But to any further definition of the marriage relation the World
State of Utopia will not commit itself. The wide range of
relationships that are left possible, within and without the
marriage code, are entirely a matter for the individual choice and
imagination. Whether a man treat his wife in private as a goddess to
be propitiated, as a "mystery" to be adored, as an agreeable
auxiliary, as a particularly intimate friend, or as the wholesome
mother of his children, is entirely a matter for their private
intercourse: whether he keep her in Oriental idleness or active
co-operation, or leave her to live her independent life, rests with
the couple alone, and all the possible friendship and intimacies
outside marriage also lie quite beyond the organisation of the
modern State. Religious teaching and literature may affect these;
customs may arise; certain types of relationship may involve social
isolation; the justice of the statesman is blind to such things. It
may be urged that according to Atkinson's illuminating analysis
[Footnote: See Lang and Atkinson's Social Origins and Primal Law.]
the control of love-making was the very origin of the human
community. In Utopia, nevertheless, love-making is no concern of the
State's beyond the province that the protection of children covers.
[Footnote: It cannot be made too clear that though the control of
morality is outside the law the State must maintain a general
decorum, a systematic suppression of powerful and moving examples,
and of incitations and temptations of the young and inexperienced,
and to that extent it will, of course, in a sense, exercise a
control over morals. But this will be only part of a wider law to
safeguard the tender mind. For example, lying advertisements, and
the like, when they lean towards adolescent interests, will
encounter a specially disagreeable disposition in the law, over and
above the treatment of their general dishonesty.] Change of function
is one of the ruling facts in life, the sac that was in our remotest
ancestors a swimming bladder is now a lung, and the State which was
once, perhaps, no more than the jealous and tyrannous will of the
strongest male in the herd, the instrument of justice and equality.
The State intervenes now only where there is want of harmony between
individuals--individuals who exist or who may presently come into
existence.
Section 6
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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