At last a difficulty arose which to me wore a very serious form; and as what was said left a strong impression on my memory, I will relate that part of the conversation. Observe, Louisa, that Clifton and Frank were the chief speakers. Your brother began. I confess, sir, you have removed many apparently unconquerable difficulties: but I have a further objection which I think unanswerable. What is it? Neither man nor woman in such a state can have any thing peculiar: the whole must be for the use and benefit of the whole? As generally as practice will admit: and how very general that may be, imperfect as its constitution was, Sparta remained during five hundred years a proof. Then how will it be possible, when society shall be the general possessor, for any man to say--_This is my servant?_ He cannot: there will be no servants. Well but--_This is my child?_ Neither can he do that: they will be the children of the state. Indeed!--And what say you to--_This is my wife?_--Can appropriation more than for the minute the hour or the day exist? Or, among so disinterested a people, can a man say even of the woman he loves--_She is mine?_ [We paused--I own, Louisa, I found myself at a loss; but Frank soon gave a very satisfactory reply.] You have started a question of infinite importance, which perhaps I am not fully prepared to answer. I doubt whether in that better state of human society, to which I look forward with such ardent aspiration, the intercourse of the sexes will be altogether promiscuous and unrestrained; or whether they will admit of something that may be denominated marriage. The former may perhaps be the truth: but it is at least certain that in the sense in which we understand marriage and the affirmation--_This is my wife_--neither the institution nor the claim can in such a state, or indeed in justice exist. Of all the regulations which were ever suggested to the mistaken tyranny of selfishness, none perhaps to this day have surpassed the despotism of those which undertake to bind not only body to body but soul to soul, to all futurity, in despite of every possible change which our vices and our virtues might effect, or however numerous the secret corporal or mental imperfections might prove which a more intimate acquaintance should bring to light! Then you think that some stipulation or bargain between the sexes must take place, in the most virtuous ages? In the most virtuous ages the word bargain, like the word promise, will be unintelligible--We cannot bargain to do what is wrong, nor can we, though there should be no bargain, forbear to do what is right, without being unjust. Whence it results that marriage, as a civil institution, must ever be an evil? Yes. It ought not to be a civil institution. It is the concern of the individuals who consent to this mutual association, and they ought not to be prevented from beginning, suspending, or terminating it as they please.