Nor does the new morality deny to the many, who have not even been
capable of dreaming of personal love, the right to contract a marriage,
which will at least contribute to their poor existence the interest of
home and the joy of parentage. But it will be severe with those who,
having had experience or intuition of love, have entered without it
into a marriage which will certainly impoverish and perhaps ruin more
lives than their own. Prudence may counsel leniency of judgment in the
individual case, since the majority of human beings learn to know their
hearts late in life, if at all. Once more, _as a guiding principle of
morality, the unity of marriage and love must be maintained_. By his
power of creating ideals, and the ever-increasing demand for happiness
which results, man has deepened his instinct of spiritual needs, and
the same power of idealisation is now ruthlessly withdrawing the
outward supports of sexual morality and replacing them by the idea
of unity. That the halt and the lame are thereby deprived of their
crutches will be no stumbling-block to him who looks beyond the halt
and the lame to the finer and healthier men of the future.
It is true that the idea of unity involves the right of every person
to shape his sexual life in accordance with his individual needs, but
only on condition that he does not prejudice unity or the rights of the
beings to whom his love gives life. _Love thus becomes more and more
a private affair of the individual, while children are more and more
the business of society_, and from this it follows that the two lowest
expressions of sexual division (dualism) sanctioned by society, namely,
_coercive marriage and prostitution, will by degrees become impossible,
since after the triumph of the idea of unity they will no longer answer
to the needs of humanity_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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