However, for the honour of humanity, such unions are exceedingly rare: those who buy and sell and are satisfied with a clandestine concubinage, hide the sin in the deep folds of our modern hypocrisy.
Maintained, yes; a husband, no!
A woman, on the contrary, always desires marriage, because she has the pride of proclaiming to all the world, that, notwithstanding her many years and innumerable wrinkles, the wreck of her form which assails her on all sides, she has known how to find a companion at bed and board, who makes her happy.
Man, on the contrary, hides himself on account of the modesty which is never wanting, even in the vilest delinquents; and hiding his shame in the darkness of a clandestine concubinage, hopes to preserve the esteem of men, and the gold he has gained with that reddened face of his. I will persist no longer on this theme because I hope that no young husbands of old women will ever read my book—they would soil it too much with their filthy hands—and because I have a great hope that they are all illiterate.
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However, before leaving this lurid argument, I ought to say, for the love of truth, that ancient and modern history register some exceedingly rare cases of union between old women and young men, in which neither the desires of the flesh nor the thirst for gold entered at all; they treat of intellectual unions in which the concord of souls, the sympathy of hearts and thoughts, the harmony of taste, the affinity of humane propositions, most charmingly unite two persons whom the difference in age would generally divide.
Love is the greatest and most powerful worker of miracles, it is the thaumaturgus of thaumaturgists, and I in the small circle of my experiences know a young man, who has never been able to desire or love a young woman, but adores old women; and if he does not marry any of his venerable friends, it is from fear of ridicule. It is true that in this case we treat of an aberration of sexual instinct to be classed with sodomy and incest; but this pathological nomad is seated in an otherwise normal and perfect brain.
Intellectual unions on the other hand are physiological facts which offend no rights of nature, and ought to be respected and studied, as rare, but most noble phenomena of the human heart.
With regard to the health of those desiring to take a wife, and the health of our companion, I will recommend to them my Elementi d’igiene, and more especially Igiene d’amore, where I have fully treated this vital side of the great problem.