[9] Many thinking men and women now agree with Ellen Key that "marriage is immoral without mutual love," that "love is the sole decisive point of view in questions concerning this relationship," that "it will come to pass that no finely sensitive woman will become a mother except through mutual love," that "everything which is exchanged between husband and wife in their life together can only be the free gift of love, can never be demanded by one or the other as a right." (Key—"The Morality of Woman.")
[10] Foerster, in his "Marriage and the Sex Problem," urges that self-control over sexual passions is the working of the old idea of asceticism, which he believes "should be regarded, not as a negation of nature nor as an attempt to extirpate natural forces, but as practice in the art of self-discipline. Its object should be to show humanity what the human will is capable of performing, to serve as an encouraging example of the conquest of the spirit over the animal self." My personal view is that nothing is gained by confusing self-control and the old asceticism.
[11] Misunderstood, it seems to me, because her philosophy demanding that marriage begin with, exist with, and end with love means freedom in love, and this has been misinterpreted as "free love" in the sense of promiscuity. I know of no writer who stands for marriage on a higher plane than that advocated by Ellen Key. Her lecture on "Morality of Woman" (Seymour Co., Chicago) is a good condensed statement of her largest ideas and a helpful introduction to "Love and Marriage."
III
Organization of Educational Attack on the Sex Problems[ToC]
§ 15. The Task of Sex-education
Pragmatic solution of sex problems.