SEX AND COMMON-SENSE

BY

A. MAUDE ROYDENASSISTANT PREACHER AT THE CITY TEMPLE, LONDON1918-1920

To MY FRIENDS A. J. S. AND W. H. S. 

PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION

THE NOBILITY OF THE SEX PROBLEM

Of all the problems which the alert and curious mind of modern man isconsidering, none occupies him more than that of the relations of thesexes. This is natural. It touches us all and we have made rather a messof it! We want to know why, and we want to do better. We resent being thesport of circumstance and perhaps we are beginning to understand that thisinstinct of sex which has been so great a cause of suffering and shame andhas been treated as a subject fit only for furtive whispers or silly jokes, is in fact one of the greatest powers in human nature, and that its misuseis indeed "the expense of spirit in a waste of shame. "

It is not the abnormal or the bizarre that interests most of us to-day. Itis not into the by-ways of vice that we seek to penetrate. It is the normalexercise of a normal instinct by normal people that interests us: and it isof this that I have tried to write and speak. The curiosities of depravityare for the physician and the psychologist to discuss and cure. Ordinarymen and women want first to know how to live ordinary human lives ona higher level and after a nobler pattern than before. They want, Ithink, --and I want, --to grow up, but to grow rightly, beautifully, humanely. 

And I believe the first essential is to realize that the sex-problem, as itis called, is the problem of something noble, not something base. It isnot a "disagreeable duty" to know our own natures and understand our owninstincts: it is a joy. The sex-instinct is not "the Fall of Man"; neitheris it an instance of divine wisdom on which moralists could, if they hadonly been consulted in time, greatly have improved. It is a thing noble inessence. It is the development of the higher, not the lower, creation. Itis the asexual which is the lower, and the sexually differentiated which isthe higher organism. 

In the humbler ranks of being there is no sex, and in a sense no death. Theorganism is immortal because--strange paradox--it is not yet alive enoughto die. But as we pass from the lower to the higher, we pass from the lessindividual to the more individual; from asexual to sexual. And with thischange comes that great rhythm by which life and death succeed each other, and death is the _cost_ of life, and to bring life into the world meanssacrifice; and--as we rise higher still--to sustain life means prolongedand altruistic love. This is the history of sex and of procreation, ahistory associated with the rising of humanity in the scale of being, ahistory not so much of his physical as of his spiritual growth. 

By what an irony have we come to associate the instinct of sex with allthat is bestial and shameful!

It has happened because the corruption of the best is the worst. I alwayswant to remind people of this truism when they have _first_ come intocontact with sex in some horrible and shameful way. That is one of thegreatest misfortunes that can happen to any of us, and unfortunately ithappens to many. Boys and girls are allowed to grow up in ignorance. Thegirls perhaps know nothing till they have to know all. The boys learnfrom grimy sources. I was speaking on this subject at one of our greatuniversities the other day, and afterwards many of the men came and talkedto me privately. With hardly a single exception they said to me--"Ourparents told us nothing. We have never heard sex spoken of except in adirty way. "

It is difficult for us, in such a case, to realize that sex is not adirty thing. It _can_ only be realized, I think, by remembering thatthe corruption of the best is the worst, and that we can measure by thehideousness of debased and depraved sexuality, the greatness and the wonderof sex love. 

This is to me the great teaching of Christ about sex. Other greatreligious teachers--some of them very great indeed--have thought and taughtcontemptuously of our animal nature. "He spake of the temple of Hisbody. " That is sublime! That is the whole secret. And that is why vice ishorrible: because it is the desecration, not of a hovel or a shop, of amarketplace or a place of business: but of a temple. 

Christ, I am told, told us nothing about sex. He did not need to tell usanything but "Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. "

It is my belief that in appealing to an American public I shall beappealing to those who are ready to face the subject of the relationsof the sexes with perfect frankness and with courage. America is still acountry of experiments--a country adventurous enough to make experiments, and to risk making mistakes. That is the only spirit in which it ispossible to make anything at all; and though the mistakes we may make in amatter which so deeply and tragically affects human life must be serious, and we must with corresponding seriousness weigh every word we say, andtake the trouble to think harder and more honestly than we have perhapsever thought before; yet I believe that we must above all have courage. Human nature is sound and men and women do, on the whole, want to do whatis right. The great impulse of sex is part of our very being, and it is notbase. Passion is essentially noble and those who are incapable of it arethe weaker, not the stronger. If then we have light to direct our course, we shall learn to direct it wisely, for indeed this is our desire. 

Such is my creed. My prayer is for "more light. " And my desire to take mypart in spreading it. 

A. MAUDE ROYDEN. 

April, 1922. 

PREFACE TO THIRD ENGLISH EDITION

In the first editions of this book a certain passage on our Lord's humanity(see p. 40) has, I find, been misunderstood by some. They have supposedit to imply a suggestion that our Lord was not only "tempted in all thingslike as we are"--which I firmly believe--but that He fell--which is tome unthinkable. I hope I have made this perfectly clear in the presentedition. 

Beyond this there are few alterations except the correction of some veryabominable errors of style. The book still bears the impress of the speakerrather than the writer, and as such I must leave it. 

With regard to the chapter called "Common-Sense and Divorce Law Reform, "which now has been added to this edition, I wish to express my indebtednessto Dr. Jane Walker and the group of "inquirers" over which she presided, for the memorandum on Divorce which they drew up and published in the_Challenge_, of July, 1918. I am not in complete agreement with their viewson all points, but readers of their memorandum will easily see whence Iderived my view as a whole. 

A. M. R. 

_January_, 1922. 

FOREWORD

Chapters I. To VII. Of this book were originally given in the form ofaddresses, in the Kensington Town Hall, on successive Sunday evenings in1921. They were taken down _verbatim_, but have been revised and even tosome extent rewritten. I do not like reports in print of things spoken, forspeaking and writing are two different arts, and what is right when it isspoken is almost inevitably wrong when it is written. (I refer, of course, to style, not matter. ) If I had had time, I should have re-shaped what Ihave said, though it would have been the manner only and not the substancethat would have been changed. This has been impossible, and I can thereforeonly explain that the defective form and the occasional repetition whichthe reader cannot fail to mark were forced upon me by the fact that I wasspeaking--not writing--and that I felt bound to make each address, as faras possible, complete and comprehensible in itself. 

Chapters VIII. , IX. , and X. Were added later to meet various difficulties, questions, or criticisms evoked by the addresses which form the earlierpart of the book. 

I desire to record my gratitude to Mr. And Mrs. Douglas Sladen, but forwhose active help and encouragement I should hardly have proceeded with thebook: to Miss Irene Taylor, who, out of personal friendship for me, tookdown, Sunday after Sunday, all that I said, with an accuracy which, with aconsiderable experience of reporters, I have only once known equalledand never surpassed: and to my congregation, whose questions and speechesduring the discussion that followed each address greatly helped my work. 

A. MAUDE ROYDEN. 

_September_, 1921. 

CONTENTS

I. --THE OLD PROBLEM INTENSIFIED BY THE DISPROPORTION OF THE SEXES

II. --A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE UNMARRIED

III. --CONSIDERATION OF OTHER SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM OF THE DISPROPORTION OF THE SEXES

IV. --THE TRUE BASIS OF MORALITY

V. --THE MORAL STANDARD OF THE FUTURE: WHAT SHOULD IT BE?

VI. --A PLEA FOR LIGHT

VII. --FRIENDSHIP

VIII. --MISUNDERSTANDINGS

IX. --FURTHER MISUNDERSTANDINGS: THE NEED FOR SEX CHIVALRY

X. --"THE SIN OF THE BRIDEGROOM"

XI. --COMMON-SENSE AND DIVORCE LAW REFORM

I

THE OLD PROBLEM INTENSIFIED BY THE DISPROPORTION OF THE SEXES

 "There has arisen in society, a figure which is certainly the most mournful, and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed for the most part to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every eye as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their untempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and despair. She remains while creeds and civilisations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people. "

 Lecky's _History of European Morals_, Chap. V. 

One of the many problems which have been intensified by the war is theproblem of the relations of the sexes. Difficult as it has always been, the difficulty inevitably becomes greater when there is a gravedisproportion--an excess in numbers of one sex over the other. And in thiscountry, whereas there was a disproportion of something like a million morewomen than men before the war broke out, there is now a disproportion ofabout one and three-quarter millions. 

This accidental and (I believe) temporary difficulty--a difficulty not"natural" and necessary to human life, but artificial and peculiar tocertain conditions which may be altered--does not, of course, create theproblem we have to deal with: but it forces that problem on our attentionby sheer force of suffering inflicted on so large a scale. It compels usto ask ourselves on what we base, and at what we value the moral standardwhich, if it is to be preserved, must mean a tremendous sacrifice on thepart of so large a number of women as is involved in their acceptance oflife-long celibacy. 

There is no subject on which it is more difficult to find a commonground than this. To some people it seems to be immoral even to ask thequestion--on what are your moral standards based? To others what we callour "moral standards" are so obviously absurd and "unnatural" that thequestion has for them no meaning. And between these extremes there are somany varieties of opinion that one can take nothing as generally acceptedby men and women. 

I want, therefore, to leave aside the ordinary conventions--not becausethey are necessarily bad, but because they are not to my purpose, whichis to discover whether there is a real morality which we can justifyto ourselves without appeal to any authority however great, or to anytradition however highly esteemed: a morality which is based on the realneeds, the real aspirations of humanity itself. 

And I begin by calling your attention to the morality of Jesus of Nazareth, not because He is divine, but because He was a great master of the humanheart, and more than others "knew what was in man. "

You will notice at once the height of His morality--the depth of His mercy. He demands such purity of spirit, such loyalty of heart, that the mostloyal of His disciples shrank appalled: "Whosoever shall look upon a womanto lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. "... "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committethadultery against her. " From such a standard Christ's disciples shrank--"Ifthe case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. " Andone evangelist almost certainly inserted in this absolute prohibition theexception--"Saving for the cause of fornication"--feeling that the Master_could_ not have meant anything else. But, in fact, there is little doubtthat Jesus did both say and mean that marriage demanded lifelong fidelityon either side; just as He really taught that a lustful thought wasadultery in the sight of God. 

But if Christendom has been staggered at the austerity of Christ's moralitynot less has it been shocked at the quality of His mercy. His gentleness tothe sensual sinner has been compared, with amazement, to the sternness ofHis attitude to the sins of the spirit. Not the profligate or the harlotbut the Pharisee and the scribe were those who provoked His sternestrebukes. And perhaps the most characteristic of all His dealings with suchmatters was that incident of the woman taken in adultery, when He at oncereaffirmed the need of absolute chastity for men--demand undreamed of bythe woman's accusers--and put aside the right to condemn which in all thatassembly He alone could claim--"Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin nomore. "

Having then in mind this most lofty and compassionate of moralists, let usturn to the problem of to-day. Here are nearly 2, 000, 000 women who, if theaustere demands of faithful monogamy are to be obeyed, will never knowthe satisfaction of a certain physical need. Now it is the desire of everynormal human being to satisfy all his instincts. And this is as true ofwomen as of men. What I have to say applies indeed to many men to-day, formany men are unable to marry because they have been so broken by war--orotherwise--so shattered or maimed or impoverished that they do not feeljustified in marrying. But I want to emphasize with all my power that thehardness of enforced celibacy presses as cruelly on women as on men. Women, difficult as some people find it to believe, are human beings; and becausewomen are so, they want work, and interest, and love--both given andreceived--and children, and, in short, the satisfaction of every _human_need. The idea that existence is enough for them--that they need not work, and do not suffer if their sex instincts are repressed or starved--is aconvenient but most cruel illusion. People often tell me, and nearly alwaysunconsciously _assume_, that women have no sex hunger--no sex needs at alluntil they marry, and that even then their need is not at all so imperiousas men's, or so hard to repress. Such people are nearly always either men, or women who have married young and happily and borne many children, andhad a very full and interesting outside life as well! Such women willassure me with the utmost complacency that the sex-instincts of a woman arevery easily controllable, and that it is preposterous to speak as if theirrepression really cost very much. I think with bitterness of that age-longrepression, of its unmeasured cost; of the gibe contained in the phrase"old maid, " with all its implication of a narrowed life, a prudish mind, an acrid tongue, an embittered disposition. I think of the imbecilities inwhich the repressed instinct has sought its pitiful baffled release, ofthe adulation lavished on a parrot, a cat, a lap-dog; or of the emotional"religion, " the parson-worship, on which every fool is clever enoughto sharpen his wit. And all these cramped and stultified lives have notavailed to make the world understand that women have had to pay for theircelibacy!

 "The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth-point goes. The butterfly beside the road Preaches contentment to that toad. "

Modern psychology is lifting the veil to-day from the suffering whichrepression causes. It is a pity that its most brilliant exponents shouldascribe to a single instinct--however potent--_all_ the ills that afflictmankind, for such one-sidedness defeats its own object; but, at least, themodern psychologist is trying to show us "exactly where each tooth-pointgoes" in the repression of the sex-instinct among women as among men. Nordoes the fact that the _tabu_ of society has actually in many cases enableda woman to inhibit the development of her own nature, obviate the fact thatshe does so at great cost, even when she least understands what she does. 

I affirm this, and with insistence, that the normal--the average--womansacrifices a great deal if she accepts life-long celibacy. She sacrificesquite as much as a man. In those cases--too frequent even now--where sheis not educated or expected to earn her own living or to have a career, Imaintain that she loses more than a man who is expected to work. I do notsay, and I do not believe, that passion in a woman is the same as in a man, or that they suffer in precisely the same way. I believe indeed that if menand women understood each other a little better they would hurt each othera good deal less. But I am persuaded that we shall not even begin to reacha wise morality so long as we persist in basing our demands on the imbecileassumption that women suffer nothing or little by the unsatisfaction of thesex side of their nature. 

I emphasize this point here, because it is involved in the present stateof affairs. I have reminded you that there are nearly 2, 000, 000 womenwhose lives are to be considered. If the number were quite small, it mightcomfortably be assumed that the women who remained unmarried were thosewho, in any case, had no vocation for marriage. For it is, of course, truethat there are such women, as there are such men. The normal man and womandesire marriage and parenthood, and are fitted for it; but there are alwaysexceptions who either do not desire it, or, desiring it, feel bound toput it aside at the call of some other vocation, which they feel tobe supremely theirs, and which is not compatible with marriage. Theysacrifice; but they do so joyfully, not for repression, but for a differentlife, another vocation. And where the number of the unmarried is small, it may without essential injustice be supposed that these are the naturalcelibates. 

But you cannot suppose that of 2, 000, 000! Among the number how many areyoung widows, girls engaged to marry men now dead, and how many whose_natural_ vocation was marriage, motherhood, home-making, and all that ismeant by such things as these? If this be the normal vocation of the normalwoman how many of these have been deprived of all that seemed to them tomake life worth living? Is it astonishing if they rebel? If they determineto snatch at anything that yet lies in their grasp? If they affirm "theright to motherhood" when they want children, or the satisfaction of thesex-instinct when that need becomes imperious?

If we are to say to such women--"The normal life is denied to you, notby your fault, or because you do not need it, but because we haveunfortunately been obliged to sacrifice in war the men who should have beenyour mates: and we now invite you in the interests of morality to accept asyour lot perpetual virginity"--it is not difficult to imagine their reply:"What is this morality in whose interests you ask so huge a sacrifice? Isit worth such a price? Is the whole community willing to pay it, or is itexacted from us alone? And on what, in the end, is it based?"

The answer to this question is often given to the young, even before thequestion arises; and it is given in the lives of men and women. The livesof those who are nobly celibate, or nobly married, are in themselves somoving a plea, that few who have been closely in contact with them are leftuntouched. It is the ideal realized that is the best defence of the ideal. But let us admit that, too often, the actual marriage is a very pitifulcomment on our morality, and celibacy either a mere pretence or a verymean and pinched reality. What answer then shall we give to the risinggeneration which questions us--"On what do you base your moral standards?"

I do not doubt that I am voicing the experience of many if I say that whenI first began to ask such questions I met first of all with extreme horrorat such a question being put at all; and that, when I persisted, I foundthat it was almost entirely by women that the cost was to be borne. Womenwere to conform strictly to the moral standard (whose basis I was notquestioning), but men need not and, generally speaking, did not. I reasonedthat if men need not be chaste there must exist at least a certain numberof women who _could_ not be so, and that this reduced "morality" to afarce. I soon found that it was not a farce but a tragedy. These women wereadmittedly necessary but outcast. They were the safeguards of the rest. Iwish that men would try for a moment to put themselves in the place of ayoung girl who learns for the first time that prostitution is the safeguardof the virtuous! I think that they would never again wonder at therejection of such "moral standards" by the rising generation of women. Youwould only wonder why women had tolerated such a combination of follyand cruelty so long. You would not ask them to accept or to suffer for a"standard" like that. 

Again, this morality for which (it is affirmed) society is prepared to payso horrible a price--what is it? A physical condition! A state of body, which any man can destroy! an "honour" which lies at the mercy of aruffian! A woman raped is a woman "dishonoured. " Are her "morals" then atthe mercy of another person? Is "morality" not a state of mind or of will, a spiritual passion for purity, but a material, physical thing which isonly hers as long as no one snatches it from her? How senseless! How false!

When you ask a woman to-day to make the great sacrifice "in the interestsof morality, " you must offer her a morality that _is_ moral--a moralitywhose justice and humanity move her to a response; not a morality whichoffends every instinct of justice and reality the moment the person to whomit is offered understands what it means. For what is asked to-day is toooften that women should sacrifice themselves for the convenience of otherpeople--of a hypocritical society which preaches a morality as senseless asit is base. 

When older people tell me that the young seem to have "no morals at all, "I ask myself whether the repudiation of much that has been called moralitywas not, after all, a necessity, if we are to advance at all. When Ireflect on, for example, Lecky's "History of European Morals, " andremember that it was not a profligate or a hedonist, but an honourable andrespectable member of a civilized society, who proclaimed the prostitutethe high priestess of humanity--the protectress of the purity of a thousandhomes[A]--I am prepared to say that to have "no morals at all" is betterthan to accept such infamy and _call_ it "morals"; as it is better to be anagnostic or an atheist than to worship a devil--to have no standard than tosay: "Evil be thou my good. "

[Footnote A: Lecky's "History of European Morals. " Chap. V. ]

And I believe that the tendency to reject all moral standards is largelydue to the refusal of an older generation to examine and to justify its ownstandard. To refuse to discuss or defend it--to affirm that it is beyonddebate and not to be questioned without depravity is merely to produce theimpression that it is beyond defence and impossible to justify. It is notsurprising that people begin to say: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrowwe die. Let us experience all we desire. Let us act like the normal healthycreatures that we are. Let us ignore the flimsy barriers a corrupt andimbecile moral code would erect between us and what we desire. "

That is the point of view of many men and women to-day. That is what theabsence of a just and reasoned moral code has led to. And I am prepared, in spite of all protests, to affirm that it is not a step backward, butforward; that promiscuity is not as vile as prostitution--a prostitutionwhich has been accepted, which has been _defended_ by Christian people! Itis less horrible for a human being to have the morals of an animal than themorals of a devil. We have to begin by rejecting the morality of fiends, and we begin, even if the immediate effect is more terrifying to themoralist than the old hidden-up devilry that lent itself to an easierdisguise. 

So I believe. And so the present chaos, though it has its elements ofanxiety and its obvious dangers, leaves me unafraid. I am utterly persuadedthat we shall win through to solid ground. 

I believe that the long groping of humanity after a sex-relationship whichshall be stable, equal, passionate, disciplined, pure, is the groping of aright instinct, the hunger of a real need; and that we must--we shall--findits answer. With many failures, with many reactions, it can, I think, beseen, as history unrolls its record and civilizations rise and fall, that the movement of humanity has been towards a more stable, a moreresponsible, a more disciplined, but not less passionate form ofrelationship between men and women. Let us not forget that great andpregnant fact when we reject the immoral arguments, the cruelties andinjustices, with which society has sought either to justify its ideals orto conceal its horrible failures. For if we can thus distinguish, and goforward, this generation will not have suffered in vain. It will, on thecontrary, make of its suffering the spur which shall force us all onwardand upward. It will by its courage and its honesty give to the world atruer and a nobler moral standard than the world has ever accepted yet. 

II

A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE UNMARRIED

 Jesus said, "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. " (St. Luke ix. 58. )

In the last chapter I tried to deal with the actual problem created inthis country by the disproportion of the sexes--the fact that there are, roughly, one and three-quarters to two million more women than men in thiscountry; and I was obliged to confine myself simply to stating the problem, which, to my mind, is very greatly intensified by the fact, generallyignored, that the sex needs of a woman are just as imperative, theirsuppression just as hard to bear, as a man's; that woman is fully as humanas man, and that parenthood and loverhood and all that the satisfaction ofthe sex instinct means to him, it means also to her. I do not affirm thatthe difficulty of self-control or the suffering of abstinence presentsitself to men and women in just the same way; I am sure it does not. I donot under-estimate the difference. But I do emphasize the fact that, as faras I am able to judge, the suffering is _equal_, although it is differentin character. Therefore, the denial of marriage to a very large numberof women means that, although some women, like some men, are naturallycelibate, when so great a number of women are denied the possibility ofmarriage, we must take it for granted that among them the average will notbe natural celibates, but women who suffer a very great loss if they do notmarry. 

Now I want to add that this disproportion of the sexes is quite artificial, and, therefore, should be temporary. From some of the letters I havereceived I gather that people imagine that there has always been a verymuch larger number of women than men, and not only in this country, butthroughout the world; and that, therefore, we ought to shape our customsand our moral standards with this disproportion in mind as a permanentfact. I want to point out that this is not the case. The causes of thepresent excess of women over men in this country are quite artificial. As amatter of fact, there are more boys born in this country than girls--about107 to 100 is the ratio--but the boys die in very much larger numbersduring the first twelve months of their life, because they are moredifficult to rear in bad conditions. But bad conditions are not inevitable!These babies die from preventable causes. It is not within the Providenceof God that these children _must_ die, nor is it a necessity of humannature. It is due to preventable causes, and is, therefore, as I say, artificial. Again, we have a very large empire, stretching out to theremoter parts of the world, and to that empire men go out in very muchlarger numbers than women, so that the disproportion here is, in part, thereverse side of the disproportion in the great Overseas Dominions, wherethere are more men than women. But that, too, is a purely artificial andtemporary state of things, which has nothing to do with the fundamentalconditions of human society. Finally, of course, there is the war, whichagain creates an artificial state of affairs, by killing enormous numbersof young men, just at the age--between twenty and forty or forty-five--whenthey should be growing into manhood, and becoming husbands and fathers. That again is artificial. 

The reason why I emphasize this is because I feel very strongly that wemust not remodel our whole society, and recreate our moral standards, tomeet a passing and an artificial state of affairs. That is my answer tothose who seem to think the solution of all our difficulties is to befound in the adoption of polygamy. Now polygamy is a perfectly respectableinstitution in a large number of countries. It is quite an old idea. It hasnot occurred to people for the first time between last Sunday and to-day. It has been discussed in the Sunday newspapers, which are the most widelyread of any papers issued by the press. My answer to it is that such anexpedient would be just an instance of this remodelling of your whole moralstandard to meet an entirely artificial state of affairs. Polygamy is notpossible and never has been possible on a great scale, because in hardlyany country, certainly not in the world as a whole, is there a greatdisproportion of the sexes under ordinary circumstances. The idea mostpeople appear to have about it is that in some parts of the world, likeIndia and China, every man is blessed with three or four wives. It is aperfectly fantastic picture. The balance of the sexes--on the whole--isequal. It is, therefore, a physical impossibility for polygamy to be auniversal custom. It cannot be practised, and has never been practised, except among the rich--a small class always. Now that surely makesit obvious that it is not a real solution. It might meet a temporarydifficulty; but is it reasonable, is it statesmanlike, to alter our entiremoral standard merely to tide over a temporary difficulty; to meet a stateof affairs which is purely artificial? I think that morals go deeper, and should be based on some fundamental need, rather than on a purelyartificial need created by a passing difficulty, however great thatdifficulty may be at the time. I do not, therefore, wish to dwell on otherbetter but temporary solutions, such as emigration. I do think that this isa solution which would ease the situation to some extent, and in a normaland right way, because the disproportion in the Overseas Dominions, wherethe balance is the other way, and there are more men than women, is everywhit as unwholesome and as disastrous as is the disproportion of women inthis country. Consequently, from the point of view of both men and women, I think that emigration is a thing that ought to be considered and helpedforward very much more than it is; but there, again, this is only atemporary solution. We are trying to arrive at some moral position which isbased on the permanent needs and the real nature of human beings. 

It has become almost a habit with me to feel that the real solution ofevery problem can be found, by those people who are hurt by it, if theywill take hold of life _where it hurts_, and find out, not how theythemselves can escape from that hurt, but how they can prevent thathurt from becoming a permanent factor in the lives of their brothers andsisters. Now, the point at which this problem hurts many of us lies inthis, that women have been taught, by a curious paradox, first of all thatthey ought not to have any sexual feeling, any hunger, any appetite at allon that side of their natures; and secondly, that they exist solely to meetthat particular physical need in men. The idea that woman was created, notlike man, for the glory of God, but for the convenience of man, has greatlyembittered and poisoned public opinion on this subject. Women are taught, almost from the moment they come into the world, that their chief end inexistence is to be, in some way or other, a "helpmeet" for man. I remember, in the early days of the Suffrage struggle, hearing people, and women quiteas often as men--more often I think--urging certain rights and principlesfor women, on the ground that they were meant to be the helpmeets of man. They used to quote the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis to show thatwomen were created for that purpose; and it was considered a very loftykind of appeal. I think it never failed to evoke the applause of those whomyou will forgive my calling a little sentimental. I do not think it everfailed to arouse in myself a deep sense of resentment. The writer of the_first_ chapter of the Book of Genesis speaks of humanity as being createdin the image and likeness of God, "_male and female created He them_";there is no suggestion here that one sex was simply to be the servant ofthe other. That occurs in the second chapter. The idea is persistent; itis, of course, much older than the Old Testament. And it persists rightinto the New Testament, where you hear a man of the intellectual andspiritual calibre of St. Paul affirm that man was made for God, but womanwas made for man. Down the ages this message has come, and women havebeen taught to consider themselves, and men to consider them, as primarilyinstruments of sex, of marriage and motherhood, or of other forms ofserving men's needs. You do not find that feeling in Christ's attitudetowards women. When people speak as though it were one of the weaknessesof Christianity that it appeals, or seems to appeal, more to women thanto men, I ask you to believe that sometimes consciously, often quiteunconsciously, women respond with passionate gratitude to Christ, becauseof His sublime teaching that every human soul was made for God, and that nopart or section of society, no race, no class, and no sex, was made for theconvenience of another. 

I want then to combat with all my power this ancient but un-Christlikebelief that women miss their object in life if they are not wives andmothers. It may seem something of a contradiction that I should in aprevious chapter so have emphasized the need of women for the satisfactionof their sexual nature, and now be arguing that we must not assumethat they have no right to exist if they do _not_ meet this particularsatisfaction; but I think you will realize that it is not a paradox when Iask you to consider for a moment what your attitude to men on this subjectis. Many people hold that a man's passions are a tremendous factor in hisexistence, so strong that he must always be forgiven if he cannot controlthem; so strong that, on the whole, it is hardly to be expected that heshould control them. But yet, if a man does not marry, or if there are moremen than women in a certain country--as, for instance, in Australia, orWestern Canada to-day--nobody speaks of those men as though they were"superfluous, " as though they had ceased to have any real object forexistence. People will realize that it is a hardship--a very greathardship--in their lives; they will be apt to excuse them for taking whatthey can get if they cannot get everything; but no human being talks of the"superfluous men" in any of our great Dominions. People always realize thata man has a _human_ value, and that, however great the urgency of thesex side of him, he still is a human being, he still has his value in theworld, even supposing that he should live and die celibate. If you will tryto put your mind into that attitude towards women, you will, I think, seethat it is not a paradox to say that a woman may and does suffer if shedoes not fulfil the whole of her nature, and yet that it is a monstrousfallacy to affirm that, because of that, she ceases to have any reason forexistence; that she is a futile life, a person who does not really "count. "Sex is a great and a mighty power, but it is something more than the meresatisfaction of a physical need. It is part of the great rhythm of life, running through all the higher creation; it is the instinct to create, going forth in the power of love, proving to us day by day that only lovecan create, bringing us nearer to the Divine Power, Who is Love, and Whocreated the heaven and the earth. In spite of our horrible thoughts aboutsex, our hideous sins against it, I do not think that in anything God hasmade man more "in His image and likeness" than when He gave him the power, through love, to create life. That is a power that makes us akin to GodHimself, and the instinct of sex is not a grimy secret between two rathershamed human beings, but a great impulse of life and love--yes, even, atthe height of it, an instinct to sacrifice in order that life may comeinto the world; it is a great bond of union between human beings; it is thesecret of existence, the secret of the meaning of life; that which is tothe nature of man like the sense of music to the musician, of beauty to theartist, of insight to the poet. A man may have no ear for music, and yet bea good and noble man; but who will deny that he lacks something because hehas it not? A man may have no sense of beauty, but he is not, therefore, adepraved, immoral person; yet does he not stand outside some of the greatsecrets of life? So, when this still deeper instinct of creative love isnot yours, do not congratulate yourselves, or pride yourselves that youhave never felt it. For it means that you stand outside the great communionof the life of the world; it means that for you some of the music of theuniverse is dumb, and some of the beauty of the universe dark. 

Yet how long have women been taught that this divine impulse of creationis something base! Base even in a man, belonging to his lower nature; stillmore deplorable in a woman, a thing to be ashamed of, a thing to crush downand suppress, a thing you would not confess to your nearest friends, ordiscuss with your physician. To speak of it even to your own mother wouldbe to be met with the averted look and word of disapproval. If, as aconsequence of this, women have inhibited their own nature, so thatmany women have created in their minds a kind of tone-deafness, acolour-blindness to this side of life, does that not seem to you a tragedy?To have so great and wonderful a thing in your nature and to suppress it asthough it were something shameful and weak? Do you wonder if the term"old maid" has become synonym for everything that is narrow, and hard, andprudish and repressive? Do you wonder that the girls of this generation, confronted with the choice between such an attitude towards life as that, and its opposite--willingness to give oneself to anyone, to take all thatone can get, because life refuses so much that one had hoped for--do youwonder that they often choose the second alternative? Does it seem to youso astonishing that girls, who think more than they used to, who feel thatthere is nothing to be ashamed of in the divine impulse of their creativewomanhood, should rather take what they can get than accept that cruel, cramped attitude of sheer repression which has been all too often theironly choice in the past? Is it really fair to say to them that theirmoral standards are going down, that they have no sense now of moralityor self-respect? I tell you that if one has to make a choice between thesuppression of one half--and that so beautiful a half--of human nature, andits degradation, I would not sit in judgment on those who chose either way. 

But there is another possibility. You can repress, and God knows how manyboys and young men, how many young women and girls have struggled to do so, and are trying to do so to-day, with a sense always of guilt and shamein their minds, laying up mental difficulties for themselves, thepsychologists tell us, by this repression. You know the type; you know thekind of person who becomes hard and narrow and uncomprehending. That isone type. You can read it in their faces. The pinched look, the crampedmentality reflects itself in the body and in the face. And then there isthe other type, those who have rejected this attitude towards life, denyingthat there is anything to be ashamed of in the natural impulse of theirsex, or cause for regret if they give rein to that whose repression doesso much harm, who frankly fling away the idea of self-control, becauserepression has seemed such a disastrous method of self-control. You can seeit in their faces also; in the gradual demoralization of their nature. The rake on one hand, the prude on the other, represent the ultimateconsequence of the process I am trying to describe. Many people have markedon their souls, if not on their faces, one or other of these ways of life. They have not, perhaps, gone far, they may have gone but a little way inone direction or the other; but the mark on the soul remains all the same. And when you see the extreme result, the prude on one side, the rake onthe other, do you not begin to desire a better way? To ask yourself whetherthere is not a third choice before you?

I believe there is; and the choice is this: It is neither the repressionnor the degradation, but _transformation_ of the sex side of our nature. I will take as the supreme example of that transformation the figure ofChrist Himself--Christ who had neither wife nor child--St. Francis ofAssisi, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Theresa of Spain. Four of the greatestfigures--One of them supreme--who were not "natural celibates" in the sensethat implies that they did not have surging through them the divine impulseof creative love; for these are the greatest lovers the world has everseen, and compared with theirs even the great love of one man for onewoman, one woman for one man, is the lesser thing. But these great figuresin human history are those on whose hearts Humanity itself made such aclaim that it became impossible for them to give to one what was claimed byall the world. You will see that this is not a denial of creative love, forno one in the world has so loved the world as these. They are the beaconsof humanity in this matter of love, and how are they, shall we say, howare they not fathers and mothers, whose spiritual children are all over theworld? Have they not born into the world with travail of soul, the souls ofmen and women? These great Lovers of Humanity were not lacking in passion;had they been they could not have moved the world; but their passion wastransmuted to the service of Humanity itself, for nothing else was greator wide enough for such a love. Does anyone suppose that it was a mereinstinct of asceticism that drove St. Francis to make out of snow, coldimages of wife and child? Was it not rather the sudden resurgent desire ofthe greatest of the saints for some more humanly warm affection, somethingmore individual, something that nestles more closely to the heart, thanthis great service of Humanity? And in a savage irony he mocks his pain. "There are thy children, there is thy wife, " says St. Francis, and his cryis not the answer of the spirit to a lustful temptation: it was the cry ofa lonely human heart for the human happiness of wife and children and home. Aye, and I would claim that Our Lord Himself had this desire. For I cannotdoubt that in that glorious young manhood of His, so full of power andsympathy and love, this agony of longing sometimes swept over Him. He whosevitality and power were such that He hardly knew fatigue, who was so closea friend, so much loved and sought by women, so tender to little children, so young, so strong--is it not certain that He was indeed "tempted in allthings like as we are"? How could one so physically vital, so humanly anddivinely full of love, escape the conflict? That He conquered we know; thatHe suffered we cannot doubt. All His perfect humanity speaks to us in thatlonely cry: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, butthe Son of Man hath not where to lay His head. " Do not dream, those of youwho may have to struggle with your own nature, do not dream that Christhas not been there with you, that He had nothing to feel or to suffer. Howwould He have developed that spiritual power, how would He have become sogreat a Lover of the world if He knew nothing of that side of life? But He, and His greatest followers--St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine and St. Theresa, and countless others who have followed them--learned to transmutethat great creative force, disdained both choices which I set before you, finding a nobler and more glorious way. These would neither repress thisgreat impulse, nor dissipate it, but so used it for the service of man thatthere is in all the history of man no life more rich, more human, more fullof love, more full of creation, or more full of power, than the lives ofthese celibate men and women, who learned from Christ how they could liveand love. 

It is not easy for men and women this way, but it is possible. It ispossible, and it is glorious; and, in its degree, the need for it comes toeveryone. Do not imagine that it is not needed in marriage as well asout of marriage. Every married lover will tell you that if his love is toremain what it was in the beginning--if it is rather to grow in power andbeauty--he also must be able gradually to transmute his love in such a waythat the spirit dominates the flesh more and more, and that the physicalside of marriage becomes simply an expression of the love of the spirit, the perfect final expression, the sacrament of love. Do not imagine thatthis is not needed, this effort, and this power, by every human being whodesires to be human in his love, and not something less than human. And tothose to whom the need comes in its sternest form, I will not pretend fora moment that it is not hard. Nay, I will prophesy to you that if you do sochoose to serve the world, it will to all of you sometimes seem too hard. With Christ, with St. Francis, your human nature will sometimes assertitself. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but theSon of Man"--the Servant of Humanity--has no such joy. But of whatever lifeyou choose, that is sometimes true. To the finest spirit in marriage therecomes sometimes the thought that, but for this great claim, he might haveundertaken some adventure, might have answered some call, which now hecannot answer. Does that mean that he regrets his choice? No, not fora moment! It only means that human nature is so rich and so varied thatwhatever life you forego will sometimes seem to you the better choice. Youwill think, for a moment, that you might have chosen differently. If thathappened to St. Francis, believe me, it will happen to you. But yet, is itnot a heroic path that I point out to you? Is it not possible that to thisgeneration heroism may be possible in such a way, on such a scale, that youwill leave this world nobler in moral stature because of the hardnesswhich you endured, the choice that you made? Women, to whom this comes homespecially at this time, may it not be that you, by taking this way, willbecome the mothers in spirit of women in a happier generation, on whom willnever again be imposed our cramped, stifling, sub-human conception of whatwomen ought to be? You will show to the world not only that the individualwoman of genius may have a value to Humanity beyond her sex, but that everywoman has that value. In solving your own problem, and taking hold of lifewhere most it hurts you, you will end by making a moral standard nobler, ahumanity richer and more human, a womanhood freer, greater, more Christlikethan it was. And future generations shall rise up and call you blessed. 

III

CONSIDERATION OF OTHER SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM OF THE DISPROPORTION OF THESEXES

 "My spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given. "

 Shelley: "Adonais. "

Let us now move away from that aspect of the moral problem whichhas concerned us hitherto--that of the difficulties created by thedisproportion of the sexes at this time and in this country--and considerthe problem as it presents itself under more normal conditions. For evenin ages and in countries where there are an equal number of men and womenthere are difficulties in their relations with one another, and a "moralproblem. "

People ask, for example, whether sex-relationships should be governed bylaw at all; whether they should continue in any given case when passion hasdied, or when love (which is more than passion) has gone. Should love everbe other than perfectly free, and is not the attempt to bind it essentially"immoral"? Should it ever be exclusive or proprietary? Is not the "moralproblem" really created, not by human nature, but by the attempt to bindwhat cannot be bound and to coerce what should be free?

The answer given to such questions is often to-day on the side of what iscalled, mistakenly, I think, "free love. " And in considering this answer, I want to remind you that it is often given by people who are most sincere, most idealistic, in their own lives and in their own love. Indeed it hasoften been pointed out that it is at times of great spiritual exaltationand fervour that the cult of "free love" is most likely to find adherents. The great principle that "love is the fulfilling of the law" is held witha fervour which makes any question as to what love is, and how much itinvolves, seem half-hearted and cold. Those who preach this doctrine remindus--and very justly--of the weakness and insincerity of the "orthodox"moral standard, whether it is enforced by law or by custom. They revoltagainst the proprietary and possessive view of marriage as giving awoman "a hold over her husband" when he has "grown tired of her, " or asjustifying a man in enforcing upon his wife the rights which only lovemakes right, when she has grown tired of him. I appeal, therefore, to thoseto whom the dispassionate discussion of "free love" seems quite outrageous, to remember that there are those to whom this teaching is _not_ a mereexcuse for licence, but an attempt to reach something lovelier and noblerthan the present moral code, whose failures and insincerities no thinkingperson can ignore. 

In considering this view, I want first to point out that although to haveno legal or enforceable tie in sex-relationships seems on the surface muchthe simplest and easiest way to arrange life, although permanent monogamousmarriage is exceedingly difficult and inconvenient, yet the movement ofhumanity does seem to have been on the whole in that direction. It is, ofcourse, untrue to say that among primitive peoples there is anything thatcan fairly be called promiscuity. Historians and anthropologists havetaught us that among all peoples, however barbarous, there are conventions, sanctions, tabus, by which the relations of men and women are regulated. The customs of such people may seem to us mere licence; but they are notso. And some of the customs of more "civilized" countries are at least ashorrifying to the "savage" as his can be to us. Nevertheless, it is trueto say that as civilization advances, and especially where the position ofwomen improves, the movement has been towards a more stable and exclusiveform of marriage. We grope uncertainly towards it: we fail atrociously. Yetwe do not abandon an ideal which asks so much of human nature that humannature is continually invoked to prove its impossibility. 

Why have we persisted? It is idle to speak of monogamy as though it werea senseless rule imposed on unfortunate humanity by some all-powerfulSuperman. We have imposed it on ourselves. It is our doing. Why have wedone it? Surely because, in spite of its alleged "impossibility, " itsobvious inconveniences, there is some need in human nature which demands apermanent and a stable sex relationship to meet it. 

I believe that there is something in our human nature which desiresstability in its relations with other human beings. It is perhaps arecognition of the fact that, though we live in time and suffer itsconditions, we are immortal also and chafe under too strict a bondage totime. Our relations with other human beings ought not to be evanescent!There is something cheap and shoddy in the giving and taking of humanpersonality on such easy soon-forgotten terms. It is not only in sexualrelations that this is true. It is true of all human intercourse. Thelonger care and devotion of human parents for their offspring is not aphysical only, but a spiritual necessity: and it is bound up with thegreater faithfulness of human lovers. In parenthood, in loverhood, infriendship, those who take their obligations lightly are not the finersort of men and women, but the slighter, cheaper make. It is not a love offreedom but a certain inferiority and shoddiness that makes it possiblefor us to give ourselves, and take others, lightly. For in all humanrelationships it is "ourselves" that we give and take. It is not what yourfriend does for you or gives to you that makes him your friend; but whathe _is_ to you. It is his personality that you have shared. And so thereis something rather repulsive in quickly forgetting or throwing it away. People who make friends and lose them as the trees put out their leavesin spring to shed them in the autumn, are not quite human. The capacity tomake friends--to make many friends--is a great power: the capacity to losethem not so admirable. Yet there are people who always have a bosom-friend, every time you meet them; only it is never the same friend. And this is apoor sort of friendship, for it _is_ poor to give and take so little thatyou easily cease or forget to give at all. 

If this is true of friends, it is not less true of lovers: it is moretrue. For sex-love includes more of one's personality, it more completelyinvolves body, soul and spirit, is the most perfect form of union thathuman beings know. How strange, then, to argue that one may treat a loveras one would not treat a friend! Make one and lose one so lightly, anddisavow all the responsibility of a love in which so much is given, so muchinvolved! It is true that all human love has a physical element, even ifit is only the desire for the physical presence of the beloved one. Weall want sometimes to see and to touch our friends. But in sex-love thatphysical element becomes a desire for perfect union, expressing a spiritualharmony. Can one take such a gift lightly, and pass from one relationshipto another with a readiness which would seem contemptible in a friend?

It is this holding of human personality cheap that is really immoral, really dishonest: for it is not cheap. It is this which makes prostitutiona horror, and prostitutes the Ishmaels of their race. They "sell cheap whatis most dear, " and, knowing this, rage against their buyers. The hideouslydemoralizing effect of a life of prostitution on the soul is a commonplace. "These women, " it has been said, "sink so low that they cease to know whatlove is, they cease to be able to give. They can only cheat and steal andsell. " It is true. Whatever virtues of kindliness and pity the prostitutemay (and often does) have for other unfortunates and outcasts, her attitudein general does become that of the parasite, the swindler, the vampire. Why? Because on her the deepest outrage against human personality iscommitted. Without a shadow of claim, without a pretence of offering itsequivalent, that, in her, is bought and sold which is beyond price. Whyshould she not cheat and thieve? Take all she can, she cannot get the truevalue of what has been bought from her. Does she reason all that out? Moreoften than we think. But whether she reasons consciously or not, she knowsshe has been defrauded: and she defrauds. 

But it is the buying and selling, I shall be told, that makes her so vile:between such a sale and the free gift of lovers lies the whole differencebetween morality and immorality. I do not think so. It is the contemptuoususe of another which is immoral, and though actually to buy and sell theperson is the lowest depth of immorality, because it is the lowest andmost brutal expression of such contempt, any lightness or irreverenceis "immoral" in its degree; so therefore is conduct which makes love anevanescent thing, or the giving of personality which love involves, apassing emotion. 

If we feel this to be so in friendship, surely it is more and not lesstrue of a union so complete on every plane as that of sex. Can you takethat--and give it--and pass on, as though it were a light thing?

The desire for permanence, for stability, for trustworthiness lies verydeep in human nature. We may--we do--rebel against it, and speak withrapture of an unfettered existence without material ties: but even inmaterial things the nomad is the least creative, the least civilized of hiskind. His existence is neither so picturesque nor so human as we imagine. One has only to read history to see how little he has contributed tohumanity--and how little he has helped to raise the human level above theanimal. It is not for nothing that we find the home imposed upon human kindby the necessities of human infancy. It is the helplessness of the childthat has humanized our species by creating the home which its helplessnessdemanded, and though a great deal that is sentimental is said about homes, this remains a fact. The nomadic, the homeless race gives little to theworld; it is by nature and circumstances an exploiter of resources forwhich it feels no responsibility, from which it is content to take withoutgiving. Reading in a pamphlet of Professor Toynbee's the other day, I foundthis description of the Eastern world in the 15th and 16th centuries of ourera:--"Even when the East began to recover and comparatively stable Moslemstates arose again in Turkey and Persia and Hindustan, _the nomadic taintwas in them and condemned them to sterility_.... One gets the impressionnot of a government administering a country, but of _a horde of nomadsexploiting it_. "[B]

[Footnote B: The italics are mine. --A. M. R. ]

Even so is it with human love. These nomads of the affections give and takeso little as they pass from hand to hand that they become cheap and havelittle left to give at last: nor do they really get what they would take. Men and women claim the right to "experience, " but experience of what? Wedo not live by bread alone, and the physical experience is not reallyall we seek. It is something, however? Yes--certainly something: but bya paradox familiar enough in human affairs, to snatch the lesser is tosacrifice the greater. The experimental lover, the giver whose small andcareful gift is for a time, claims in the name of "experience, " of the"fulfilment of his nature, " what really belongs only to a greater giving. Such lovers are like a rich man who sets out tramping with nothing in hispocket. He may suffer temporary inconvenience, but is within safe distanceof his banking account. He plays with a risk he can never really know, since knowledge and experience are not for those "whose sails were neverto the tempest given. " The prudent lover whose love is lightly given foras long as it lasts is as wise--and as futile. 

I think, too, that those who offer this little price for so great a thinghave nothing left at last. To taste love, to _use_ the great passion of sexis on a par with the exploitation of genius on a series of "pot-boilers. "Genius may outlast a few such meannesses, but they will murder it at last, and the man who by pot-boiling has gained the opportunity to create a realwork of art finds there is no more art left in him. He has now the leisure, the opportunity, the public: but not the power. So is it with those wholightly use so great a thing as sex. Yielded to every impulse, givento each "new-hatched, unfledged companion, " it loses its capacity forgreatness, and the experience desired passes for ever from the grasp. 

It is this which, to my mind, rules out the "experimental marriage. "Much may be said for it--and has been, and is being said by people whosejudgment must command respect. But love is impatient of lending. If itis not given outright in the belief that the gift is final, can the"experiment" be valid? Is not this very sense of finality--this desireto give and burn one's ships--of the very essence of love? One cannotexperiment in finality. 

It is true that many marriages would not have taken place, and had muchbetter not have taken place, if there had been greater knowledge: but wehave yet to learn what greater knowledge can do even without experiment. Hitherto we have gone to the opposite extreme and buried all that belongsto sex not in a fog of ignorance only, but under a mountain of hypocrisyand lies. Let in the light, and see if we cannot do better! And though itis true that some things cannot be known by any amount of teaching, and wait upon experience, yet I submit that the essential experienceis realized only when it is believed to be the expression of an undyinglove--a gift and not a loan. 

Let me say one last word on the solution to our moral difficulties proposedby those who affirm for every woman "the right to motherhood. " Thisclaim is based on the belief that the creative impulse is more, or moreconsciously, present in the sexual nature of a woman than of a man, andthat, in consequence, the satisfaction of that impulse is to a great extentthe satisfaction of a need which makes the disproportionate number of womenin any country a real tragedy. It is impossible to generalize with anydegree of confidence about the sexual nature of either man or woman in ourpresent state of crude and barbarous ignorance; but I am inclined--verytentatively--to agree that this generalization is correct, and that thecreative impulse is an even stronger factor in the sexual life of womenthan of men. I realize the cruelty of a civilization in which war andits accessories create an artificial excess of women over men, and inconsequence deprive hundreds of thousands of women of motherhood. I do notthink I underestimate that cruelty or its tragic consequences. I admit the"right" of women to the exercise of their vocation and the fulfilment oftheir nature. 

But I affirm that those who base upon this claim the right to bringchildren into the world, where society has made marriage impossible, arenot moved to do so by the instinct of motherhood. No, no, for motherhood ismore than a physical act; it is a spiritual power. Its first thought isnot for the right of the mother but of the child. And what are a child'srights? A home--two parents--all that makes complete the spiritual as wellas the material meaning of "home. " I do not believe that there is anywoman who is the mother of young children, and a widow, who does notdaily realize how irreparable is the loss sustained by the fatherless. Warperhaps has inflicted that loss upon them; it is one of the iniquities ofwar. And though the mother tries all she can--yes, and works miracles oflove to make herself all she _can_ be to her child, that loss cannot whollybe made up. I speak with intensity of conviction on this point, for I havemyself a little adopted child--orphaned of both parents--in my home. Inever see other children with their parents without realizing what she haslost not only in her mother but her father. There is needed the differentpoint of view, the different relationship, bringing with it a fuller and aricher experience of life. What woman that hast lost her husband does notrealize the truth of what I say?

It is beside the mark to say that a bad father is worse than no father, orthat accident may take the father even from happily circumstanced homes. This is true. But a woman does not deliberately _choose_ a bad father forher children, or _choose_ that he shall be taken away from them by death. It is the deliberate infliction beforehand of this great loss upon a childthat seems to me the very negation of that motherhood in whose name this"right" is enforced. And for what purpose is a child to be brought into theworld under conditions so imperfect? To "fulfil the nature" of its mother;to complete her experience; to meet her need. Is there any mockery ofmotherhood more complete than this sacrifice of the child to the mother?Why, our physical nature itself is less selfish! When a woman conceives, her child receives _first_ all the nourishment it needs; whatever it doesnot demand, the mother has. A woman herself undernourished can, if theprocess has not gone too far, bear a well-nourished and a healthy child, because she has given all to that child. It is the epitome of motherhood!And now it is affirmed that a woman, to satisfy her own need, has a rightto bring into the world a child on whom she--its mother--has deliberatelyinflicted a grave disadvantage. I do not speak of such lesser disadvantagesas may be involved in illegitimacy. I trust the time is at hand whenwe shall cease to brand any child as "illegitimate" or despise one foranother's defect. But though children are never illegitimate, parents maybe so; and none more than the woman who sacrifices her child to herself. 

For this disadvantage is not a mere cruelty of society which may be"civilized" away; it is inherent in the case. A child should have a fatherand a mother and a home. 

It is no defence to say that the unmarried mother proposes to give herchild a better home than many a child of married parents has. If herconcern is for the child, there are, alas! only too many waifs already inthe world to whom such a home, though imperfect, would be a paradise towhat it has. Real motherhood could and often does rescue such children withjoy. That so few children are adopted in a world of women clamouring formotherhood proves the essential selfishness of the claim. It is not thechild--it is herself--that the woman who demands motherhood as a "right" isconcerned with. What an irony! For to satisfy herself first is the negationof motherhood. 

We have heard much of late years--and rightly--of the exploitation ofwomen by men. Let us not celebrate our growing enfranchisement by becomingourselves the exploiters; and that, not of men, but of babes. 

IV

THE TRUE BASIS OF MORALITY

 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever fixed mark That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom:-- If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. "

 W. Shakespeare. 

 "He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (I. Cor. Vi. , 18-19. )

I said in an earlier chapter that I wanted to find a moral standard whichshould be based on the realities of human nature, and in order to do thatwe must first have a clear idea of what human nature really is, and by whatlaw it lives. We have been passing during the last generation from an ideaof law which belonged to our forefathers to a new idea of law which hasbeen given to us by modern science; and in transition we still talk inambiguous terms about "law"--moral "law, " for instance--confusing ourselvesbetween a law that is imposed on us from outside, a law that is passed byParliament, for instance, or a law that has been the common custom ofthe country through its judges, and that kind of "law" which science hasrevealed to us. Scientific "law" is not imposed from without; it is the lawof our being. When you talk of the "law" of gravitation, you do not meanthat somebody outside has laid it down that mass shall act in a certainway with regard to other masses; you mean that mass-material--being what itis--behaves in a certain way. That is to say, a scientific law is _the lawof being_ of that which obeys the law. It obeys it because it is itsnature to do so. If we could get a firm, hold of that idea of law, our ownlegislation would not be so senseless as it often is; for we should try todiscover what is the nature of human beings--their real nature, about whichwe are often deceived--and we should try to make our laws, including ourmoral laws, those to which human nature, at its best, would most naturallyand fully respond. That is the conception that is at the back of the greatphrase which sounds like a paradox in one of the Collects of the EnglishPrayer Book: "Whose service is perfect freedom. " "Whose service is perfectfreedom"; that is to say, when you obey God, you find perfect freedombecause you are doing what it is your true nature to do. And that is why Iwant to base our moral law, our moral standard, on the realities of humannature. But, you will reply, when people are free to act as they choosethey sometimes choose to violate their own nature. I cannot say how thathappens; it involves the entire problem of evil; and I do not propose evento attempt to deal with it in this book. I will only say that our confusionhas arisen, as I think, out of the very fact that instead of obeying thelaw of our being we have violated it; and now are so confused that wehardly know what "human nature" really is, or of what it is capable. Thatis why we get such extraordinarily different ideas about morals, and why, as I think, we get such arbitrary judgments on human beings. 

Before, then, we can rightly establish our moral standard we have to decidewhat human nature really is, and when we have done that we shall know whatis really moral. I suppose that sounds like a paradox to many, because theythink that morality is always "going against" human nature. If people doanything that is generally called "immoral, " they will excuse themselves onthe grounds of human nature; they will say: "After all, _human nature beingwhat it is_, you must expect this, that and the other kind of licence andimmorality"; and to say that morality, real morality, can only be basedon the realities of human nature will therefore sound to many of you thewildest kind of paradox. But I want to pursue it just as though it weretrue, because I believe it is true. 

What, then, are the realities of our nature? Here is one: a human being isnot and never can be cut off from other human beings. He is not alone. Hecannot consider himself only. If he does so he violates his own nature, because it is not his nature to be alone, and he cannot act without hisactions affecting other people. He cannot think, he cannot feel, he cannotact or speak without affecting other people, and it is futile for anyoneto say: "It does not matter to others what I do; nobody knows; it concernsonly myself. " Your innermost thought affects the whole world in which youlive, and whatever moral standard you are going to adopt, you must takeit for granted that your standard will affect other people, and that it isabsolutely impossible for you to act or think alone. 

And then human beings are three-fold in nature. They have a body, amind--or what St. Paul calls a "soul"--and a spirit. "Soul" is a word whosemeaning we have altered so much that I must define what I mean by it andwhat I think St. Paul meant by it. The soul includes the emotions and theintellect, that part of a man which is not wholly physical and which is notentirely spiritual. Everyone has a soul. And every one of you, howevermuch you ignore your body, however much you may tell me your body does notreally exist, have got a body too. You have to eat and drink and sleep, just like the most material alderman, though you may eat less. And youcannot base a real moral standard on the pretence that you have not got abody. You are, on one side of your nature, physical, material, animal; butyou have got a mind and emotions or "soul"; and you have got a spirit. Toact as though you had not is just as futile as to pretend that you havenot got a body. "Where there is no vision the people perish. " "Mankindis incurably religious. " "All the world seeks after God. " Those proverbs, those sayings, which are familiar to all, crystallize the world'sexperience that human beings are spiritual beings. If there is any personwho thinks that he is merely an intellect and a body, I will direct theattention of that intellect of his away from himself to the race, andI will remind him that practically no race in the world has ever beenentirely without the sense of God; that, however hard men try, they havenever been able to cure humanity of its spiritual hunger; that though ourgods are often gross and earthy, even diabolical, yet they are spiritual, and they are the proof that man is spiritually aware; that he is a spiritas well as a body and a soul. Now I say that anyone who tries to base hismorality on the assumption that he is only a body, or only an intelligence, or only a spirit, has got a false standard, and his morality is a dishonestkind of morality. The body will avenge itself on those who ignore it. Psychologists are teaching us that the mind will avenge itself on those whoignore it. And this is just as true of the spirit. Where there is no visionthe people do perish. Your spiritual nature avenges itself on those who tryto rule it out. Base your morality either on the exclusion of any part ofyour being, or on the assumption that what you do concerns yourself alone;and you will find that you are violating human nature. It is useless foryou to act wrongly and to affirm that you do it "because human nature iswhat it is. " When you do so, you are assuming that human nature is _not_what it is; that is to say you assume that it is purely physical, when, infact, it is three-fold--body, soul and spirit. You can see for yourselves, I think, how this violation of human nature works itself out. For animalspromiscuity is not wrong. When they treat themselves as purely animalsthey are basing their moral standard, if I may put it so, on bed-rock; they_are_ animals, and therefore they behave as animals without violating anylaw of their being. As they rise higher in the scale of evolution theirmorals become nobler. There are moral standards among the lower animals, but they remain at a certain level, and rightly so. No animal is harmed bybehaving like an animal, for in doing so he obeys the law of his being; butif human beings behave as though they were animals, what happens? They findto their horror that they have let loose upon the world detestable, hideousand devastating diseases. Do you think that medicine will ever be ableto rid the world of what are called the diseases of immorality as long asimmorality remains? I do not believe it. I know that you can do much forindividual sufferers, though you cannot do one-tenth part of what doctorsthought they were going to be able to do, eight or nine years ago. And, ofcourse, whatever we can do, we must and ought to do. But we do not reachthe root of the matter by medicine. 

No scientist can tell us how small-pox or tuberculosis or rheumatism firstentered the world; but any scientist can tell us that by wrong living, wrong housing, wrong feeding, we can breed and spread and perpetuatedisease. In other words, we are diseased not because we obey the lawsof our nature but because we violate them: and though we can take theindividual sufferer and (sometimes) cure him, we shall not get rid of thedisease until we have learnt to obey those laws and to live rightly. 

In just the same way the diseases of vice, though no one can say how theyfirst came into the world, continue and flourish, not because of humannature, but because we violate some law of our own nature in what we do. Wemay even cure the individual; we may see a thousand struck and a thousandguilty escape; the fact remains that these diseases are bred in the swampof immorality, just as certainly as malaria is bred in the mosquito-hauntedpools of the malaria swamp. Drain the swamp, and you get rid of themalaria, for there is no longer any place for the malaria-bearing mosquitoto breed. Drain the swamp of immorality, and you get rid of venerealdisease, because there is no longer a place where these diseases can breed. Live rightly, and your nature will respond in health. When human beingselect to make their relations with one another promiscuous--when, that isto say, they treat themselves as animals--they are not obeying, they areviolating the law of their own being; for they are not animals only, andto treat themselves as such is to disobey the law of their own nature. Anddisobedience reacts in disease. 

So again, the relations of men and women are of the mind as well as of thebody and the spirit. You cannot rule out your mind, and I think that thosewho believe, as many do today, not indeed in a merely animal promiscuity, but in rather casual relations between men and women--experiments, if youlike, men and women passing from one union to another--rule out the factthat a human being has a mind, a memory and foresight; that our beingincludes a past, and, in a sense, includes a future also; and when you tryto divorce your physical experience from your intellectual and emotionalbeing you are again violating the law of your own nature. 

I remember asking one of the most happily married women that I know to putinto words, if she could, the reason why she believed that married people, married lovers, should not have gone through other relationships with otherpeople before they gave themselves to one another. I asked her to expressin words what seemed to her immoral. She wrote this: "In the ideal unionbetween God and man, we know that man must give the fulness of his being, body, mind and spirit, throughout his whole life, to God, and that anythingless than this, though it may be fine and noble, does fall short ofperfection. It is the same with the human love of men and women. The'fulness of our being' which we desire to give to our lover consists notonly in what we are at any given moment but in what we have been in thepast, what we may become in the future. And so in the formation ofmerely temporary unions the highest and deepest unity can never be fullyachieved. " She went on to say: "When we have passed beyond the physicalsphere we shall be able, like God, to give ourselves equally to all; butwhile we are in the flesh we cannot share ourselves equally with all, andany attempt to do so lowers the standard of perfect human love. " I likethat, because it is based again on a loyal acceptance of human nature. Weare not yet as God in the sense that, being wholly spirit, we can shareourselves equally with all. We do still live in bodies, and we have in thislife memory and prevision, and surely that is indeed an ideal union, if weare looking for the highest, which is able to give its past and its futureas well as its present, so that the whole personality is involved, inthat act of union, and that anything short of that is at least not quiteperfect. Human beings are still in the body, and are yet soul and spirit inthat body, and must take both into account. Divorce the physical from thespiritual in yourself, and you are violating yourself. Divorce the physicalfrom the spiritual in someone else--you who perhaps say: "I myself lovesuch a man, such a woman, with the best part of myself; what I do withanother is of no importance"--you violate the nature of that other fromwhom you take what is physical, and leave what is spiritual as though itwere not there. 

Your life, like your body, is too highly organized, too sensitive, too knittogether by memories and prevision for you to leave behind you anythingthat has really entered into your life. It is a shoddy and superficialnature that passes easily from experience to experience, and when you lookat such you can see how shallower still it becomes. It is the deeper andthe loftier nature that cannot enter into any human relationship and thenpass away from it altogether unchanged. And even that shoddy, that poor, that mean little soul which seems to pass so lightly from one experience toanother does not really altogether escape. Some mark is left upon the soul, some association remains in the memory; and again and again marriages havebeen wrecked because a man has taken the associations of the gutter intothe sanctuary of his home. Unwillingly, with an imagination that fain wouldreject the stain, he has injured, he has insulted the love that has nowcome to him, the most precious thing on earth, because he has not known howto do otherwise; because all the associations of passion have been to himdegraded, smirched, treated frivolously in the past. It is true of men; itis also true of women. I do not know of anything that makes understandingharder between two people than the fact that one has had experiences andassociations which the other has not had and does not understand, becausethey are on an entirely different level. These create between them, with all the desire for understanding in the world, a barrier ofmisunderstanding and incomprehension, which is all the more fatal becauseit is so intangible, so obscure, so hard to put into words, so oftenactually unconscious or subconscious in the mind of one or of the other. 

Again, you must not think that you are altogether spirit, and here perhapsit is the woman who is more apt to sin than the man. How often have Italked to women who speak of the physical side of love as though it weresomething base and unworthy! Such a conception of passion is inhuman, andtherefore it is not really moral. A woman who thinks of this sacrament oflove, for which perhaps the man who loves her has kept himself clean allhis life, as a base thing, and who treats it as though it were a concessionto something base in a man's nature, instead of being the very consecrationof body and soul at once, the sacrament of union, one of the loveliestthings in human nature--such a woman gives as great a shock to what issacred and lovely in her husband's nature as he when he brings with himinto his marriage the associations of the street. It is as hard, it is asinsulting, it makes marriage as difficult in understanding, one way as theother. For it is not true that our bodies are vile and base; they are thetemples of the Holy Spirit. 

Or if you think that you can stand alone, that what you do is the concernof no one else, that your life is a solitary thing, so solitary that no manor woman is concerned, no one but yourself, and you may sin alone--thereagain you misunderstand. You cannot stand alone, and nothing that you sayor think or do leaves the world unchanged. Is that difficult to believe inthese days, when psychology is teaching us how all-important thought is?Ought you to find it hard to believe that what you do in the utmost secrecyaffects others, since it affects you, and no man lives to himself alone?I do not wish to exaggerate. I have a horror of those books and people whospeak in exaggerated terms of any kind of sexual lapse. I am persuaded thathuman beings can rise from such mistakes, and rise much more easily thanfrom the subtler spiritual sins which have so much more respectable an air. But yet do not sin under the impression that what you do concerns yourselfalone. Do not use, for your own satisfaction only, powers which were givenyou for creation and for the world. 

But this, you may say, is not the accepted standard of morality. That is amatter rather of laws and ceremonies. And people begin to ask; "What realdifference can a mere ceremony make?" It does not make any difference tothe morality of your relationships with your fellow men and women. Nothingthat is immoral becomes moral because it has been done under a legalcontract, or consecrated by a rite. There, I think, is where the world hasgone so wrong. The idea that a relation that is selfish, cruel, mercenary, becomes moral because someone has said some words over you, and you havesigned a register--what a farcical idea! How on earth does that changeanything at all? The morality of all civil or religious ceremony lies, Ithink, in this--that by accepting and going through it, you accept the factthat your love does concern others besides yourself; it will concern yourchildren; and beyond that, it concerns the world. You are right when youask your friends to come and rejoice with you at your wedding. It is theconcern of all the world when people love each other, and it is the failureof _love_ that concerns them when marriage is a failure. Such failurechills the atmosphere; it shakes our faith in love as the supreme power inthe universe; it makes us all waver in our allegiance to constancy andlove when love fails. It is a joyful thing when people love. "All theworld loves a lover. " It is an old saying, but what a true one! It _is_ ourconcern when people nobly and loyally love each other, it is the concern ofthe community, and those who take upon themselves these public vows seem tome to have a more truly moral conception of love than those who say: "Thisis our affair only; it is not the affair of the State or the affair of theChurch. " But the actual ceremony must be the expression of a moral feelingsuch as that. It cannot in itself make moral what is immoral! The oldidea that if a woman was seduced by a man she was "made honest" by the manmarrying her is essentially immoral. Very likely all that she knew aboutthe man was that she could not trust him, and to suppose that we can setright what is wrong by tying them together for the rest of their lives isto imagine an absurdity and to establish a lie. 

Or take the case from another point of view. I have two in my mind at thismoment, who for some reason (a reason not very far to seek if you read ourEnglish marriage laws) came to the conclusion that it is not right to placeoneself in such a position as a married woman is in under English law. I amnot discussing whether they were right or wrong; I say that quite sincereand moral people do come to that conclusion sometimes, and so did thesetwo. They lived together, therefore, without being legally married. Theywere absolutely faithful to each other; their love was as responsible, asdignified, as true as any such relation could be. It lacked to my mind onething--the sense of a wider responsibility--but then it had very much thatmany legal marriages have not. Those two people are put outside society;it is made almost impossible for them to earn their living; and at lastin despair they go to the registry office, and sign their names in a book. What difference has been made in their relation to each other? Absolutelynone. They are no more convinced of the right and duty of the communityto be concerned with marriage than they were before. They have yieldedto coercion. Their moral standard, good or bad, is precisely what it was;their relation to each other wholly unchanged. But in the eyes of the worldthey have become respectable, they are "moral, " they can be receivedback into the bosom of society. And why? Because they have gone through aceremony in which they do not believe!

Every marriage in the world probably lacks something of perfection. Thereare no perfect human beings, and, therefore, hardly, perhaps, a perfectmarriage; and to my mind those who do not admit the concern of thecommunity in their marriage do lack something. But to suppose that thosepeople are immoral, when others who live together, legally licensed to doso, in selfishness, in infidelity, for financial reasons, or for socialreasons, are moral is fundamentally dishonest. When a woman sells her bodyfor money, do you think that it makes it moral that she does it in a churchor in a registry office? Is there one whit of difference, morally, betweenthe prostitution that has no legal recognition and the prostitution thathas? Is it anything but prostitution to sell yourself for money, whetheryou are a man or a woman? Do you imagine that because you have a contractto protect you while you do it, you are doing what is moral? If you marryfor any reason but love--for experience, to "complete your nature"--withoutmuch regard to the man or woman you marry, or to the children you bringinto the world, are you not exploiting human nature just as certainly, though not so brutally, as a man who buys a woman in the street? It is notso base a form of exploitation, God knows; that I admit; but when thereis _any_ element of exploitation in the bargain it is not made more trulymoral because it happens to be blessed in a church or registered in anoffice. The legal ceremony must be the outcome of a morality which makesyou realize that what you do affects other people, that what you domost profoundly affects the children that you hope to have, and that thecommunity has both an interest and a responsibility in all this. That is"moral. " But if the relationship thus to be legalized is not moral, it isdishonest to pretend that it can be made so by any ceremony which thoseconcerned may undergo. 

But, you will say, we cannot peer into other people's lives and judge themin this kind of way. How are we to know? How are we, who have many friends, many neighbours, on whom our standards must react, to judge their lives?We can tell who has gone through a legal ceremony and who refuses to doso. That is a nice convenient rule by which we can judge and condemn suchpeople. But we cannot go poking into people's lives and studying theirmotives and judging their fundamental moral standards! No, you cannot. Whyshould you? This little set of iron rules makes it very easy to judge, doesit not? But why do you desire it to be easy to judge? You and I know howinfinite are the gradations between the most noble kind of chastity andthe most ignoble kind of immorality; but which of us is to create a rigidstandard and measure our friends and acquaintances against it? We do notdo it with the other virtues: why do we desire to do it with this one?Take such a virtue as truth. Conceive the crystalline sincerity of sometruth-loving minds, realize that some have such a devotion to truth thatthe faintest shadow of insincerity--not a lie, but the merest shadow ofinsincerity in the depths of their hearts--is abhorrent to them. Considerthe infinite gradations between that mind and the mind which takes a liefor truth, a mind that is rotten with corruption, that does not know how tothink straight, let alone care to speak straight. You do not draw up yourlittle set of rules and say: "I do not call on that person because he doesnot speak the truth; and I won't have anything to do with that one--suchpersons are outside the social pale altogether because their conception oftruth is different from mine!"

No, you keep your admiration for the truth-loving and the sincere. Yourecognize that people have different standards about what is truth. Oneperson will never tell a lie under any circumstances: another will reckonhimself free to tell a lie to save a third, or to preserve a confidence;will you judge which is the more honourable of the two? Where is yourlittle set of rules? You cannot have one. You shrink from the person whois morally dishonest and corrupt; you worship the person who loves truth asDarwin loved it. But between those two extremes what an infinite variety ofattainment! Who can say: "These people are moral because they are married, and those are immoral, they are not married?" It is not true, it is nothonest, to make these rules our measure. They do not meet the realitiesof human nature, and I contend that we, who have known souls so chasteand lovely that they make us in love with virtue, do far more to raisethe moral standard of humanity by seeking to imitate such people than bysetting up our little codes of rules and condemning or justifying all menby them. Let us treat this virtue as we do every other virtue, not fittingit to a set of rules which everyone knows do not fit the realities, buttaking our courage in our hands and judging human beings (if we mustjudge them) by their real sincerity, their real unselfishness, their realunwillingness to exploit others--the measure of the chastity of theirsouls. 

V

THE MORAL STANDARD OF THE FUTURE: WHAT SHOULD IT BE?

 "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. 

 "Again ye have heard that it has been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne; nor by the earth; for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communications be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh from evil. " (Matthew v. , 27-28; 31-37. )

I have tried to reach those realities of human nature on which humanmorality must be based. I believe that the fundamental things which wemust take into account are, first, the complex nature of human beings, who having body, soul, and spirit to reckon with cannot neglect any one ofthese without insincerity; and, secondly, the solidarity of the human race, which makes it futile to act as though the "morals" of any one of us couldbe his own affair alone. 

It is because of this solidarity that marriage has always been regarded asa matter of public interest, to be recognized by law, celebrated by somepublic ceremony, protected by a legal contract. All are concerned in thismatter, for it affects the race itself, through the children that may beborn. 

Human children need what animals do not, or not to the same extent. Theyneed two parents: they need a stable and permanent home: they need aspiritual marriage, a real harmony between their parents, as well as aphysical one. A child is not provided for when you have given it a homeand food and clothing, since it is a spirit as well as a body--a soul anda spirit, a being craving for love, and needing to live in an atmosphereof love. The young of no other species need this as children do, andtherefore, it is the concern of the community to see that the rights ofthese most helpless and most precious little ones are safeguarded. I cannotbelieve that any State calling itself civilized can ever disregard theduty of safeguarding the human rights of the child, and I repeat itshuman rights are not sufficiently met when its physical necessities areguaranteed. But I go further. I claim that it is really the concern of allof us that people who love should do so honestly, faithfully, responsibly. Marriage should be permanent; that is true in a sense that makes itimportant to all of us that it should succeed. Those who have loved andceased to love have not failed for themselves only but for all. They haveshaken the faith of the world. They have inclined us to the false beliefthat love is not eternal. They have, so far as they could, destroyeda great ideal, injured a great faith. People--and some of these are mypersonal friends, and people for whom I have a very great respect--whoaffirm that a legal or religious marriage is not necessary because theirrelations to one another are not the concern of the community, may have, itseems to me, a morality that is lofty, but not one that is broad, not onethat is truly human. It is not true (and, therefore, it is not moral) tosay that marriage is not the concern of other people. No one can fail inlove, no one can take on himself so great a responsibility and fail tofulfil it, without all of us being concerned. Humanity is _solidaire_. The community is and must be concerned in the love of men and women inmarriage. But what should be the nature of that concern? What shouldwe--the community--hold up as the right standard of sex-relationship, andwhat methods should we use to impose it on others? I think you will havegathered from what I have said already that, to my mind, marriage shouldbe a union that looks forward to being permanent, faithful, monogamous. Itshould be the expression of a union of spirit so perfect that the unionof the bodies of those who love follows as a kind of natural necessity. Itshould be the sacrament of love, "the outward and visible sign of an inwardand spiritual grace. " And something of this perfection is to be found inmany marriages that seem (and are) far from complete. I often hear of thelives of married people where there has been very much to overcome, whereperhaps the marriage has been entered into in ignorance and error; wherethe passion that brought the two together has been very evanescent; whereit has soon become evident that their temperaments do not "fit"; where itmight easily be said that they were not really "married" at all: yetthere has been in these two such a stubborn loyalty to responsibilitiesundertaken, such a magnificent sense of faithfulness, such a determinationto make the best out of what they have rather lightly undertaken; sometimeseven only on one side, there has been such faith, such honour, suchloyalty, such a refusal to admit a final failure, that a relationship poorin promise has become beautiful and sacred. In face of such loyalty, thetheory that sex-relationships can rightly be brief, evanescent, thrownaside as soon as passion has gone, seems to me very cheap and shoddy, veryunworthy of human beings. Marriage should be all that--shall I say?--theBrownings made of it. But when it is not, there is still often much that isleft. Men and women, you cannot enter into one another's lives in this deepand intimate way and go on your way as though nothing had happened. Youcannot tear asunder people so united without bleeding. You cannot make afailure of it without immeasurable loss. 

 "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. "

Who that has once heard this can easily take anything less? Or who, havingloved in any of these ways, will lightly break the bond? I think that oneof the most profoundly moral relationships I have ever met between aman and a woman was, in spite of all that I have said up till now, therelationship of a man to a woman to whom at first he was not legallymarried. It was her wish, not his, but they were not legally married. Theyhad no children, and she was unfaithful to him more than once, and yet thisman--and he did not call himself a Christian--this man felt that he hadtaken the responsibility of that woman's life, and though he could easilyhave put her away, and though, at last, she killed in him all that youwould normally call love between a man and woman, and he learned to carefor another woman, yet he would not abandon her because now she had grownto need him, and he felt he could not take so great a human responsibilityas the life of another person and then cast it away as though it had neverbeen. That is morality. To such a sense of what human relationships demandmy whole soul gives homage. That seems to me a perfectly humane and, therefore, truly moral idea of what love involves. Such a sense ofresponsibility should go with all love. Passion cannot last, in the natureof things, and, therefore, those who marry do so, if they know anythingat all of love--and, God help them, many of them do not--but if they knowanything at all of love, they know that it is physically impossible forthis particular bond always to unite them. They must be aware that thereis something more than that, something that must in the end transcend thatphysical union. 

Looking at marriage from that point of view, can one desire that it shouldbe anything less than permanent, indissoluble? That which God made, and, therefore, which no man should put asunder? Let the community--both Churchand State--teach this. Let us make it clear that men and women should notmarry unless they do sincerely believe that their love for each other isof this character. Let them understand that physical union should bethe expression of a spiritual union. Let them learn that love, though itincludes passion, is more than passion, and must transcend and outlivepassion. And let us insist that all should learn the truth aboutthemselves--about their own bodies and about their own natures--so thatthey may understand what they do, and may have all the help that knowledgecan give in doing it. I hold that on such knowledge and such understandingthe community should insist, if it is to uphold the high and difficultstandard of indissoluble monogamous marriage. So only _can_ it be rightlyupheld. 

I urge also that when a marriage takes place the State has a right and aduty with regard to it. For the sake of every citizen, and most of all forthe sake of the children, it should "solemnize" marriage, and should do soon the understanding--clearly expressed--that those who come to be marriedintend to be faithful to each other "as long as they both shall live. "

In doing this I believe the State does all--or nearly all--that it usefullycan to uphold the dignity of marriage and a high standard of morality. I donot believe that it should seek to penalize those whose sex-relationshipsare not of this character, except so far as legislation for the protectionof the immature or the helpless is concerned. And I do not think it shouldcompel--or seek to compel, for compulsion is, in fact, impossible--theobservance of a marriage which has lost or never had the elements ofreality. 

Is this to abandon the ideal I have been upholding? I do not think so. Let us refer again to the greatest of Teachers and the loftiest ofIdealists--Jesus Christ. See what He teaches in the Sermon on the Mount andelsewhere. Everywhere He emphasizes the spiritual character of virtueand of sin. To be a murderer it is not necessary to kill: to hate is, in itself, enough. If you hate you are essentially a murderer. To bean adulterer it is not necessary to commit adultery: to look on a womanlustfully is already to have committed adultery with her in your heart. Itis the spirit that sins. So keep your spirit pure. It is not enough to keepyour oaths: you should be so utterly and transparently sincere that thereis no need and no sense in supporting your words by great oaths. "Yea" and"Nay" should be sufficient. 

You will notice that the Sermon on the Mount has been divided in thischapter into a number of paragraphs, each of which begins by a referenceto the old external law of conduct, and goes on to demand a more searching, more spiritual and interior virtue. "Ye have heard that it was said by themof old time.... But I say unto you. "

"Ye have heard that it was said: 'Thou shalt not kill' ... But I say untoyou that whosoever is angry shall be in danger of the judgment. Ye haveheard that it was said: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery, ' but I say untoyou that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committedadultery with her already in his heart.... Ye have heard that it was said:'Thou shalt not forswear thyself, ' but I say unto you: 'Swear not at all. '"

What is the significance of such teaching? Surely that we are not to besatisfied with keeping the letter of the law, but are to keep it in ourhearts. So clear is this that the Church has completely abandoned theletter of the last precept. No one except a Quaker refuses to take an oath. Every bishop on the bench has done so, and every incumbent of a living. Nowhere throughout the Sermon on the Mount have Christians felt themselvesbound to a literal or legal interpretation of its teaching. No one wantsa man to be tried for murder and hanged for hating his brother. No judgegrants a divorce because a man or woman has "committed adultery in hisheart. " Christ Himself did not _literally_ "turn the other cheek" whenstruck by a soldier. His disciples everywhere pray in places quite aspublic as the street-corners forbidden in the next chapter of St. Matthew, and give their alms publicly or in secret as seems to them best. 

It may be contended that in this spiritual interpretation of Christ'scommands it is very easy to go too far and "interpret" all the meaning outof them. It is certain, however, that the danger must be incurred, sincenothing could make sense out of an absolutely _literal_ interpretation. Itwould mean a _reductio ad absurdum_. 

Apply such a literalism, for example, to the point at which for centuriesthe Church has sought to apply it--the indissolubility of marriage. It isadmitted that since a phrase, of however doubtful authority, does make anexception in favour of divorce for adultery, the Church can recognize alaw in this sense. But if we are to be literalists, it seems that a lustfulwish is adultery! Is this to be a cause for divorce? And if not, why not?Obviously because we can no more apply such spiritual teaching literallythan we can take a man out and hang him because he hates his brother!There we cease to be literal: how then can we fall back on a literalinterpretation at another point?

I claim that there is no ground whatever for a more rigid and legalinterpretation of our Lord's teaching about marriage than about takingoaths or praying in public. I believe that Christ held that marriage shouldbe permanent and indissoluble, that only those people should marry wholoved each other with a love so pure, so true, so fine as to be regardedrightly as a gift from God, who accepted their union as a great trust aswell as a great joy, whose marriage might indeed be said to be "made inheaven" before it was solemnized on earth; but that He should insist on alegal contract from which all reality had departed, or regard as a marriagea union of which the most cynical could only say that it was made in hell, merely because the Church or the State had chosen to bless or register it, seems to me as unlike the whole of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount andas far from the spirit of Christ as east is from west. It surely is notconceivable that He to Whom marriage meant so much that He spoke of it asbeing made by God, Who conceived of the union of a man and woman as beingthe work of God Himself "Those whom God has joined together"--would havecared for the shell out of which the kernel had gone, for the mere legalbond out of which all the spirit had fled. Marriage should be indissoluble;but what is marriage? I heard a little while ago of a girl of 19 who wasmarried to a man of 56. He was immoral in mind and diseased in body, andat the end of a year she left him with another man. He divorced her, andshe is now married to that other man, and there are people who say thatthis marriage, which, so far as one can judge, is a moral, faithful, anda responsible union, blest with children who are growing up in a goodhome, is no marriage because the wife went through a ceremony with thisother man before, and marriage is indissoluble. Marriage is indissoluble:"Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder. " Did God jointhose two together? They were married in a church. It is the Church thatshould repent in sackcloth and ashes for permitting such a mockery ofmarriage. Let the Church by all means do what it has so long failed to do, emphasize the sanctity of human relationships, make men and women realizehow deep a responsibility they take in marriage, how sacred a thing is thiscreative love, from which future generations will spring, which brings intothe world human bodies and immortal souls; which, even if it is childless, is still the very sacrament of human love. Let the Church teach all thatit can to make marriage sacred and divine, but when it preaches that such amarriage as that is a marriage at all it does not uphold our moral standardbut degrades it. 

I have said enough before, I hope, to make you realize that I do not thinkthat when passion has gone marriage is dead. I have seen marriages whichseemed unequal, difficult, unblest, made into something lovely and sacredby the deep patience and loyalty of human nature, and believe it is theknowledge of such possibilities which makes Christian people, and eventhose who would not call themselves Christians, generally desire somereligious ceremony when they are married. They know that for such lovehuman nature itself is hardly great enough. They desire the grace of Godto inspire their love for each other with something of that eternal qualitywhich belongs to the love of God. I have seen husbands love their wives, and wives their husbands, with a divine compassion, an inexhaustible pity, which goes out to the most unworthy and degraded. Yes, I would even goso far as to say that unless you feel that you are able to face thepossibility of change in the one you love, that you can love so well thateven if they alter for the worse your love would no more disappear than thelove of God for you would disappear when you change or fail, you have notattained to the perfect love which justifies marriage. But this is ahard saying, and, therefore, those of us who believe in God in any senseinstinctively desire the blessing of God to rest on the undertaking ofso great a responsibility. We want our love to be divine before we canundertake the whole happiness of another human being. Let the Church by allmeans teach this, and I believe that future generations will conceive morenobly and more responsibly of marriage for her teaching. But do not seekto hold together those between whom there is no real marriage at all. Whenseriously and persistently a man and a woman believe that their marriagenever was or has now ceased to be real, surely their persistent andconsidered opinion ought to be enough for the State to act upon. Let noone be allowed to give up in haste. Let no one fling responsibility asideeasily. Let it always be a question of long consideration, of advice fromfriends, perhaps even from judges. But I cannot help feeling that whenthrough years this conviction that there is no reality in a marriagepersists, this is the one really decent and sufficient reason for declaringthat that marriage is dissolved. Let us have done with the infamous systemnow in force, by which a man and woman must commit adultery or perjurybefore they can get us to admit the patent fact that their marriage nolonger exists as a reality. Let us have done with a system which makes amockery of our divorce courts. I have the utmost sympathy with those whodenounce the light way in which men and women perjure themselves to obtainrelease, but I affirm that the whole system is, in the main, so based onlegalisms, so divorced from morality, that the resultant adulteries andperjuries are what every student of human nature must inevitably expect, however much he may regret and hate them. It will be in vain that laws aredevised to prevent divorce by collusion, in vain that King's proctorsor judges detect and penalize here and there the less wary and ingeniousoffenders. The law will continue to be evaded or defied. And the reason isfundamental: it is that the law is not based on reality. It affirms that amarriage still exists when it does _not_ exist. It demands that two humanbeings should give to each other what they cannot give. And--the essenceof marriage being consent--it makes the fact that both parties desire itsdissolution the final reason for denying them! To force a woman to demandthe "restitution of conjugal rights" when such "rights" have become ahorrible wrong; to compel a man to commit, or perjure himself by pretendinghe has committed, adultery, before he can get the State to face the factthat his marriage is no longer a reality--is this to uphold morality? Isthis the ideal of the Sermon on the Mount? Let us once for all abandonthe pretence that _all_ the marriages made in churches or in registrars'offices are, therefore, necessarily made in heaven. Let us get to workinstead to see that the marriages of the future shall be made in heaven, and, above all, let us abolish the idea that a marriage is a real marriagewhich is based on ignorance, on fraud, on exploitation, on selfishness. Letus not dream that we can raise our standard of morals, by affirming thatevery mistake that men and women make in a matter in which mistaking isso tragically easy ought to imprison them in a lie for the rest of theirlives. But let us take the ideal of Christ, in all its grandeur and allits reality, with our eyes fixed upon the ideal, but with that respectfor human personality, that respect for reality and truth, which makes usrefuse to accept the pretence that all the marriages we have known havebeen made by God. Let us, at least, in perpetuating such blasphemies asare some of the marriages on which we have seen the blessing of the Churchinvoked, cease to drag in the name of Christ to the defence of a systemwhich has laid all its weight upon a legal contract, and kept a conspiracyof silence about the sacred union of body and soul by which God makes manand woman one. 

VI

A PLEA FOR LIGHT

 Jesus said: "If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. "

My last address for the present[C] on the difficult questions that we havebeen considering here, Sunday after Sunday, is a plea for light. 

[Footnote C: Another address was added a few weeks later in response tourgent requests. ]

"Walking in darkness" has been, in sexual matters, the experience of mostof us. Even now, in the twentieth century, it is not too much to say thatmost of us have had to fight our battle in almost complete darkness andsomething very near to complete isolation. 

There are two great passions connected with the bodies of men and women, so fundamental that they have moulded the histories of nations and thedevelopment of the human race. They are the hunger for food and theinstinct of sex. There is no other passion connected with our bodies sofundamental, so powerful, as these two; and yet, with regard to the second, most of us are expected to manage our lives and to grow up into maturitywithout any real knowledge at all, and with such advice as we get wrappedup in a jargon that we do not understand. We have been as those who set outto sea without a chart; as soldiers who fight a campaign without a map. Ido not think this is too much to say of the way in which a large number ofthe men and women that I know--even those of this generation--have beenexpected to tackle one of the greatest problems that the human race hasto solve. 

May I sketch what I imagine is the experience of most people? At some pointin our lives we begin to be curious; we ask a question; we are met with ajest or a lie, or with a rebuke, or with some evasion that conveys tous, quite successfully, that we ought not to have asked the question. Thequestion generally has to do with the matter of birth--the birth of babies, or kittens, or chickens; some point of curiosity connected with the birthof young creatures is generally the first thing that awakens our interest. When we meet with evasion, lies, or reproof, we naturally conclude thatthere is something about the birth of life into the world that we ought notto know, and since it is apparently wrong of us even to wish to know it, it is presumably disgusting. We seek to learn from other and more grimysources what our parents might have told us, and, learning, arrive at theconclusion that in the relations of men and women there is also somethingthat is repulsive. And since, in spite of this, our interest does not ceasebut becomes furtive curiosity, we also conclude that there is somethingdepraved and disgusting about ourselves. 

Now, all of these three conclusions are lies; and, therefore, we set out inlife equipped with a lie in our souls. It is not a good beginning. It meansthat almost at once those of us who persist in our desire to know are indanger of losing our self-respect. We learn that there is something in sexthat is base--so base that even our own parents will not speak to us aboutit; and because of that, and because a child instinctively does accept, during the first few years of its existence, what its parents or guardianssay, we assume that there must be something bad in us, since we sopersistently desire to know what is so evil that nobody will speak of it atall. Or if anyone does allude to it, it is with unwholesome furtiveness anda rather silly kind of mirth, so as to increase in the minds of many of usthe sense that there must be something in our nature that we cannot respectbecause nobody else finds it beautiful or respectable. 

Our next step, especially if we are conscientious people, is to repressthat something. And here I want to say a word in answer to a number ofletters that I have had on the point which I raised early in this book, when I claimed that women have to pay as great a tax and suffer as greata hardship from repression as men do. People--both men and women--havewritten to say that this is not true, and to such I wish to make my pointquite clear. I did not say that men and women suffered _in the same way_. Isaid that they suffered _equally_; and since the question has been raised, I should like just to answer it here. To me it seems, judging as far as Ican, from the people that I know, that--speaking very generally--passioncomes to a man with greater violence, and is more liable to leave him inpeace at other times. Passion is to a man who is of strong temperament likea storm at sea. It seems the very embodiment of violence and force. Themere sight of the sea angry almost terrifies one, even if one is perfectlysafe from the violence of the storm; but the depths are not stirred. And inthe case of a woman I would take a different figure of speech altogether, and say that very often the strain on her is much less dramatic, much lessviolent, and more persistent. I think of the strain as something like thatsilent, uninterrupted thrust of an arch against the wall, of a dome on thewalls that support it. There is no sign of stress. But it is so difficultto build a dome rightly that Italy, the land of domes, is covered with theruins of those churches whose domes gradually, slowly, thrust outwards tillthe walls on which they rested gave way and the church was in ruins. Thatkind of strain is easily denied by the very people who are enduring it. Itis so customary, so much a part of their life, that they are unconscious ofit. 

No one who studies psychology to-day can fail to realize how unconsciouspeople often are of the seat and the nature of their own troubles. It istrue that the tendency to _exaggerate_ the importance of sex seems likelyto vitiate to some extent the conclusions of psychologists like Freud andhis disciples. But that they have revealed to us a mass of hitherto unknownand un-understood suffering in the minds of both women and men, arisingfrom the continual repression of a passion whose strength may be measuredby the disastrous consequences caused by repressing it, no one who knowsanything at all of modern psychology can deny. Those who do not understandtheir own trouble will often deny that the trouble exists, and deny itquite honestly. But those who have become the physicians of the mind arejust beginning to learn how tremendous a sacrifice the world has asked ofwomen in the past while denying that it was a sacrifice at all!

Now, this repression follows, in many women and in a considerable numberof men, on the assumption that there is something in sex too shameful tobe spoken about or looked at in the light. We set out, I repeat, on ourcampaign without a map of the country and with our compasses pointing thewrong way. And this, above all, is true when repression has caused someactual perversion in the mind, some arrested development, some abnormalcondition. This is not always the consequence of deliberate repression onthe part of the individual, but it is, I believe, often the consequenceof an artificial state of civilization; an attitude towards a great andwonderful impulse which has perverted our whole view of what is divine andlovely in human nature. Whatever the cause, the result is abnormality ofsome kind, and to people who have suffered so, I want, above all, to saythis: light and understanding are needed more by you, perhaps, than byanyone else, and to you, above all, they have been denied. Loneliness, isolation, the loss of self-respect, the darkness of ignorance havesurrounded those to whom the sacrifice has been hardest, and, therefore, the repression, whether racial or individual, most disastrous. You can, if you choose, leave the world a nobler place because you let light in onthese dark places. Do not say to yourselves that your suffering is uselessand purposeless because it is no good to anyone: no one knows of it: noone understands it: and, therefore, it has all the additional bitterness ofbeing to no purpose. That need not be true. Ignorance need not continue. If you will try to make your suffering of service to the world, it is notdifficult to measure how great may be our advance in fundamental moralityin this present generation. 

We do not know yet of what human nature is capable, and those who arestudying the human mind are perhaps the greatest of all pioneers at thepresent moment. Some of you have trusted me, and by your trust have enabledme to help other people. Others of you, perhaps, have yourselves become orwill become students of psychology. You will advance a little further in ascience which is as yet only making its first uncertain steps. Even if youdo none of these things, yet if you will try to understand yourselves, bythe mere fact that you understand, you will find that you are able to helpother people--other people whose condition is most tragic, most lonely--toface with courage the problem they share with you. [D] Try to solve it, asyou can. You will gain in understanding and strength, so that those in yetgreater need will instinctively come to you for help. Base your own moralstandard on all that is noble, and wise and human, and you will find thatin you the spiritual begins so to dominate the physical that others willsee its power and come to you for help. 

[Footnote D: This subject is more fully dealt with in the next chapter. ]

 "With aching hands and bleeding feet, We toil and toil; lay stone on stone. Not till the light of day return All we have built shall we discern. "

Now let us turn to the other side of the problem--the more normal relationsof men and women who are lovers, who are husbands and wives. May I againrecapitulate what appears to be the history of many married people, even in1921. 

Let me remind you first that this contract of marriage is the mostimportant, probably, in the whole life of the man and woman who undertakeit; that it concerns human personality as perhaps no other relation in theworld does, so deeply, so closely, so intimately, that those who enter intoit are very near either to heaven or hell. The nearer you come to anyother human personality, the nearer you get to the supreme happiness or thesupreme failure. And when people enter on this relationship, how are theyprepared? Many of them are ignorant--and in the case of women often whollyso--of what marriage actually involves. I find it difficult to speak inmeasured terms of those parents who deliberately allow their daughters totake a step which involves the whole of their future life and happiness, and that of another human being also, in ignorance of what they are doing. This relationship, which requires all the love and all the wisdom of menand women--so much so that even those who do not call themselves Christiansoften desire to go to a church and ask for the grace of God to enablethem to carry out so great an undertaking--is entered upon by people wholiterally do not know what, from the very nature of marriage, is requiredof them. I suppose many people will say that I speak of a state of thingswhich passed a generation ago. No, I do not. I speak of a state of thingsthat is only too common at this present time. I have known marriage aftermarriage wrecked by the almost unbelievable ignorance that has been presenton both sides. I say both sides. First of all, there is the girl. To her, marriage comes sometimes as so great a shock that her whole temperament iswarped and embittered by it. Then there is the man, equally ignorant--veryoften, probably less ignorant of himself, but equally ignorant of her--notrealizing how she should be treated. They are often quite ignorant of eachother's views on marriage; of what sort of claims they are going to makeon each other; what each thinks about the duty of having children. Theseelementary facts of human life, which must confront those who marry, arefaced by them without any kind of preparation, without the most rudimentaryknowledge of each other's point of view. And that there are so many happymarriages in spite of all this makes one realize how extraordinarily loyal, fine and courageous, on the whole, human nature is. 

Only the other day I was speaking in a town in the north of England on thisvery subject, and I got a letter afterwards to say that the writer had verygreatly enjoyed my address at the time. She had found it, she assured me, inspiring and elevating. But she felt bound to write and tell me afterwards(what she was sure would both shock and distress me) that she had foundthat some of the people in my audience were actually acting on what Isaid! I suppose every public speaker comes up against that sort of thingsometimes--the calm assurance that you are merely talking in the air andhave not the slightest desire that anyone should act on what you say. So this lady wrote to say that, though she and her husband had both beengreatly impressed by what I said, they were horrified to find that, asa result, people were actually discussing with one another, before theymarried, certain points which she mentioned to me and which she said theyought never to discuss until they _were_ married. Is it not amazingthat anyone should seriously contend that it is better to arrive at anunderstanding with the person he or she is about to marry _after_ marriagethan before? That people who would not dream of betraying anyone into anykind of contract about which they were not satisfied that its terms wereunderstood should be willing to betray others--I deliberately call ita betrayal--into a contract of such infinite importance, and positivelydesire that they shall be ignorant of its nature?

It really seems sometimes as if pains were positively taken to misleadthose who are going to be married. One of the most amazing statements onthis subject, for instance, is contained in the marriage service of theChurch of England, where the bride and bridegroom are told that marriagewas ordained that "such persons as have not the gift of continency mightmarry and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body. " That thereshould be anyone in the twentieth century who does not know that a man ora woman who has not the gift of continency is totally unfit for marriage isreally rather startling. What such a person requires is both a divine and aphysician; but that he should be told that he is fit for marriage andthat marriage was expressly designed for him is not only misleading, it isabsolutely horrifying. It explains the tragic wreck which so many marriagesbecome after a comparatively short time. 

I would urge, then, for the future, that we should not concentrate allour moral, ethical, religious, and social force on perpetuating the tragicfailure of an empty marriage, but, rather, should concentrate our effortson trying to make people understand what marriage is; what their ownnatures are; what marriage is going to demand from them; what they need inorder to make it noble. I urge, moreover, that the same principle shouldapply to those who do not marry--that they also should learn in thelight what their difficulties are going to be; how to face theirown temperaments; how to deal with their own minds and bodies. Yourtemperament, men and women, does not decide your destiny; it does decideyour trials. To know how to deal with it and how to make it your servant, how so to enthrone spiritual power in your nature that it shall dominateall that is physical, not as something base, but as a sacred and aconsecrated thing--it is on this that the teachers of to-day shouldconcentrate with all their power. It is true that when we have learntall that is possible from teaching, there is still something to learn. Inmarriage is it possible to know finally until the final step is taken?No, I do not think so. But when you consider how we have struggled againstignorance, how many pitfalls have been put in the path of those whodesired knowledge, how we have, as it seems, done our best to make thisrelationship a failure, surely it is worth while, at least, to try whatknowledge, and understanding, and education, and training _can_ do. Wecannot know all. That is no reason why we should not know all that we can. 

Surely marriage must be a divine institution, since we have done so muchto make it a failure, and yet one sees again and again such splendid love, such magnificent loyalty and faith! "You advocate, " someone wrote to me theother day, "you advocate that people should leave each other when they aretired of each other. " No, I do not advocate that anyone should accepta failure. I advocate that every human being should do all that ispossible--more perhaps than is possible without the grace of God--tomake marriage the noble and lovely thing it should be. I think those arefaint-hearted who easily accept the fact that it is difficult, and fromthat drift swiftly to the conclusion that for them it is impossible. Iadvocate that the greatest faith and loyalty should be practised. I believein my heart that there is perhaps no relationship which cannot be redeemedby the love and devotion and the grace of God in the hearts of those whoseek to make it redeemable. What I do say is that in Church and State weshould concentrate all our efforts on helping men and women to a wise, enlightened, noble conception of marriage before they enter upon it, andnot on a futile and immoral attempt to hold them together by a mere legalcontract when all that made it valid has fled. 

I believe that the more one knows of human nature the more one reverencesit. I believe that the vast majority of human beings strain every nerverather than fail in so great a responsibility. Do you remember reading inMr. Bertrand Russell's book, "Principles of Social Reconstruction, " ofa little church of which it was discovered, not, I think, very longago, that, owing to some defect in its title, marriages which had beencelebrated there were not legal? Mr. Bertrand Russell says that there wereat that time I forget how many couples still living who had been marriedin that church, who found that, by this legal defect, they were not legallybound. Do you know how many of those married people seized the opportunityto desert each other and go and marry somebody else? Not a single one!Every one of those couples went quietly away to church and got marriedagain!

Religious people do sometimes think such mean things of human nature, andhuman nature is, for the most part, so much nobler, so much more loyal, somuch more loving than we imagine. "Lift up your eyes unto the hills fromwhence cometh your help. " "He that walketh in the light, stumbleth not, forhe seeth the light of the world. "

Let us face the future courageously, with great reverence for otherpeople's opinions and views. Let us not join that mob of shouters who areprepared to howl at everyone who desires to say something that is not quiteorthodox, but which is their serious and considered contribution to a greatand difficult problem. Let us greet them with respect, however much we maydiffer from them. Let us look forward without fear. Believe me, below allthe froth and scum of which we make so much, human nature is very noble. 

Let us give that example to the world which is worth a thousandarguments--the example of a noble married life, the example of a noblesingle life. Those of you who are alone can do infinitely more for virtueby being full of gentleness, wisdom, sanity, and love than by any harshrepression of yourselves. It is by what you can make of celibacy that theworld will judge celibacy. And so of married lovers. Believe me, it is notthe children of married lovers who are rebels against a lofty standard. Those who have seen with their eyes a lovely, faithful and unwavering loveare not easily satisfied with anything that is less. "Lift up your eyesunto the hills. From whence cometh your strength. " And in the light of agreat ideal, in the light of knowledge, sincerity and truth, in the lightof what I know of human nature, I, for one, am not afraid for the futuremoral standard of this country. 

VII

FRIENDSHIP

 "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Oh Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" (II. Sam. I. 23-27. )

 "And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part me and thee. " (Ruth i. 14-17. )

People have sometimes discussed with me whether it is right to have asintense and absorbing a love for a friend of one's own sex as existsbetween lovers. The word "absorbing" is perhaps the difficulty in theirminds. All love is essentially the same, and it has been pointed out thatthe great classic instances of great love have been almost as often betweenfriends as between lovers. But the test of love's nobility remainsthe same. If it is in the strict sense "absorbing"--if, that is, it isexclusive, if it narrows one's interests instead of enlarging them, if itinvolves a failure in love or sympathy with other people, it is wrong--itis not in the true sense "love"; but if it enriches the understanding, widens interest, deepens sympathy--if, in a word, to love one teaches us tolove others better, then it is good, it is love indeed. A friendship whichis of such character that no one outside it is of any interest, a maternallove which not only concentrates on its own but wholly excludes all otherchildren, even a marriage which ultimately narrows rather than widens andis exclusive in its interests, is a poor caricature of love. A young mothermay, in the first rapture of her motherhood, seem wholly absorbed; but, as a matter of fact, she generally ends by caring more for _all_ childrenbecause she loves one so deeply. Even lovers, after the first absorption ofnewly-discovered joy, must learn to share their happiness and the happinessof their home with others if it is not to grow hard and dull. And friendsmay easily estimate the worth of their friendship by the measure with whichit has humanized their relations to all other human beings. 

There is another test also for love: Does it express itself naturally andrightly? This test is much more difficult to apply. One may believethat all love is essentially the same, but it is certain that all humanrelationships are not the same, and, therefore, love cannot always beexpressed in the same way; but it is not possible to lay down any exactrule between the sort of "expression" legitimate to each. Everyonemust have suffered sometimes from a sense of having forced undesireddemonstrations on other people, or having them forced on oneself. One'ssuffering in the first instance is intensified by the knowledge of theextremity of revolt created by the second. There is nothing, I suppose, more acutely painful than the sense of being compelled to acceptdemonstrations of affection to which one cannot in the same way respond. I believe that this shrinking from expressions which seem unnatural, is rightly intensified a hundredfold when the sense of wrongness or"unnaturalness" is due not to the individual but to the relationshipitself. 

The love which unites the soul to God, children to their parents, mothersand fathers to sons and daughters, lovers to one another, friend to friend, the disciple to his master, is all one. You cannot divide Love. But to eachbelongs its right and natural expression, and to parody the love of loversbetween friends revolts the growing sense of humankind. The very horrorsof prostitution create a less shuddering disgust than the debauching ofa young boy by an older man, though with a tragically common injusticesociety is more apt to be disgusted by the unfortunate victim, bearingall the marks of his moral and physical perversion, than by the moreresponsible older man who profits by or even creates it. 

Yet it is, as I have said, only by the _growing_ sense of humanity thatsuch things are condemned. They were not always so in every case. On thecontrary it has sometimes been maintained that friendship between men wasso much nobler than the love of men and women that even when it demandedphysical expression it was still the finest of all human relationship. Thisidea was, of course, widely held by the Greeks during the noblest epochsof their history, and Plato, though he does not, as is commonly believed, justify such expression as good in itself, evidently regards it aspractically inevitable and, therefore, to be condoned. And though from thisindulgent attitude there has been a very general revolt in modern times, the reaction has not always been very discriminating in its condemnationor very just in its reprisals. Now--in consequence, no doubt, of thisinjustice--there has arisen another attempt to assert the superior nobilityof friendship over love, [E] and even to claim a superior humanity forpeople who are more attracted by members of their own sex. 

[Footnote E: I am using the terms "friendship" and "love" in theirordinarily accepted and narrow sense, as meaning respectively the love offriends and the love of lovers. This is arbitrary, but I cannot find otherwords except by using long phrases. ]

There is not in this any question of the bestial depravity whichdeliberately debauches the young and innocent: it is a question of thekind of friendship glorified by Plato. And those who uphold the Platonicview are not always debauchees but sometimes men and women who, howeverincomprehensibly, still sincerely believe that they and not we who opposethem are the true idealists. This is why it is worth while to state ourreasons for our profound disagreement, and to do so as intelligently andfairly as possible. It is also worth while because no one has suffered morecruelly or more hopelessly than those whose temperament or abnormality hasbeen treated by most of us as though it were _in itself_, and withoutactual wrong-doing, a crime worthy of denunciation and scorn. 

First, then, let it be remembered that the highest types humanity hasevolved have been men and women who are really "human, " that is to saywho have not only those qualities which are generally regarded ascharacteristic of their sex, but have had some share of the other sex'squalities also. A man who is (if such a thing could be) wholly andexclusively male in all his qualities would be repulsive; so would a womanwholly and exclusively female. One has only to look at history to realizeit. Compared with the exquisite tenderness and joy of a St. Francisof Assisi, the courage and determination of a St. Joan of Arc, theintellectual power of a St. Catherine of Siena or St. Theresa of Spain, the "brute male" who is wholly male, the "eternal feminine" with hersuffocating sexuality seem on the one hand inhuman, on the other subhuman. It is not the absence of the masculine qualities in a man, or of thefeminine qualities in a woman which raises them above the mass; it is thepresence in power of both; and no man is truly human who has not somethingof the woman in him--no woman who has not something of the man. Here is acertain truth. And its supreme example is Christ Himself--Christ in Whompower and tenderness, strength and insight, courage and compassion wereequally present--Christ Who is in truth the ideal of all humanity withoutdistinction of race, class or sex. 

This is true. But its truth has been misunderstood by teachers like EdwardCarpenter. Beauty and strength in human nature as elsewhere depend onharmony, and in such characters as I have cited that harmony is found. For, in fact, there is no instance in nature of a male wholly male or a femaleentirely female. Even physically the elements are shared. And if we saywith confidence that where these elements are most fully shared there isfound the fullest humanity, we are not committed to adding that wherethe body has one predominating character and the spirit another there issomething finer still!

For harmony of life and temperament the body should be the perfectinstrument and expression of the spirit. When you have the temperamentof one sex in the body of another, this cannot be. There is at once adisharmony, a dislocation, a disorder--in fact, a less perfect not a moreperfect type. Humanity does, I believe, progress towards a fuller elementof the woman in the man, the man in the woman, and the best we haveproduced so far confirm the truth of this. But it is not an advance toproduce a type in which the temperament and the body are at odds. This isnot progress but perversion. 

It is the same consciousness of dislocation which makes us condemnhomosexual practices. Here it is a dislocation between the means andthe end. The instinct of sex, to whatever use it may have been put, isfundamentally the creative instinct. It is not by an accident, it is not asa side-issue, that it is through sexual attraction that children are born. And however sublimated, however enriched, restrained and conditioned, thecreative power of physical passion remains at once its justification andits consecration. To use it in a relationship which must for ever be barrenis "unnatural" and in the deepest sense immoral. It is not easy to define"immorality, " because morality is one of the fundamentals which defydefinition; but though it is not easy to define, it is not hard torecognize. All the world knows that it is immoral to prostitute thecreative power of genius to mere commercialism, for money or for fame. Noone can draw a hard and fast line. No one will quarrel with a great artistbecause he lives by his art, or because he will sometimes turn aside toamuse himself, his public, or his friends. Michaelangelo is not blamedbecause, one winter's afternoon, he made a snow-statue for Lorenzo deMedici! Yet all will admit that _merely_ to amuse, _merely_ to make money, _merely_ to gain popularity is a prostitution of genius. Why? Because itis to put to another than its real purpose the creative power of a greatartist. 

In the same way, to use the power of another great creative impulse--thatof sex--in a way which divorces it wholly from its end--creation onthe physical as well as the spiritual plane--is immoral because it is"unnatural. " Again and again it will be found to lead to a violent reactionof feeling--a repulsion which is as intense and violent as the devotionwhich was its prelude. 

What then should those do who have this temperament? No one, perhaps, canwisely counsel them but themselves. They alone can find out the way bywhich the disharmony of their being can be transcended. That it can be soI am persuaded. That modern psychology has already made strides in theknowledge of this problem we all know. What is due to arrested developmentor to repression can be set right or liberated: what is temperamentaltransmuted. But I appeal to those who know this, but who have suffered anddo still suffer under this difficulty, to make it their business to let inthe light, to help others, to know themselves, to learn how to win harmonyout of disharmony and to transcend their own limitations. Let them takehold of life there where it has hurt them most cruelly, and wrest fromtheir own suffering the means by which others shall be saved from sufferingand humanity brought a little further into the light. Who knows yet of whatit is capable? Who knows what is our ultimate goal? It may be that out ofa nature so complex and so difficult may come the noblest yet, when thespirit has subdued the warring temperament wholly to itself. 

And to the others I would say this. If the homosexual is still the mostmisunderstood, maltreated, and suffering of our race, it is due to ourignorance and brutal contempt. How many have even tried to understand? Howmany have refrained from scorn? Other troubles have been mitigated, othergriefs respected if not understood. But this we refuse even to discuss. We are content to condemn in ignorance, boasting that we are too goodto understand. In consequence, though a few here and there have preachedhomosexuality as a kind of gospel, far more have suffered an agony ofshame, a self-loathing which makes life a hell. 

To be led to believe that one is naturally depraved!--to be condemned asthe worst of sinners before one has committed even a single sin! Is thatnot the height and depth of cruelty? Do you wonder if here and there oneof the stronger spirits among these condemned ones reacts in a fierce, unconscious egotism and proclaims himself the true type of humanity, thetruly "civilized" man? How shall they see clearly whom we have clothed indarkness, or judge truly who are so terribly alone?

To have a temperament is not in itself a sin! To find in your nature adisharmony which you must transcend, a dislocation you have to restoreto order, is not a sin! Whose nature is all harmony? Whose temperamentguarantees him from temptation? Is there one here who is not conscious ofsome dislocation in his life that he must combat? Not one!

It is a disharmony to have an active spirit in a sickly body. It is adisharmony to have, like one of the very greatest of Christ's disciples, "athorn in the flesh to buffet him. " Who shall deliver us from this body ofdeath? When you hear of a Beethoven deaf or of a Robert Louis Stevensonspitting blood, are you not conscious of disharmony? Where there is perfectharmony--_perfect_, I say--such a dislocation could not be. Epilepsy hasbeen called "la maladie des grands, " because some great ones have sufferedfrom it. Perhaps St. Paul did. It is not possible to imagine Christ doingso. In Him there existed so perfect a harmony of being that one can no moreassociate Him with ill-health than with any other disorder or defect. Yet we do not speak (or think) with horrified contempt of the disharmonypresent in St. Paul or in Beethoven. Rather we reverence the gloriousconquest of the spirit over the weakness and limitations of the flesh. Someof us have even rushed to the opposite extreme and preached ill-health as akind of sanctity, in our just admiration for those who have battled againstit and shown us the spirit dominant over the flesh. 

But, it will be urged, ill-health is quite another kind of disharmony thanvice. We are not responsible for it, and cannot be blamed. 

I am not prepared to admit that this is altogether true, but I will notdiscuss it now. The point I want to make clear, if I make nothing elseclear, is that to be born with a certain temperament is not in itself asin nor does it compel you to be a sinner. "Your temperament decides yourtrials; it does not decide your destiny. " It is no more "wicked" to havethe temperament of a homosexual than to have the weakness of an invalid. Itis difficult for the spirit to dominate and to bring into a healthy harmonya body predisposed to illness and disorder. The greater the glory to thosewho succeed! Let us confess with shame that in this other and far hardercase we have not only ignored the difficulty and despised the struggler, but--God forgive us--have, so far as in us lay, made impossible thevictory. 

VIII

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

 "If there is one result or conclusion that we may pick out from the science of sex which has developed so rapidly of recent years, as thoroughly established and permanently accepted, it is that the old notion of the sinfulness of the sex process, _in se_, is superstitious, not religious; and must be discarded before ethical religion can assert its full sway over humanity's sex life. And, most assuredly, the conception narratives [of the New Testament], by retaining the sex process to the important extent of normal pregnancy and parturition, foreshadowed and hallowed this development of ethical thought. They make it clear that the Spirit of God and the spirit of woman, in conscious union, refuse to justify superstitious and paralyzing fears, refuse to allow that the sex process is irredeemable; they render possible and imperative the working out of the ethical problems directly concerned with sex. "

 _Northcute: Christianity and Sex Problems_, _pp. _ 415, 416. 

During the course of these addresses I have more than once, and with morethan common urgency, pleaded for the light of knowledge, that we mayin future not make so many disastrous mistakes from sheer ignoranceand misunderstanding. I have been asked to say more definitely what"misunderstandings" I had in mind, and to discuss them with at least asmuch courage as I have so pressingly demanded from others. 

The demand is just; and I feel the less able to disregard it because I havediscussed these very difficulties with people whose lives have been wreckedby the ignorance in which they were brought up, or saved by knowledgewisely imparted before the difficulties arose. Knowledge cannot save usfrom hardship or difficulty; it cannot make us invulnerable to attack, orlift us above the ordinary temptations of ordinary mortals; but it can showus where we are going; it can guide us when we wish to be guided; it cansave us, when we wish to be saved, from mistakes cruel to ourselves andoften far more cruel to other people. 

For instance: it is very generally believed that the struggle forcontinence is greatly eased by continual and even exhausting physicalactivity. To work hard--to work even to exhaustion--is believed by someto be a panacea. At our great public schools the craze for athleticismis justified on the ground that, even at the expense of the things of themind, it does at least keep the boys from moral evil. 

I believe this to be a mistake, and a mistake which is due to our lookingat sex from a too purely physical point of view. It is, of course, imbecileto forget the physical, and deal with sex simply as a "sin"; but it is noless stupid to forget that our bodies and souls are intimately boundtogether, and that there is much more in passion than a merely physicalinstinct. As a matter of fact, a tired person is not immune fromsex-hunger, and even an exhausted person is likely to find that, far fromsexual feeling being exhausted too, it turns out to be the only sensationthat will respond to stimulus at all. The exploitation of sexuality by ourtheatres and Press is not successful only in the case of the idle and theoverfed; it finds its patrons also among those who are too tired to puttheir minds into anything really interesting from an intellectual orartistic point of view, but whose attention can be distracted and whoseinterest held by a more or less open appeal to the primitive instincts ofsex. Tired people want to be amused and interested if possible; but theyare not easily amused by anything that appeals to the mind, because theyare tired. They want a sensation other than the customary one of fatigue, and the easiest sensation to excite is a sexual one. They get it thinlydisguised, in a theatre or music-hall, more thickly disguised in theform of cheap fiction, or quite undisguised elsewhere. But the idea thatsexuality is destroyed by fatigue is a very mischievous illusion whichhas misled and helped to destroy some of the most honest strivers afterself-control. Such people will, with a touching belief in saws, seek tofind in exhaustion relief from temptation. But it is not amusing alwaysto feel tired. One desires at last something else--some other kind offeeling--and one is too tired to make an effort. But sexual sensation iseasily excited, and in the end the unfortunate finds that he has yieldedagain. His hard fight has only ended in defeat, and he either abandons theadvice as mistaken, or himself as hopelessly and uniquely depraved. 

The truth is, of course, that what is needed is not physical exhaustionany more than physical idleness and overfeeding. What is wanted is hardand _interesting_ work--work that absorbs one's mental as well as physicalstrength. A boy at a public school who really cares for games can pourhis energies into them and appear a fine example of the system; a boy who, though games are compulsory, cannot interest himself in them at all, is nothelped by being physically exhausted. If, then, he yields to a temptationthe other has escaped, this need not be because he is more wicked or moreweak. It may quite well be because the insistence on athleticism, which hasbeen elevated into a cult, in our public schools, has supplied a real andabsorbing interest for the one, but has merely used the physical capacityof the other without touching his mind or his spirit at all. When shallwe learn that every human being is a unity, and that to ignore any part ofit--body, mind or spirit--is idiotic? The muscular Christian who believesthat continence is achieved by physical fatigue is as short-sighted as hewho would treat the whole matter as a purely ethical problem. But the manor woman who works hard at some congenial and absorbing task--especially ifit be creative work--finds the virtue of continence well within his graspwithout exhaustion and without asceticism. It is because sex is essentiallya creative--the creative--power in humanity that we have to direct itsforce into some more spiritual channel than mere physical labour, if we areto make ourselves its master. 

Again, an increasing number of us believe that to master our physicalimpulses is possible; and that it has seemed impossible--at least, for men--in the past largely because so little knowledge and so littlecommon-sense has been used in achieving mastery. Naturally, it was simplerto assume that it was impossible to control oneself than to find out howto make it possible, but as we grow more civilized we cease to be perfectlycontent with this simple plan, and begin to perceive its extraordinaryinjustices and brutalities. It has been said that the civilization of anypeople or period may be judged by the position of its women, and thoughthis is too simple to be quite true, it is far more true than false. If, however, civilization does raise the position of women, and assign to thema greater freedom of action and a wider scope for their lives thanwas theirs before, it must be clearly understood that women in thesecircumstances and of this type will take a quite different line on thequestion of sex morals than their great-grandmothers did. It is, forexample, still urged that women must not do this, that or the otherwork, because it involves working with men whose sex instincts may beuncontrollably aroused by such collaboration. Sir Almroth Wright haspleaded this, and it is being urged to-day against the entrance of womeninto what is now almost the only sphere still closed to them--the spiritualwork of the Churches. It is urged that some men are afraid of beingsexually excited if they are addressed by a woman-preacher, and that otherscannot be within the sanctuary, with a woman near them, without similardanger. The misunderstanding that arises here is, surely, that the cause ofthis abnormal excitement is in the woman, whereas (in the cases cited)it is in the man. There are, of course, women who find an exactly similardifficulty in working with men: women who are transformed by the merepresence of men, as there are men who cannot enter a room full of womenwithout physical disturbance. Such men, such women, are not necessarilydepraved or immoral persons, their temperament may be a source of genuinedistress to them. It may be most admirably controlled, and in thousands ofcases it is so, especially when the sufferer understands himself or--morerarely--understands herself. All the help that psychology and medicalscience can give (and it is much) should be given to and accepted by suchpeople. The one thing that should _not_ be yielded is the ridiculous claimthat men and women who are not so susceptible (and who are in the vastmajority) should rule their lives according to the standards of those whoare sexually over-developed or one-sidedly developed. It cannot be toostrongly insisted that this problem is the problem of the individual. He(or she) has got to settle it. He must learn to manage himself in such away that he ceases to be abnormally excitable, or he must arrange his lifeso that he avoids, as far as possible, the causes of excitement. He mustnot expect others to cramp their lives to fit him; he must not expectcivilization to be perverted or arrested in order to avoid a difficultywhich is his own. 

The only alternative to this is to revert to a form of civilization inwhich it was frankly admitted that sex-impulses could not be controlled, either by men or by women, and society was therefore organized on a basiswhich, quite logically, provided for the restraint of women in a bondagewhich prevented them from satisfying their impulses as they chose, and atthe same time protected them from attack by other men than their lawfulowners; and which, further, provided conveniences for the equallyuncontrollable instincts of men. 

This system is quite logical; so is the one here advocated, of assumingthat the sexual instincts of both sexes can be controlled. What is notlogical is the assumption that they _can_ be controlled, but that suchcontrol is to be exercised not by each one mastering himself, but bythe removal of all possibility of temptation! This demand is reallyincompatible with our civilization, and those who make it should try tounderstand that what they ask is, in fact, the reversal of all advance inreal self-control in matters of sex. 

Let us abandon the pretence that it is "wicked" for either a man or a womanto have strongly-developed sex-instincts. When we do this, we shall beon the high way to learning how to manage ourselves without makingpreposterous demands upon our neighbours or inroads upon their individualfreedom. 

We shall also, I believe, get rid of those perversions which darkenunderstanding as well as joy. One need not go all the way with Freud--onemay, indeed, suspect him of suffering from a severe "repression"himself--while admitting, nevertheless, that much of the folly thatsurrounds our treatment of sex-questions is due to the patheticdetermination of highly respectable people to have no sex nature orimpulses at all. Certainly this accounts for much that is called "prudery"in women, whose repressed and starved instincts revenge themselves in amorbid (mental) preoccupation with the details of vice. I am forced to theconclusion that it has also something to do with the quite extraordinarydescription that certain ecclesiastics give of their own inability tocontrol their imaginations even at the most solemn moments. A narrow anddishonest moral standard has been foisted upon women in these matters, andinstead of knowing themselves and learning to control their natures, theyhave been given a false idea of their own natures, and taught insteadmerely to repress them. So, very often, a curiously artificial codeof manners has been accepted by the clergyman--a code which has beencrystallized in a phrase by calling the clergy "the third sex"--and he, like the women, should be in revolt against it if he is to be saved. Indeed, we are or should be allies, not foes. Let the priest or ministerwear the same kind of collar as other people, mix with them on equal terms, and then, if he has a higher moral standard than they, it will be hisown standard, accepted by him because it commands his homage, and not astandard imposed on him merely because he belongs to a certain caste. Itis always the code of morals imposed from without that does mischief, andresults in the repressions and perversions about which modern psychologyhas taught us so much. 

It will perhaps be urged that the peculiar dangers of which ecclesiasticsare conscious are due to the psychological fact that the erotic andreligious emotions are closely allied. That this is a fact will hardly bedoubted. But again the problem is either an individual one, _or_ it mustbe solved by abandoning our present position and reverting to that of anearlier and cruder civilization. It is possible to argue that eroticism andreligion are so nearly allied and so easily mistaken for one another, thatsafety and sincerity alike demand separate worship for men and women. [F] Itis also possible to leave it to the individual to manage himself, conquerwhere he can and flee where he cannot. But it is not possible, on groundsof religious eroticism, to protect men from listening to a woman preaching, at the cost of compelling women to listen to no one but a man; or insist onthe intolerable cruelty of compelling a man-priest to celebrate mass with awoman server, while forcing the woman to make her confession to a man. 

[Footnote F: As, _e. G. _, among the Mahometans and, to a less extent, theJews. ]

I am convinced that when religious people learn to refrain from cheap"religion" based on emotional preaching and sentimental or rowdy music, they will find that, though eroticism and religion are nearly allied andcan easily be mistaken, it is not impossible to distinguish between them. The effort to do so should be made by our spiritual leaders, and when madewill result in a sturdier and more thoughtful religion. While for those, whether men or women, who are honestly aware that for them certain thingsare impossible there will be an obvious alternative. The man who cannotforget the woman in the priest or preacher will not attend her church; thewoman, of whom the same is sometimes true, will avoid the ministrations ofmen. There will then be less of that eroticism in religion which some ofthose who--by a curious perversion of logic--oppose the ministry of womenactually quote as a reason for compelling women to go to men-priestsbecause there is no one else for them to go to. 

IX

FURTHER MISUNDERSTANDINGS: THE NEED FOR SEX CHIVALRY

 "Men venerated and even feared women--particularly in their specifically sexual aspect--even while they bullied them; and even in corrupt and superstitious times, when the ideal of womanhood was lost sight of, women tended to get back as witches the spiritual eminence they had failed to retain as saints, matrons and saviours of society. "

 _Northcote: Christianity and Sex Problems, p_. 326. 

Chivalry is the courtesy of strength to weakness. Yet women who pridethemselves on their superior moral strength in regard to sex rarely feelbound to show any chivalry towards the weak. I do not myself believe thatwomen are _as a whole_ stronger than men, or that men are _as a whole_stronger than women; but I am sure that the sexes are relatively strongerin certain respects and at certain points, and that where one is strongerthan the other, that one should feel the chivalrous obligation of strengthwhether man or woman. Chivalry is not and ought not to be a masculinevirtue solely. 

For example, it is quite common to be told of (or by) some girl who is anartist in flirtation that she is "quite able to take care of herself. " Thisappears to mean that whoever suffers, she will not; and whatever is given, she will not be the giver. It is possible to go further and say thatwhatever she buys she will certainly not pay for. 

What does she buy? Well, it depends, of course, on what she wants and whatis her social class. But, roughly speaking, she wants both pleasure andhomage--not only theatres and cinemas, ice-creams or chocolates, but theincense that goes with such things--the demonstration of her triumphantsexual charm, which evokes such offerings. 

Of course, in a great deal of this there is no harm. People who like eachother will like to please each other, to give pleasure, and to enjoy ittogether. But there is something beyond this which is not harmless butdetestable, and that is the deliberate playing on sexual attraction inorder to extract homage and to demonstrate power. A girl will sometimesplay on a man as a pianist on his instrument, put a strain on him thatis intolerable, fray his nerves and destroy his self-control, while sheherself, protected not by virtue but frigidity, complacently affirms thatshe "can take care of herself. " The blatant dishonesty of the businessnever strikes her for a moment. She takes all she wants and gives nothingin return, and honestly believes that this is because she is "virtuous. "That she is a thief--and one who combines theft with torture--never occursto her; yet it is true. 

Observe--I do not suggest that it would be creditable if she did "pay. " Itwould be no more so than Herod's payment of John the Baptist's head. Butalthough it is wrong to take something you want and give in return what youought not to give, it would be a curious sort of morality that would go onto argue that it is right to take all and give nothing. Both transactionsare immoral and one is dishonest. 

On the other hand, it must be remembered that a parasite _must_ take alland give nothing or as little as possible. That is the law of its being. And so long as men resent the independence of women, and enjoy the positionof perpetual paymaster, so long will many women be driven to use the onlyweapon they have left. Moreover, it is fair to say--and this is why I pleadfor light--that many of them are genuinely ignorant that they are playingwith fire. The more frigid they are themselves, the less are they able togauge the forces they are arousing; the more ignorant they are, the lesspossible is it for them to be chivalrous to those whose strength andweakness they alike misunderstand. The half-knowledge, the instinctivearts, which girls sometimes display continually mislead men into thinkingthem a great deal cleverer than they are. Each is ignorant of the other'sweakness, and each puts the other in danger because of that ignorance. 

I once spoke to a big meeting of girls in the neighbourhood of a big camp, during the war; and reflecting on the difficult position of the men--theirsegregation from ordinary feminine society, their distance from theirhomes, their unoccupied hours, and the inevitable nervous and emotionalstrain of preparing for the front--I tried to make the girls realize howhard they could make it for the men to keep straight, if they were ignorantor foolish themselves. I knew--and said so--that the girls were in adifficult position too; but, after all, they prided themselves on being themore "moral" (_i. E. _ the stronger) sex, and should be chivalrous. 

Afterwards I got a reproachful letter from a woman-patrol, who assured methat if anything went wrong, it was not the fault of the girls. "They are arough lot, " she wrote, "and, of course, they like to have a soldier to walkout with. They like to romp with the men, and to kiss them, and perhapsthey do go rather far in letting the men pull them about. But they have nointention whatever of going any further. If things do go further, it is themen's fault, not the girls'. "

I could hardly have a better instance of the sort of thing I mean. Thegirls want to have "fun" up to a certain point, and there stop. It doesnot occur to them that there may be a difference in the point at which theypropose--or wish--to stop, and that at which the man can. That there isany physiological or psychological factor in the case which makes stoppingpossible at one moment and next-door to impossible at another, and thatthese factors may differ between the sexes, so that one cannot stop justwhere the other can, is quite a new idea not only to factory girls but towomen-patrols--at least to some of them. A girl will cheerfully start aman rushing down an inclined plane and then complain because he continuesrushing till he reaches the bottom. Well, in a sense, we ought not tocomplain of either of them: we ought to challenge the senseless way inwhich they are kept in the dark about each other. 

In these days, when so much greater liberty is accorded to boys and girlsthan was given in the past, the friends of liberty should insist withobstinacy on the need for knowledge. For if liberty is unaccompanied andunguided by knowledge, its degeneration into licence will be triumphantlyused by the lovers of bondage as an argument against liberty itself. Let methen say boldly that I am all for liberty. I want boys and girls, men andwomen, to see far more of each other and get to know each other muchbetter than in the past. I believe in co-education, and in _real_co-education--not the sham that is practised in some of our universitiesand colleges. I see the risks and I want to take them. I know there will be"disasters, " and I think them much less disastrous than those attending themethods of obscurantism and restraint. I think the idea that a boy and girlmay not touch each other introduces a silly atmosphere of unreal "romance"where commonplace friendship is what is wanted. But with all this, and_because_ of all this, I want a girl to know that a boy's body and mindare not _exactly_ like hers; and perhaps a boy to know that a girl's is nottotally _unlike_ his!

In what way do they differ? The male, I think, is more liable to suddengusts of passion, of violence so great as to be almost uncontrollable--atleast so nearly so as to make it both cruel and stupid to arouse them. Awoman's nature is not (generally) so quickly stirred. She takes longer tomove (hence the universal fact of courtship). Or rather it might be moreaccurate to say that he and she may both start at the same time from thesame point, but she takes longer to reach the end, and because this is so, is more capable of stopping before the end is reached. This she does notunderstand, and expects that if _she_ can pause, so can _he_; while he alsomisunderstands, and does not know that there is for her, just as much asfor him, a moment when self-control becomes impossible. 

I have said so much about the lack of chivalry shown by women to men thatit is only reasonable to point out that the reverse is true, and that menare often extraordinarily unchivalrous towards women. The cause is, ofcourse, the same: they do not realize what a strain they are putting onthem. There is still a very general assumption, even by those who reallyknow better, that women have no passions and are untempted from within. Ihave often been assured by "men of the world" that "a woman can always stopa man if she wants to. " No doubt she can--some men. She can "stop them ifshe wants to. " The trouble is that a time comes when she cannot want to. The bland assumption that a man has a perfect right to play on a woman'ssex-instincts till they are beyond control, and then call her theguilty one because they _are_ beyond control, is based on the age-olddetermination not to recognize the full humanity of women. They are"different" from men. So they are. I have admitted it. But the likenessis much greater than the difference. And neither the likeness nor thedifference makes self-control an easy thing for her. It is easier up toa certain point, because she is more slowly moved; it is harder when thatpoint is reached because her whole nature is involved. She has neverlearnt to say that she can give her body to one while remaining spirituallyfaithful to another, and perhaps she never will learn. I at least suspectso. She may be as fickle as a man, but it will be in a different way. 

Of course, in all this I generalize very rashly from a very narrowexperience. My excuse is that these things must be discussed if we are everto generalize more safely, or to learn that we must not generalize at all. And I have come to the conclusion that it is perhaps as possible to knowsomething of what is or is not true when one is unmarried as when one ismarried. At least one escapes the snare into which so many married peoplesurprisingly fall, of generalizing from an experience which is not merelyas narrow as everyone's must be, but actually unique; which enables them topronounce with stupefying confidence that all men are as this man is; allwomen as his wife; and all marriages as his marriage. When one has had thehonour of receiving the confidence of a succession of such prophets andheard them pronounce in turn, but in an entirely different sense, uponthe difficulties or easinesses of sex-relationships, always with a fullassurance that they are right, not only in their own case but universally, one begins to make a few tentative generalizations oneself in the hope thatthey will at least provoke discussion and engender light. 

X

"THE SIN OF THE BRIDEGROOM"

 "A deathless bubble from the fresh lips blown Of Cherubim at play about God's throne Seemed her virginity. She dreamed alone Dreams round and sparkling as some sea-washed stone. Then an oaf saw and lusted at the sight. They smashed the thing upon their wedding night. "

 _Dunch, Susan Miles. _

Something has been said by others of one of the most fruitful sources ofmisunderstanding between men and women, where misunderstanding is likely tohave the most disastrous results--what has been called by Rosegger "the sinof the bridegroom. " Perhaps "sin" is a mistaken word. If irreparable harmis often done on the wedding night, it is quite as much due to ignoranceas to cruelty. Nothing is more astonishing than the widespread ignorance ofmen _and women_ of the fact that courtship is not a mere convention, or ameans of flattering the vanity of women, but a physiological necessityif there is to be any difference at all between the union of lovers and arape. 

It is all, I suppose, part of the old possessive idea which, making ofa woman something less than a human personality with wishes, desires andtemperament of her own, forbade the man to realize or even to know thather body has its needs as well as his, and that to regard it merely as aninstrument is to be in danger of real cruelty. 

You can bargain for the possession of a violin and the moment it is yours, may play upon it. It is yours. If you are in the mood to play, it must beready for you. If it is not, then tune it, and it will be. [G] But a humanbeing cannot be treated so in any human relationship. It needs mutualpatience and mutual respect to make a relationship human. 

[Footnote G: But even a violin will need to be tuned. ]

This simple fact, however, has been so little understood of lovers, thathusbands have, in genuine ignorance of the cruelty they were committing, raped their wives on their wedding night. Judging by what one knows ofwedding-days, it could hardly be supposed that there could be a moreunpropitious moment for the consummation of marriage. And when to thefatigue and strain of the day is added--_as is still quite often thecase_--blank though uneasy ignorance as to what marriage involves, or thethunderbolt of knowledge (_sic_) launched by the bride's mother the nightbefore, or the morning of the day itself, it would be difficult with theutmost deliberation and skill better to ensure absolute repulsion andhorror on the part of the bride. I think that any man who would considerthis from the bride's point of view would see that she need not necessarilybe cold or unresponsive because, in such circumstances, she needs rest andconsideration more than passion. But I wish men could know a little morethan this, and understand that to enforce physical union when a woman'spsychical and emotional nature does not desire it, is definitely andphysically cruel. Woman is not a passive instrument, and to treat her assuch is to injure her. 

Perhaps I may be forgiven for labouring this point because, in fact, misunderstanding here is so disastrous. Marriage, after all, is a relationinto which the question of physical union enters, and if there is noequality of desire, marriage will be much less than it might be. Womenare--idiotically--taught to believe that passion is a characteristic of thedepraved woman and of the normal man, who is shown by this fact to be on alower spiritual level than (normal) woman. This senseless pride in whatis merely a defect of temperament where it exists has poisoned the maritalrelations of many men and women, and has led women into marrying when theywere temperamentally unfitted for such a relation, and quite unable to makeanyone happy in it. Nor ought they to be too much blamed, since they areoften unaware of what they ought to be prepared to give in marriage andfirmly convinced that their preposterous ignorance is in some inexplicableway a virtue. Why it should be admirable, or even commonly honest, toundertake duties of whose nature you are ignorant, neither men nor womenseem ever to have decided, and the illusion is beginning to pass. But it isstill not understood that the woman who is not temperamentally asexual mayeasily be made so by being forced when she is not ready, and physicallyhurt when a little patience and tenderness would have saved her. Forel, Havelock, Ellis and others have insisted on this, but their books areunfortunately not easily accessible to the general public; and somethingmay be added to the more widely read productions of Dr. Stopes. [H] Notonly the physiological but the psychological side of the problem has to beconsidered, and it would be hard to decide which is the more important orwhich the _vera causa_ of the other's reaction. Scientists may perhaps tellus some day: here I want only to point out that there is a spiritual factorin the case which needs at least to be recognized. 

[Footnote H: _Married Love_, _Wise Parenthood_, and _Radiant Motherhood_. By Marie Carmichael Stopes. ]

Is passion a cause or an effect? In other words, should physical union bethe expression of spiritual union? Is it the "outward and visible sign ofan inward and spiritual grace?" Or is it a means by which that grace isachieved? I think the first instinct of most women would be to say thatspiritual union should be _expressed_ by physical union, and that unlessthis spiritual union exists the physical union is "wrong. " And yet everyonewho stops to think will admit that the expression of an emotion deepensit. One can "work oneself up into a rage" by shouting and swearing. One candeepen love by expressing love. It is noticeable that the whole case forbirth control has repeatedly been argued from the ground that the act ofphysical union not only expresses but intensifies and increases love. 

Marriage is the most difficult of human relations, because it is the mostintimate and the most permanent. To live so close to another--who, inspite of all, _remains_ another--to be brought so near, to associate sointimately with another personality, without jarring or wounding--thatis hard. No wonder it is not invariably a success! But passion makesit possible to many to whom, without this, it would not be possible. Ultimately passion should be transcended since in any case it must be leftbehind. Yet it has served its end, in deepening and intensifying the loveof two people for one another. 

Where then lies the difficulty, since probably men and women alike wouldagree that what I have said is true?

The difference of view is perhaps more in practice than in theory; yet itis all the harder of adjustment for that. In theory, both men and womenwould agree that physical union, ideally, should express a spiritualunion; and that in doing so, it deepens and intensifies it. But it is stillpossible to disagree as to which of these two aspects of an admitted truthis the more vital and fundamental. 

It may be, as I have already suggested, that the woman's point of view isdue to her physiology; or it may at least be influenced by it. At least, I am convinced that to the woman the sense that physical union is _only_justified by already existent spiritual union, is the normal one. I believethat, however incapable she may be of explaining it, and however her powerof reasoning may be vitiated by wrong ideas about the sexual relation, shedoes instinctively recoil from its use when its reason for existence is notthere. She may attribute her reluctance to the fact that she is too womanly(_sic_), too spiritually minded to have any desire for sexual relations atall; her husband may attribute it to coldness of temperament or "modesty. "In fact, it is due to the cause I have stated, and if she had never beencalled upon to give her body except when her own desire for the "outwardand visible sign" of an "inward and spiritual grace" demanded it, herhusband would have found that she was not temperamentally defective, but asgood a lover as he. 

No one who lives in the world at all can fail to understand that in everyhuman relationship, and supremely in this one, there must be much mutualaccommodation, much give and take, a great gentleness to every claim madein the name of love. All I am concerned to do here is to help to clear upmisunderstandings. It is no claim that I put forward that the woman's pointof view is superior to the man's: merely that they seem to me a littledifferent. 

A man who is conscious of jarring, who finds himself a little atcross-purposes with the woman he loves, and yet knows that the jarring ismerely superficial and the love profound, may easily feel that to ask andoffer once more the supreme expression of that love is the best way totranscend the temporary lack of sympathy and restore love to its rightplace and true proportion. Who shall say that he is wrong? Is it notcertain that the expression of love does intensify and deepen love? Is nota sacrament the means of grace as well as its symbol. 

Yet let him be warned. He may easily seem to his wife to be contentinghimself with the symbol without the reality, the body without the soul. Ifshe understands him, she may go with him. If she does not, no yielding onher part--no physical passion that he may arouse--will quite stifle theprotest which tells her that she suffers spiritual violation. Do youremember the cry of Julie in "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont"? "_It is anightly warfare in which I am always defeated_. " That her physical natureis suborned to aid in the conquest only increases for her the sense ofdegradation. 

This difference in point of view affects the relations of men and womenfar more widely than is realized, since it is apt to arise wherever thephysical comes in at all--and where does it not? Not a touch only, or acaress, but all deliberate appeal to sexual feeling becomes more difficultto women as they grow more civilized. It is perhaps difficult for a manto realize, in the atmosphere of giggles and whispers with which sexis surrounded in the theatre, the novel and the press, how revolting itbecomes to modern women to be expected to use such means for "holding" alover, or extorting concessions from one who is "held. " It was much easier, I suppose, when women did not understand what they were about. One seesthat to such women it is comparatively easy to-day. And the positionis complicated by inheritance of the age-old conviction that a woman issupremely woman when she can bend a man by precisely these means. But therevolt is here. And--for the sake of clearness--what I am concerned to showis that a woman is not necessarily asexual or cold because she will not usean appeal to sexuality in order to get what she wants. She may have all the"temperament" in the world, but she has also self-respect, and she revoltsfrom the idea of exploiting for advantage what should be sacramental. 

I believe that a better understanding on this point would save not onlygreat disasters but an infinity of small jars and strains, and if Ihave put the woman's point of view at some length it is partly because Iunderstand it better, but chiefly because it is comparatively "modern" toadmit that she has a point of view to put. 

Once understood, it becomes easier to understand also the startlingsuccesses and disastrous failures which attend the remarkable practice of"teaching a woman to love after she is married. " The extent to which socialtabus and prudery may actually inhibit a woman's natural sexual developmentmakes it possible, as we have seen, for her to marry in ignorance of whatmarriage implies. When this happens, her love, though it may be noble, altruistic and spiritual, does not involve her whole nature. Her husband, if he respects her sufficiently, will be able to awaken that which sleeps, and in accordance with the undoubted truth that expression intensifieslove, he does "teach her to love" him not only in one sense but in all. 

On the other hand, if she does not already love him, he will not succeedin "teaching" her anything but disgust if he dreams that by compellingphysical union he can create spiritual union. 

Evidently it is a singularly dangerous attempt! It is to be hoped that infuture no woman will run such risks out of ignorance, but that lovers will, before they marry, understand what each expects, what each desires to give, and at least _start_ fair. 

This is no less important with regard to other matters in which marriagesare often wrecked. Surely people who propose to spend their lives togetherought to know (for example) whether children are desired and whether manyor few; and what the attitude of either is on the vexed subject of birthcontrol. Imagine the case of a husband who thinks the use of contraceptivesright and wishes to use them; and a wife who thinks them absolutely wrongand, being warned by the doctor that she must not have more children, cheerfully, and with perfect conviction that she is acting nobly, invitesher husband to run the risk of causing her death! Yet I have known suchcases. 

I do not enter into the question of birth control, because it has been andis being discussed much more freely than in the past, and by married peoplewho are much better able to estimate the difficulties and advantages oneither side of the question than any unmarried person can possibly be. Since, however, I am continually asked at least to give my personalopinion, for what it is worth, and since it is true that I have heard agood deal (on both sides) from those who _are_ married, I will say brieflythat it seems to me of supreme importance (1) that every child that is bornshould be _desired_, and (2) that no mother's time and strength should beso far overtaxed as to prevent her giving to each child all the love andindividual care that it requires. 

This necessitates control of the birth-rate, for a baby every year meansa too-hurried emptying of the mother's arms. But I disagree--verydiffidently--with the majority of my friends and acquaintances who holdthat the right and best method is the use of contraceptives. I do not thinkit the best; I do not think it ideal. Unlike some authorities who must beheard with respect, I can say with confidence that some of the noblest, happiest and most romantic marriages I know base their control ofconception not on contraceptives but on abstinence. They are not prigs, they are not asexual, they do not drift apart, and they have no harshcriticism to make on those who have decided otherwise. These are facts, andit is useless to ignore them. 

On the other hand, it is equally true that sometimes such an attempt atself-control leads to nervous strain, irritability and alienation. Thesealso are facts. 

Personally, I would submit marital relations to the two tests I haveproposed, and add that we have succeeded in oversexing ourselves to anextent which cannot be ignored; that we have "repressed" till we areobsessed; and that, before we right ourselves, we shall have to make manyexperiments, try many roads, and suffer many things. It is then above allnecessary that we be very gentle to one another and even a little patientwith ourselves. I conceive it much better to use contraceptives than tobear unwanted children; I conceive it also better to use them than to becruel to others or become neurotic oneself; but that it is the ideal I donot believe. 

XI

COMMON-SENSE AND DIVORCE LAW REFORM

 "Those whom _God_ hath joined together let no man put asunder. "

In view of what I have said[I] about our marriage and divorce laws, severalpeople have asked what I should actually propose in the way of reform, andI am glad to take the opportunity of a new edition briefly to answer thisquestion. 

[Footnote I: See Chapter V. ]

I do not wish to see reform take the line of a longer list of "causes"for divorce, such, for example, as drunkenness, insanity, imprisonment forlife, and so on. I should prefer to abolish these lists altogether, and tobring all divorce cases under some form of "equitable jurisdiction, " eachcase being decided on its merits. 

It should be the business of the court to decide whether the marriagedesired to be invalidated has _in actual fact_ any validity or reality atall; and to declare the couple divorced if it has not. In such courts menand women (or a man and a woman) should act together as judges. 

It will be urged that to decide such a question is beyond the power of anyhuman judgment; but I submit that in fact such decisions are being givenevery day. A judge who grants a judicial separation is deciding that _amarriage has ceased to be real or valid_, and he divorces the couple _amensa et thoro_, though leaving them without the power to marry again. Heactually "puts them asunder" more rigidly than a divorced couple. Sincethis is possible, it cannot be impossible for him to decide that themarriage must be wholly dissolved, with freedom of re-marriage to otherpartners; though such a decision, being even more grave, should not bereached without certain safeguards. 

These safeguards should include that teaching about marriage on which Ihave insisted throughout the whole of this book. Young people should knowwhat sex is and involves: what marriage is: how necessary to the welfare ofthe race, their children and themselves are fidelity and love. They shouldknow that unless they believe that their love is indeed for life they oughtnot to marry. They should understand that to fail here is to fail mosttragically. 

If, nevertheless, a man and woman believe that their marriage is a completeand hopeless failure, their claim to be released from it should not begranted in haste. A period of years should in any case elapse beforedivorce can be obtained, and every effort should be used to reconcile thetwo, to remove any removable cause of difficulty, to convince them of thepossibility of making good, by loyalty, unselfishness and a deep sense ofresponsibility, even an incomplete and desecrated bond. 

If, however, it is clear that for no worthy consideration can they beinduced to take up again the duties and responsibilities of marriage--ifthey remain immovably and rationally convinced that their marriage is nota real marriage--they should be released. And this because it is not moralbut immoral, not Christian, but unChristian, to pretend that a marriage isreal and sacred _when it is not_. 

If there is one quality more striking than another in the teaching ofChrist, it is His emphasis on reality. It is in this that the height anddepth of His morality stand revealed. We do no service--we do a profounddis-service--to morals when we admit that a marriage is so utterly devoidof reality that the best thing we can do for a "married couple" is toseparate them from each other altogether--set them apart--free them fromeach other's "rights"--break up their home--and yet maintain the legal liethat they are still a married couple. 

It will be asked how the interests of the children can be safeguarded. The interests of children are best safeguarded by the education andenlightenment of parents. They cannot be wholly saved if, after all, theirparents have ceased to love or respect one another, for nothing the law cando will make up to them for that which is every child's right--a home ruledby love and full of happiness. The best that can then be done is to rescuethem from the misery of a home full of unhappiness and hatred, and toassign them to the parent who, in the judgment of the court, is best fittedto care for them. 

Let me add that, while I hold that the persistent and unconquerableconviction of two people that they ought to be divorced ought ultimately toentitle them to it, this should not be the case if one only of two marriedpeople seeks release. In this case, the decision should be entirely withthe court. 

To those who feel that not only our Lord's words but also theinterpretation put upon those words by the Church is of supreme importance, the following statement will be of interest: "It is quite arguable thatrelief may be granted on the grounds that what is impossible cannot bedone. It may be shown on the one hand that to such and such a person it ismorally impossible to live with such and such another person, and on theother hand that it is morally impossible to live without marriage. In suchinstances there is room for the exercise of our 'dispensation from theimpediment of the legamen' (bond). This is the practice of the EasternChurch, which allows the innocent party to re-marry, and also grants reliefin cases of incurable insanity. "

With regard to the Western Church, "Divorce and subsequent re-marriagein pre-Reformation days were only allowed on grounds existing before thecontract was entered into. (There seems good reason for the belief that ourLord's words as recorded by St. Matthew refer to prenuptial unchastity. )But in spite of this apparently narrow restriction there were fourteengrounds on which a marriage could be declared null and void before theReformation, and it was constantly being done. Canonists and Theologianstaught that the full and _free_ consent of parties was essential tomarriage--which teaching obviously would enable a very wide view of thesubject to be taken. "[J]

[Footnote J: From a "Memorandum on Divorce, " published in _The Challenge_, July 5, 1918. ]