The poet then offers his own personal contribution to the discussion of the marriage question generally and concludes thus: “This _shakti_, this joy-giving power of woman as the beloved, has up to now largely been dissipated by the greed of man, who has sought to use it for the purposes of his individual enjoyment, corrupting it, confining it, like his property, within jealously guarded limit. That has also obstructed for woman herself her inward realization of the full glory of her own _shakti_. Her personality has been insulted at every turn by being made to display its power of delectation within a circumscribed arena. It is because she has not found her true place in the great world that she sometimes tries to capture man’s special estate as a desperate means of coming into her own. But it is not by coming out of her home that woman can gain her liberty. Her liberation can only be effected in a society where her true _shakti_, her _ananda_ (joy) is given the widest and highest scope for its activity. Man has already achieved the means of self-expansion in public activity without giving up his individual concerns. When, likewise, any society shall be able to offer a larger field for the creative work of woman’s special faculty, without detracting from her creative work in the home, then in such society will the true union of man and woman become possible. “The marriage system all over the world, from the earliest ages till now, is a barrier in the way of such true union. That is why woman’s _shakti_, in all existing societies, is so shamefully wasted and corrupted. That is why in every country marriage is still more or less of a prison-house for the confinement of women--with all its guards wearing the badge of the dominant male. That is why man, by dint of his efforts to bind woman, has made her the strongest of fetters for his own bondage. That is why woman is debarred from adding to the spiritual wealth of society by the perfection of her own nature, and all human societies are weighed down with the burden of the resulting poverty. “The civilization of man has not, up to now, loyally recognized the reign of the spirit. Therefore the married state is still one of the most fruitful sources of the unhappiness and downfall of man, of his disgrace and humiliation. But those who believe that society is a manifestation of the spirit will assuredly not rest in their endeavors till they have rescued human marriage relations from outrage by the brute forces of society--till they have thereby given free play to the force of love in all the concerns of humanity.”