Motherhood and the Relationships of the SexesHartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Philosophy
Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes
Hartley, C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine)
Mothers; Sex; Women -- Social and moral questions
I know the whole question is a very difficult one. Let me try to make my
position somewhat clearer.
I am in one way in agreement with Roman Catholic Christianity (I use the
phrase to make my meaning plain, and ask indulgence if to any one it
seems in itself indefensible). The Roman Catholic Church admits the need
of two standards of sexual conduct—some women and men are fitted for a
religious life and should bind themselves to celibacy; others need to
marry, and to them marriage is permitted. The difference between my view
and the one just expressed is that, whereas it is usual to suppose the
morals of the celibate monk or nun superior to those of the married man
or woman, I should hold the opposite opinion; it is the highest types of
men and women who would seek to marry and be best and happiest if living
together as faithful man and wife, as devoted father and mother. I do,
however, hold that there are others—women as well as men—without the
gifts that make for successful parenthood or happy permanent marriage.
I would recognise the divergence of these two roughly defined classes
and let those who cannot marry be openly permitted to live together in
temporary childless unions, destined, I hope, to show to the world the
inferiority of every type of ideal of the sex relationships other than
the monogamous union, which fulfils the completion of the woman and the
man in the child created by their love. And further, these sterile unions
would, by their childlessness, act to remove for ever from the world
those unsuited to be parents. It is this last result that matters most.
As long as we force those unsuited for faithful mating into marriage and
hold them bound against their desire, children will be born who must pay
the penalty in weakness of character of their parents’ sins against love.
I believe if there were some open recognition of honourable partnerships
outside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, with proper provision
for the future, guarding the woman, who, in my opinion, should be in
all cases protected, a provision not dependent on the generosity of the
man and made after the love which sanctioned the union has waned, but
decided upon by the man and the woman in the form of a contract before
the relationship was entered upon, then there would be many women ready
to undertake such unions gladly; there would be women as well as men
who, I believe, would prefer them to monogamous marriage that binds them
permanently to one partner for life. In this way many marriages would be
prevented that inevitably come to disaster. And this would leave greater
chances of marriage and child-bearing for other and more suitable types.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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