hand, loses her honour simply on account of promiscuous and unregulated intercourse, because Nature herself forbids this intercourse if the material and spiritual tie between mother, father, and child is to persist.”
In accordance with these considerations, Eberstadt holds fast to the demand for “monandry” on the part of the wife; he rejects on principle the idea of sexual equality between man and wife, and relegates the progressive development of marriage exclusively to the spiritual and moral provinces.
Although we recognize the general accuracy of this view, and admit that it is based upon conditions imposed once for all by Nature herself, still we are compelled to regard it as too narrow and one-sided, for it completely overlooks the fact that this demand for monandric love on the part of woman can be fulfilled in association with a freer moulding of woman’s amatory life. We need merely think of the often happy marriages of one woman to several men—nota bene in temporal succession—in which marriages perfectly healthy children have been born to different fathers, in order to see that for the woman of the future a freer moulding of the amatory life is also possible, though admittedly within narrower limits than in the case of man. Just as the mastership of the husband must give place to an equality of authority on the part of husband and wife, considered as two free personalities, so also must the “duplex morality” undergo a revision in the sense above indicated.
In passing, let us remark that all those who proscribe any kind of extra-conjugal intercourse on the part of woman, and who love to brand as an “outcast” any woman who indulges in it, should have their attention directed for a moment to the tremendous fact of politically tolerated, and even legalized, prostitution, which, like a haunting shadow, accompanies the so-called conventional marriage—a shadow growing ever larger the more strictly, exclusively, and narrowly the idea of this “marriage” is conceived.[166]
The civilized ideal of marriage is the lifelong duration of the marriage between two free, independent, mature personalities, who share fully love and life, and by a common life-work further their own advantage and the well-being of their children. But this rarely attained ideal of civilization in no way excludes other forms of marriage, which have a more transient and temporary character, without thereby doing any harm either to the individual or to society.
More than forty years ago Lecky, the English historian of civilization, an investigator whom no one can blame, in respect of the tendency of his writings, for advancing lax ideas regarding sexual morality or for advising libertinage, expressed himself admirably on this subject. In his “History of European Morals” he wrote:
“In these considerations, we have ample grounds for maintaining that the lifelong union of one man and of one woman should be the normal or dominant type of intercourse between the sexes. We can prove that it is on the whole most conducive to the happiness, and also to the moral elevation, of all parties. But beyond this point it would, I conceive, be impossible to advance, except by the assistance of a special revelation! It by no means follows that because this should be the dominant type, it should be the only one, or that the interests of society demand that all connexions should be forced into the same die. Connexions, which were confessedly only for a few years, have always subsisted side by side with permanent marriages; and in periods when public opinion, acquiescing in their propriety, inflicts no excommunication on one or both of the parties, when these partners are not living the demoralizing and degrading life which accompanies the consciousness of guilt, and when proper provision is made for the children who are born, it would be, I believe, impossible to prove, by the light of simple and unassisted reason, that such connexions should be invariably condemned. It is extremely important, both for the happiness and for the moral well-being of men, that lifelong unions should not be effected simply under the imperious prompting of a blind appetite. There are always multitudes who, in the period of their lives when their passions are most strong, are incapable of supporting children in their own social rank, and who would therefore injure society by marrying in it, but are nevertheless perfectly capable of securing an honourable career for their illegitimate children in the lower social sphere to which these would naturally belong (!). Under the conditions I have mentioned these connexions are not injurious, but beneficial, to the weaker partner; they soften the differences of rank, they stimulate social habits, and they do not produce upon character the degrading effect of promiscuous intercourse, or upon society the injurious effects of imprudent marriages, one or other of which will multiply in their absence. In the immense variety of circumstances and characters, cases will always appear in which, on utilitarian grounds, they might seem advisable.”
In ancient Rome these laxer unions were recognized by law as a form of marriage, and this legal recognition protected them, notwithstanding the unlimited freedom of divorce, from social contempt and stigmatization. “Concubinage” was such a second kind of marriage, which was thoroughly recognized and thoroughly honourable. The amica convictrix or uxor gratuita was neither a legitimate wife nor simply a mistress; she had rather the position of women in our own day who have contracted a “morganatic” marriage, a “left-handed marriage.” The only difference was that these ancient unions were more readily dissoluble.