LOVE AND MARRIAGE.
The attraction of the sexes for each other, though based upon the dual
principle of generation which pervades the living world and which has
its analogies in the attractive forces of matter, yet pervades the
whole being.
LOVE IS NOT MERELY
the instinctive desire of physical union, which has for its object the
continuation of the species--it belongs to the mind as well as to the
body. It warms, invigorates, and elevates every sentiment, every
feeling; and in its highest, purest, most diffusive form unites us to
God and all creatures in Him.
ALL LOVE IS
essentially the same, but modified according to its objects and by the
character of the one who loves. The love of children for their
parents, of parents for offspring, brotherly and sisterly love, the
love of friendship, of charity, and the fervor of religious love, are
modifications of the same sentiment--the attraction that draws us to
our kindred, our kind; that binds together all races and humanity
itself, resting on the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
It is but natural that this love should vary in degrees. Attractions
are proportional to proximity. Family is nearer than country; we
prefer our own nation to the rest of the race.
Each individual has, also, his own special attractions and repulsions.
There is love at first sight and friendship at first sight. We feel
some persons pleasant to us; to be near them is a delight. Generally
such feelings are mutual--like flows to like, or as often, perhaps,
differences fit into each other. We seek sympathy with our own tastes
and habits, or we find in others what we lack. Thus the weak rest upon
the strong, the timid are fond of the courageous, the reckless seek
guidance of the prudent, and so on. The sentiment of
LOVE FOR THE OPPOSITE SEX
--tender, romantic, passionate--begins very early in life. Fathers and
daughters, mothers and sons, have a special fondness for each other,
as, also, have brothers and sisters; but the boy soon comes to admire
someone, generally older than himself, who is not a relation. Very
little girls find a hero in some friend of an elder brother.
FONDNESS FOR COUSINS
generally comes more from opportunity than natural attraction, though
a cousin may have very little appearance of family relation. The law
appears to be that free choice seeks the diverse and distant. A
stranger has always a better chance with the young ladies of any
district than the young men with whom they have always been
acquainted. Savages seek their wives out of their own tribe.
It is my belief that naturally (I mean in a state of pure and
unperverted nature, but developed cultivated, and refined by
education) every man loves womanhood itself, and all women so far as
they approximate to his ideal; and that in the same way every woman
loves manhood, and is attracted and charmed by all its gentle, noble,
and heroic manifestations. By such a man, every woman he meets is
reverenced as a mother, sister, daughter, or, it may be, cherished in
a more tender relation, which should be at first, and may always
remain, free from any sensual desire. Such love may have many objects,
each attracting the kind and degree of affection which it is able to
inspire. Such love of men for women, and women for men, may be free
and will be free just in the degree in which it is freed from the
bondage of sensual passion.
SUCH LOVE HAS A DIRECT TENDENCY
to raise men above the control of their senses. The more of such love
one has and the more it is diffused, the less the liability to sink
into the lower and disorderly loves of the sensual life.
The idea that every attraction, every attachment, every love between
the sexes must lead to marriage--that no love can be tolerated but
with that end in view--is a very false and mischievous one. It
deprives men and women of the strength and happiness they might have
in pure friendships and pure loves, and it leads to a multitude of
false and bad marriages. Two persons are drawn together by strong
attractions and tender sentiments for each other who have no more
right to be married than if they were brother and sister, but who have
the same right to love each other. But their true sentiments for each
other, and consequent relation to each other, are not understood by
those around them and perhaps not by themselves. They are urged by the
misapprehension of others, by their expectation, by ignorant gossip,
by the prejudice of society, based upon low and sensual estimates of
life, to marry; they find that they must either marry or lose the
happiness they have in each other's society, and they make the
irrevocable mistake.
When it is understood that there are
OTHER LOVES
than that of marriage; when the special attraction that justifies
union for life, and the begetting of offspring, is discriminated from
all the other attractions that may bring two souls into very near and
tender relations to each other, there will be more happiness in the
world and fewer incomplete, imperfect, and, therefore, more or less
unhappy, marriages. Nothing can be more detestable than that playing
with fire which goes by the name of
FLIRTATION;
but there are men and women who have the happiness of living and of
being tenderly and devotedly loved by persons of the opposite
sex--loved purely, nobly, happily--without injury and with great good.
When such loves are accompanied by perfect trust in the goodness,
purity, truth, and honor of the beloved, there can be no jealousy, no
desire for selfish absorption, no fear of deprivation of any right.
There is no reason why a husband or a wife should limit the range of
pure and spiritual affection to near relatives.
THE MAN WHO CAN LOVE
a sister as sisters are often loved, may love in the same way, or as
purely, any woman who might be his sister. As men and women learn to
purify their lives, the world will grow more tolerant and love will
become more universal. The tender and fervent exhortations to mutual
love to be found in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are
now almost without a meaning. But they had a meaning to those to whom
they were addressed, and when we are better Christians, and bring our
lives to the purity of Christian morality, they will have a meaning to
us and we shall learn that, in a sense we have not dreamed of, God is
Love.
IN THE HUMAN RACE ALL CIRCUMSTANCES POINT TO MONOGAMY
as the lawful or natural condition. Males and females are born in
almost equal numbers. If there are two or three per cent. more of
males than females, the risks of life with males soon make the number
even. Therefore, as a rule, no man can have more than one wife without
robbing his neighbor.
_Polygamy_ is therefore a manifest injustice, and may become the most
grievous of all monopolies.
Children are the most helpless of all young creatures and require the
care of parents for the longest period. The care of a husband for his
wife, and of a father for his child, is an evident necessity. The
proper care and education of a single child should extend over at
least fifteen years, and that of a family may reach to thirty years,
or throughout the greatest part of an ordinary life. During all
periods of pregnancy, childbearing, nursing, and the education and
care of a family, every woman has a right to the sympathy, sustaining
love, and constant aid of her husband. No man has a right to desert or
leave helpless, or even dependent upon others, except in extraordinary
cases, the mother of his children.
Marriage, like celibacy, should be a matter of vocation.
THE SPECIAL OBJECT OF MARRIAGE
is to have children; the co-operating motive is that two persons drawn
to each other by a mutual affection may live helpfully and happily
together. A selfish marriage, for its merely animal gratifications--a
marriage in which strength, health, usefulness, often life itself, are
sacrificed to sensuality and lust--is a desecration of a holy
institution, and somewhat worse in its consequences than promiscuous
profligacy, for the consequences of that may not fall upon one's
children and posterity.
There are many persons who have no right to marry. There should be a
kind and amount of love that will justify and sanctify such a
relation. There should be a pure motive and the fixed intention of
making the relation what it ought to be to husband, wife, and
children. There should be a reasonable assurance of the power to
provide for a family. There should be that amount of health, that
freedom from bodily and mental disease, that physical and moral
constitution which will give a reasonable prospect of children whose
lives will be a blessing to themselves and to society.
When there is deformity of body, or an unhappy peculiarity of temper
or mind liable to be inherited, people should not marry, or if they
live together, should resign the uses of marriage. People should
conscientiously refrain from propagating hereditary diseases. Persons
near of kin are wisely forbidden to marry, for there is in such cases
the liability of imperfect generation--the production of blind, deaf,
idiotic or insane offspring.
SHOULD MARRIAGE BE FOR LIFE?
As a rule, undoubtedly. Every real, proper, true marriage must be. It
takes a lifetime for a husband and wife to make a home and rear and
educate and provide for a family of children. But what if people make
mistakes and find that they are not suitably married? These are
mistakes very difficult to remedy. If a man, after deliberately making
his choice of a woman, ceases to love her, how can he honorably
withdraw from his relation to her, and enter upon another,
WHEN SHE STILL LOVES HIM,
and is ready to fulfill her part of the contract? Laws cannot very
well provide for mistakes. If the distaste for each other be mutual,
and both parties desire to separate, a separation may of course be
permitted; but it is a serious question whether two such persons can
go into the world and find new partners, with justice to the rest. The
law which permits of no divorce certainly bears hard upon individual
cases; but if it leads to greater seriousness and care in forming such
relations, it may be, on the whole, the best thing for society that it
should be strictly observed.