In result, the spouses are equal, since there is community of fortune, of honor, of absolute devotion; "_in principle and practice_ ... this equality does not exist, _cannot exist_.... The equality of rights supposing an equilibrium between the advantages with which Nature has endowed woman and the more powerful faculties of man, the result would be that woman, instead of being elevated by this equilibrium, would be denaturalized, debased. By the ideality of her being, woman is, so to speak, beyond price.... That she may preserve this inestimable charm, which is not a positive faculty in her, but a quality, a manner, a state, she must accept the law of marital power: _equality would render her odious_, would be the dissolution of marriage, the death of love, _the destruction of the human race_. "And the glory of man consists in reigning over this admirable creature, in being able to say: she is myself idealized, she is more than I, and, notwithstanding, would be nothing without me.... In spite of this or on account of this, I am and ought to remain the head of the community; if I yield the command to her, she becomes debased and we perish."--_Id._ Marriage should be monogamous, "because conscience is common between the spouses, and because it cannot, without being dissolved, admit a third participant."--_Id._ It should be indissoluble, because conscience is immutable, and the spouses could not procure an exchange _without being guilty of sacrilege_. If they are obliged to separate, "the deserving one needs only to heal the wounds made in his heart and conscience, the other has no longer the right to aspire to marriage, but must be content with concubinage."--_Id._ What do you think of this theory? AUTHOR. Hitherto I have refused to believe in the god Proteus; but on contemplating you, Master, I abjure my incredulity. You appear to us first under the garb and form of Manou, and we discuss his physiology; You appear to us next, successively, in the shape and vestments of Moses, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure; you are incarnated for a moment in Paracelsus; Lastly, you put on the Roman toga, over which you wrap the ungraceful robe of Auguste Comte. All this is too old, too unsightly for our age.... Have you really nothing better to give us than the resurrection of the Roman law at the glorious time when Cincinnatus ate his dish of lentils stark naked? PROUDHON. What! do you dispute that marriage by _confarreation is not the masterpiece of the human conscience_? AUTHOR. Do I dispute it? Yes, indeed, and many other things beside. But tell me, what meaning do you give to the words _sacrament_ and _mystery_, that sound so hollow and false from your lips?