Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for ReformBesant, Annie
Philosophy
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Besant, Annie
Marriage -- Great Britain; Marriage law -- Great Britain
In the whole of the arguments put forward in the above pages there
is not one word which is aimed at real marriage, at the faithful and
durable union of two individuals of opposite sexes--a union originated
in and maintained by love alone. Rather, to quote Milton once more, is
reverence for marriage the root of the reform I urge: he who "thinks
it better to part than to live sadly and injuriously to that cherfull
covnant (for not to be belov'd and yet retain'd, is the greatest injury
to a gentle spirit), he I say who therefore seeks to part, is one who
highly honours the married life, and would not stain it; and the reasons
which now move him to divorce, are equal to the best of those that
could first warrant him to marry" (p. 10). In the advocacy of such views
marriage is elevated, not degraded; no countenance is given to those who
would fain destroy the idea of the durable union between one man and
one woman. Monogamy appears to me to be the result of civilization, of
personal dignity, of cultured feeling; loyalty of one man to one woman
is, to me, the highest sexual ideal. The more civilized the nature the
more durable and exclusive does the marriage union become; in the lower
ranges of animal life difference of sex is enough to excite passion:
there is no individuality of of choice. Among savages it is much the
same: it is the female, not the woman, who is loved, although the savage
rises higher than the lower brutes, and is attracted by individual
beauty. The civilised man and woman need more than sex-difference and
beauty of form; they seek satisfaction for mind, heart, and tastes as
well as for body; each portion the complex nature requires its answer
in its mate. Hence it arises that true marriage is exclusive, and
that prostitution is revolting to the noble of both sexes, since in
prostitution love is shorn of his fairest attributes, and passion, which
is only his wings, is made the sole representative of the divinity.
The fleeting connections supposed by some Free Love theorists are
steps backward and not forward; they offer no possibility of home,
no education of the character, no guarantee for the training of the
children. The culture both of father and of mother, of the two
natures of which its own is the resultant, is necessary to the healthy
development of the child; it cannot be deprived of either without injury
to its full and perfect growth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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