1. The Androgynus, by definition, is a being combining the two sexes. Now marriage does not make of man and woman a single being; each preserves his individuality; your humanitary Androgynus is not therefore worth the trouble of discussion; it is only a fantasy.
2. Every organ supposes a function, it is true, but what facts authorize you to say that the married couple is the organ of justice? Especially when you take the trouble to contradict yourself, in admitting that justice is produced outside of marriage; that there is no need of being married to be just?
The organ of justice, like all other organs, is in each of us; it is the moral sense which comes into action when the point in question is the appreciation of the moral value of an act, or to apply to our own conduct the moral science accepted by the reason of the age.
3. According to you, equilibrium is equality; equality is justice: there is, therefore, a contradiction on your part in exacting of two beings, endowed each with liberty, will and intellect, that they should acknowledge themselves unequal to produce equality.
4. To affirm, as you have done, that progress is the realization of the ideal through free will; that, consequently, the ideal is superior to the reality, and that man progresses because he suffers himself to be guided by it; then to affirm that woman is the ideal of man and that, notwithstanding, she is less and should obey, is a double contradiction. If the point from which you start be admitted, logic would exact that man should permit himself to be guided by woman. But what is the use of discussing a thing that is devoid of meaning to the intellect? If man, according to you, represents in reality strength, reason, justice, woman being the idealization of man, would therefore represent the greatest strength, the loftiest reason, the most sublime justice.... Do you pretend to say this, you who affirm the contrary?
5. To say that marriage is an institution sui generis, a sacrament, a mystery, is to affirm what? And what enlightenment do you fancy that you have given us? Are you fully sure of comprehending yourself better than we comprehend you? I doubt it.
6. Can you demonstrate why, in an association between strong, intelligent men, and weak, narrow-minded men, justice exacts equality, respect for the dignity of all, and declares the slave debased who submits; whilst in the association of man and woman, identical in species according to you, the woman who is always, according to you, the weak and narrow-minded being, would be debased and would become odious by equality?
7. Can you explain also how, in a couple which stands for the producer of justice or equality, this equality would be the death of love and the destruction of the human race?
Grant that such a farrago of nonsense and contradictions presents as many unfathomable mysteries as your marriage.
We will say nothing of divorce: we leave it to modern reason and conscience whether the dissolution of morals and of the family, due in a great measure to the indissolubility of marriage, does not give cause that it should be granted. What reasons do you give, besides, to support your opinions? An absurdity: that the rupture of marriage is sacrilege; an affirmation contradicted by facts: that conscience is immutable.