Sex and Common-SenseRoyden, A. Maude (Agnes Maude)
Philosophy
Sex and Common-Sense
Royden, A. Maude (Agnes Maude)
Marriage; Sex; Sexual ethics
I believe that the more one knows of human nature the more one reverences
it. I believe that the vast majority of human beings strain every nerve
rather than fail in so great a responsibility. Do you remember reading in
Mr. Bertrand Russell's book, "Principles of Social Reconstruction," of
a little church of which it was discovered, not, I think, very long
ago, that, owing to some defect in its title, marriages which had been
celebrated there were not legal? Mr. Bertrand Russell says that there were
at that time I forget how many couples still living who had been married
in that church, who found that, by this legal defect, they were not legally
bound. Do you know how many of those married people seized the opportunity
to desert each other and go and marry somebody else? Not a single one!
Every one of those couples went quietly away to church and got married
again!
Religious people do sometimes think such mean things of human nature, and
human nature is, for the most part, so much nobler, so much more loyal, so
much more loving than we imagine. "Lift up your eyes unto the hills from
whence cometh your help." "He that walketh in the light, stumbleth not, for
he seeth the light of the world."
Let us face the future courageously, with great reverence for other
people's opinions and views. Let us not join that mob of shouters who are
prepared to howl at everyone who desires to say something that is not quite
orthodox, but which is their serious and considered contribution to a great
and difficult problem. Let us greet them with respect, however much we may
differ from them. Let us look forward without fear. Believe me, below all
the froth and scum of which we make so much, human nature is very noble.
Let us give that example to the world which is worth a thousand
arguments--the example of a noble married life, the example of a noble
single life. Those of you who are alone can do infinitely more for virtue
by being full of gentleness, wisdom, sanity, and love than by any harsh
repression of yourselves. It is by what you can make of celibacy that the
world will judge celibacy. And so of married lovers. Believe me, it is not
the children of married lovers who are rebels against a lofty standard.
Those who have seen with their eyes a lovely, faithful and unwavering love
are not easily satisfied with anything that is less. "Lift up your eyes
unto the hills. From whence cometh your strength." And in the light of a
great ideal, in the light of knowledge, sincerity and truth, in the light
of what I know of human nature, I, for one, am not afraid for the future
moral standard of this country.
VII
FRIENDSHIP
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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