quote the touching inscription found on his tomb--'Here lies
Pétion, who enjoyed for twelve years absolute power, and
during that period never caused one tear to flow.'"
** "Boyer's resolution in this matter is the more
remarkable, as he has been urged and pestered to submit to
the forms of marriage. Grégoire, archbishop of Blois, and
who is well known for the perseverance and benevolence with
which he has, for a long series of years, advocated the
cause of the African race, wrote to the president of Hayti
in the most urgent terms, pressing upon him the virtue--the
necessity, for his salvation--of conforming to the sacrament
of marriage. To such a degree did the good old archbishop
carry his intermeddling officiousness, that when Boyer
mildly but firmly declined availing himself of his grace's
advice, a rupture was the consequence, greatly to the sorrow
of the president, who had ever entertained the greatest
respect and affection for his ecclesiastical friend."
"I imagine I hear from the clerical supporters of orthodoxy one general
burst of indignation at this sample of national profligacy; at this
contemning of the laws of God and man; at this escape from the Church's
ceremonies and the ecclesiastical blessing. I imagine I hear the
question sneeringly put, how long these same _respectable_ connections
commonly last, and how many dozen times they are changed in the course
of a year.
"Gently, my reverend friends! it is natural you should find it wrong
that men and women dispense with your services and curtail your fees in
this matter. But it is neither just nor proper, that because no
prayers are said, and no fees paid, you should denounce the custom as a
profligate one. Learn (as I did the other day from an intelligent
French gentleman who had remained some time on the island)--learn, that
_although there are ten times as many placed as married, yet there are
actually fewer separations among the former than divorces among the
latter_. If constancy, then, is to be the criterion of morality, these
same profligate unions--that is, unions unprayed-for by the priest and
unpaid for to him--are ten times as moral as the religion-sanctioned
institution of marriage.
"But this is not all. It is a fact notorious in Hayti, that libertinism
is far more common among the married than among the placed. The
explanatory cause is easily found. A placement secures to the consenting
couple no _legal_ right over one another. They remain together, as
it were, on good behaviour. Not only positive tyranny or downright
viragoism, but petulant peevishness or selfish ill humour, are
sufficient causes of separation. As such, they are avoided with sedulous
care. The natural consequence is, that the unions are usually happy, and
that each being comfortable at home, is not on the search for excitement
abroad. In indissoluble marriage, on the contrary, if the parties should
happen to disagree, their first jarrings are unchecked by considerations
of consequences. A husband may be as tyrannical as to him seems good;
he remains a lord and master still; a wife may be as pettish as she
pleases; she does not thereby forfeit the rights and privileges of a
wife. Thus, ill humour is encouraged by being legalized, and the natural
results ensue, alienation of the heart, and sundering of the affections.
The wife seeks relief in fashionable dissipation; the husband, perhaps,
in the brutalities of a brothel.
"But, aside from all explanatory theories, the fact is, as I have stated
it, viz.: that (taking the proportion of each into account) _there are
ten legal separations of the married, for one voluntary separation of
the placed_. If anyone doubts it, let him inquire for himself, and he
will doubt no longer.
"What say you to that fact, my reverend friends? How consorts it with
your favourite theory, that man is a profligate animal, a desperately
wicked creature? that, but for your prayers and blessings, the earth
would be a scene of licentiousness and excess? that human beings remain
together, only because you have helped to tie them? that there is no
medium between priestly marriage and unseemly prostitution?
"Does this fact open your eyes a little on the real state of things to
which we heterodox spirits venture to look forward? Does it assist in
explaining to you how it is that we are so much more willing than you to
entrust the most sacred duties to moral rather than legal keeping?
"You cannot imagine that a man and a woman, finding themselves suited
to each other, should agree, without your interference, to become
companions; that he should remove to her plantation, or she to his, as
they found it most convenient; that the connection should become known
to their friends without the agency of banns, and be respected, even
though not ostentatiously announced in a newspaper. Yet all this happens
in Hayti, without any breach of propriety, without any increase of
vice; but, on the contrary, much to the benefit of morality, and the
discouragement of prostitution. It happens among the white as well as
the coloured population; and the president of the country gives it his
sanction, in his own person.
"Do you still ask me--accustomed as you are to consider virtue the
offspring of restrictions--do you still ask me, what the checks are that
produce and preserve such a state of things? I reply, good feeling
and public opinion. Continual change is held to be disreputable; where
sincere and well-founded affection exists, it is not desired; and as
there is no pecuniary inducement in forming a placement, these voluntary
unions are seldom ill-assorted."
Where social anarchy is feared, facts like these are worth pages of
argument. If the Haytians are civilised enough for this more moral kind
of marriage, why should Europeans be on a lower level? For it should not
be forgotten that the experiment was tried in St. Domingo under great
disadvantages, and these unlegalised unions have yet proved more
permanent than those tied with all due formality and tightness.
It may be urged: if divorce is to be so easily attainable, why
should there be a marriage contract at all? Both as regards the pair
immediately concerned, and as regards the children who may result from
the union, a clear and definite contract seems to me to be eminently
desirable. It is not to be wished that the union of those on whom
depends the next generation should be carelessly and lightly entered
into; the dignity and self-recollection which a definite compact implies
are by no means to be despised, when it is remembered how grave and
weighty are the responsibilities assumed by those who are to give to the
State new citizens, and to Humanity new lives, which must be either a
blessing or a curse. But the dignity of such a course is not its only,
nor, indeed, its main, recommendation. More important is the absolute
necessity that the conditions of the union of the two adult lives should
be clearly and thoroughly understood between them. No wise people enter
into engagements of an important and durable character without a written
agreement; a definite contract excludes all chance of disagreement as
to the arrangements made, and prevents misunderstandings from arising. A
verbal contract may be misunderstood by either party; lapse of time may
bring about partial forgetfulness; slight disagreements may result in
grave quarrels. If the contract be a written one, it speaks for itself,
and no doubt can arise which cannot be reasonably settled. All this is
readily seen where ordinary business partnerships are concerned, but
some--unconsciously rebounding from the present immoral system, and
plunging into the opposite extreme--consider that the union in marriage
of man and woman is too tender and sacred a thing to be thus dealt with
as from a business point of view. But it must be remembered that while
love is essential to true and holy marriage, marriage implies more than
love; it implies also a number of new relations to the outside
world which--while men and women live in the world--cannot be wholly
disregarded. Questions of house, of money, of credit, &c., necessarily
arise in connection with the dual home, and these cannot be ignored by
sensible men and women. The contract does not touch with rude hands
the sensitive plant of love; it concerns itself only with the garden
in which the plant grows, and two people can no more live on love alone
than a plant can grow without earth around its roots. A contract which
removes occasions of disagreement in business matters shelters and
protects the love from receiving many a rude shock. "Society will ere
long," said Mr. Conway, "be glad enough to assimilate contracts between
man and woman to contracts between partners in business. Then love will
dispense alike with the bandage on its eyes and the constable's aid."
Some pre-nuptial arrangement seems necessary which shall decide as to
the right of inheritance of the survivor of the married pair. As common
property will grow up during the union, such property should pass to
the survivor and the children, and until some law be made which shall
prevent parents from alienating from their children the whole of their
property, a provision guarding their inheritance should find its place
in the proposed deed. A definite marriage contract is also desirable for
the sake of the children who may proceed from the union. Society has a
right to demand from those who bring new members into it, some
contract which shall enable it to compel them to discharge their
responsibilities, if they endeavour to avoid them. If all men and women
were perfect, no contract would be necessary, any more than it would be
necessary to have laws against murder and theft; but while men and women
are as they are, some compulsive power against evil-doers must be held
in reserve by the law. Society is bound to guard the interests of the
helpless children, and this can only be done by a clear and definite
arrangement which makes both father and mother responsible for the lives
they have brought into existence, and which shows the parentage in a
fashion which could go into a law-court should any dispute arise.
Again, if there were no contract, in whom would the guardianship of the
children be vested, in case of wrongdoing of either parent, of death,
or of separation? Suppose a brutal father: his wife leaves him and takes
the children with her; how is she to keep them if he claims and takes
them? If she has the legal remedy of divorce, the Court awards her the
guardianship and she is safe from molestation. If a wife elope,
taking the children with her, is the father to have no right to the
guardianship of his sons and daughters, but to remain passive while they
pass under the authority of another man? Application for divorce would
guard him from such a wrong. If the parents separate, and both desire to
have the children, how can such contest be decided, save by appeal to
an impartial law? Marriage, as before urged, is a partnership, and where
common duties, common interests, and common responsibilities grow up,
there it is necessary that either party shall have some legal means of
redress in case of the wrongdoing of the other.
To those who, on the other hand, object to facility of divorce being
granted at all, it may fairly be asked that they should not forget
that to place divorce within the reach of people, is not the same as
compelling them to submit to it. Those who prefer to regard marriage as
indissoluble could as readily maintain the indissolubility of their own
wedded tie under a law which permitted divorce, as they can do at the
present time. But those who think otherwise, and are unhappy in their
marriages, would then be able to set themselves free. No happy marriage
would be affected by the change, for the attainability of divorce would
only be welcomed by those whose marriage was a source of misery and of
discord; the contented would be no less content, while the unhappy would
be relieved of their unhappiness; thus the change would injure no one,
while it would benefit many.
It is a pity that there is no way of obtaining the general feminine
view of the subject of marriage and divorce; women who study, who form
independent opinions are--so far as my experience goes--unanimous in
their desire to see the English laws altered; advanced thinkers of both
sexes are generally, one might say universally, in favour of change.
To those who think that women, if polled to-morrow, would vote for
a continuance of the present state of things, may be recommended the
following passage from Mrs. Mill: "Women, it is said, do not desire,
do not seek what is called their emancipation. On the contrary, they
generally disown such claims when made in their behalf, and fall with
_acharnement_ upon any one of themselves who identifies herself with
their common cause. Supposing the fact to be true in the fullest extent
ever asserted, if it proves that European women ought to remain as they
are, it proves exactly the same with respect to Asiatic women; for
they too, instead of murmuring at their seclusion, and at the restraint
imposed upon them, pride themselves on it, and are astonished at the
effrontery of women who receive visits from male acquaintances, and are
seen in the streets unveiled. Habits of submission make men as well
as women servile-minded. The vast population of Asia do not desire or
value, probably would not accept, political liberty, nor the savages
of the forest, civilization; which does not prove that either of those
things is undesirable for them, or that they will not, at some future
time, enjoy it. Custom hardens human beings to any kind of degradation,
by deadening the part of their nature which would resist it. And the
case of women is, in this respect, even a peculiar one, for no other
inferior caste that we have heard of have been taught to regard
their degradation as their honour." Mr. Conway considers that changed
circumstances would rapidly cause women to be favourable to the proposed
alteration: "Am I told," he remarks, "that woman dreads the easy
divorce? Naturally, for the prejudices and arrangements of society
have not been adapted to the easy divorce. Let her know that, under the
changed sentiment which shall follow changed law, she will meet with
sympathy where now she would encounter suspicion; let her know that she
will, if divorced from one she loves not, have only her fair share of
the burdens entailed by the original mistake; and she who of all persons
suffers most if the home be false will welcome the freer marriage" ("The
Earthward Pilgrimage," p. 289).
Both in theory and in practice advanced thinkers have claimed facility
of divorce. John Milton, in his essay on "Divorce," complains that "the
misinterpreting of Scripture... hath changed the blessing of matrimony
not seldom into a familiar and co-inhabiting mischiefe; at least into
a drooping and disconsolate household captivitie, without refuge or
redemption" (p. 2), and in his Puritan fashion he remarks that because
of this "doubtles by the policy of the devill that gracious ordinance
becomes insupportable," so that men avoid it and plunge into debauchery.
Arguing that marriage is not to be regarded merely as a legitimate kind
of sexual intercourse, but rather as a union of mind and feeling, Milton
says: "That indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising
from a cause in nature unchangable, hindring and ever likely to hinder
the main benefits of conjugall society, which are solace and peace, is a
greater reason of divorce than natural frigidity, especially if there
be no children, and that there be mutual consent" (p. 5). Luther, before
Milton, held the same liberal views. Mary Wolstonecraft acted on the
same theory in her own life, and her daughter was united to the poet
Shelley while Shelley's first wife was living, no legal divorce having
severed the original marriage. Richard Carlile's second marriage was
equally illegal. In our own days the union of George Henry Lewes and
George Eliot has struck the key-note of the really moral marriage. Mary
Wolstonecraft was unhappy in her choice, but in all the other cases the
happiest results accrued. It needs considerable assurance to brand
these great names with immorality, as all those must do who denounce as
immoral unions which are at present illegal.
In the whole of the arguments put forward in the above pages there
is not one word which is aimed at real marriage, at the faithful and
durable union of two individuals of opposite sexes--a union originated
in and maintained by love alone. Rather, to quote Milton once more, is
reverence for marriage the root of the reform I urge: he who "thinks
it better to part than to live sadly and injuriously to that cherfull
covnant (for not to be belov'd and yet retain'd, is the greatest injury
to a gentle spirit), he I say who therefore seeks to part, is one who
highly honours the married life, and would not stain it; and the reasons
which now move him to divorce, are equal to the best of those that
could first warrant him to marry" (p. 10). In the advocacy of such views
marriage is elevated, not degraded; no countenance is given to those who
would fain destroy the idea of the durable union between one man and
one woman. Monogamy appears to me to be the result of civilization, of
personal dignity, of cultured feeling; loyalty of one man to one woman
is, to me, the highest sexual ideal. The more civilized the nature the
more durable and exclusive does the marriage union become; in the lower
ranges of animal life difference of sex is enough to excite passion:
there is no individuality of of choice. Among savages it is much the
same: it is the female, not the woman, who is loved, although the savage
rises higher than the lower brutes, and is attracted by individual
beauty. The civilised man and woman need more than sex-difference and
beauty of form; they seek satisfaction for mind, heart, and tastes as
well as for body; each portion the complex nature requires its answer
in its mate. Hence it arises that true marriage is exclusive, and
that prostitution is revolting to the noble of both sexes, since in
prostitution love is shorn of his fairest attributes, and passion, which
is only his wings, is made the sole representative of the divinity.
The fleeting connections supposed by some Free Love theorists are
steps backward and not forward; they offer no possibility of home,
no education of the character, no guarantee for the training of the
children. The culture both of father and of mother, of the two
natures of which its own is the resultant, is necessary to the healthy
development of the child; it cannot be deprived of either without injury
to its full and perfect growth.
But just as true marriage is invaluable, so is unreal marriage
deteriorating in its effects on all concerned: therefore, where mistake
has been made, it is important to the gravest interests of society
that such mistake should be readily remediable, without injury to the
character of either of those concerned in it. Freed from the union which
injures both, the man and woman may seek for their fit helpmeets, and in
happy marriages may become joyful servants of humanity, worthy parents
of the citizens of to-morrow. Men and women must know conjugal, before
they can know true parental, love; each must see in the child the
features of the beloved ere the perfect circle of love can be complete.
Husband and wife bound in closest, most durable and yet most eager
union, children springing as flowers from the dual stem of love, home
where the creators train the lives they have given--such will be the
marriage of the future. The loathsome details of the Divorce Court will
no longer pollute our papers; the public will no longer be called in to
gloat over the ruins of desecrated love; society will be purified
from sexual vice; men and women will rise to the full royalty of their
humanity, and hand in hand tread life's pathways, trustful instead of
suspicious, free instead of enslaved, bound by love instead of by law.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,
28, Stone-cutter Street, London, E.C.