I know that this, however common, is not a universal case. Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred, at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the consequence? Sometimes—if even rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary anxiety; happy, if before the best hours of life are gone, and its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself, desirable? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacrifice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time of life, “while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say, ‘We have no pleasure in them?’”
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man to be alone. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness, restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are among the least of these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus mortified, assumes an undue importance, and occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature belong to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice[[15]] or disease, or even insanity, has been the result of ascetical mortification. I speak of every day cases; and I am well convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the present state of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative,) yet no man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker, without suffering, more or less, both physically, mentally, and morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the high-minded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heavy responsibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and encourages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the present state of things, save much unhappiness and prevent many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other, and who might wish to marry, would marry early; merely resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had chosen as his companion; and the best years of life, whose pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, or lost through mortification.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject to admit and approve them. The marriage laws might all remain for ever as they are; and yet a moral check to population would be beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, where the knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If young women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity. Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom detected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us dispassionately examine this argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics, Shelley, that “Seduction, which term could have no meaning in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.”[[16]] It matters not how artificial the penality which society has chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock, Public Opinion, enforces the penality, even though it cost the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence is, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who, for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was her misplaced confidence in a villain, is not one whit excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.[[17]] Some poet says,
“The man who lays his hands upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”