The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12): Dresden Edition—MiscellanyIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Miscellany
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
In a case like this, the civilized husband would, so far as he had
the power, release his wife from the contract of marriage, divide his
property fairly with her and do what he could for her welfare. Civilized
love never turns to hatred.
Suppose he should find that there was a man in the case, that another
had won her love, or that she had given her love to another, would it
then be his right or duty to kill that man? Would the killing do any
good? Would it bring back her love? Would it reunite the family? Would
it annihilate the disgrace or the memory of the shame? Would it lessen
the husband's loss?
Society says that the husband should kill the man because he led the
woman astray.
How do we know that he betrayed the woman? Mrs. Potiphar left many
daughters, and Joseph certainly had but few sons. How do we know that
it was not the husband's fault? She may for years have shivered in the
winter of his neglect. She may have borne his cruelties of word and deed
until her love w'as dead and buried side by side with hope. Another man
comes into her life. He pities her. She looks and loves. He lifts her
from the grave. Again she really lives, and her poor heart is rich with
love's red blood. Ought this man to be killed? He has robbed no husband,
wronged no man. He has rescued a victim, released an innocent prisoner
and made a life worth living. But the brutal husband says that the wife
has been led astray; that he has been wronged and dishonored, and that
it is his right, his duty, to shed the seducer's blood. He finds the
facts himself. He is witness, jury, judge and executioner. He forgets
his neglect, his cruelties, his faithlessness; forgets that he drove her
from his heart, remembers only that she loves another, and then in the
name of justice he takes the life of the one she loves.
A husband deserts his wife, leaves her without money, without the means
to live, with his babes in her arms. She cannot get a divorce; she must
wait, and in the meantime she must live. A man falls in love with her
and she with him. He takes care of her and the deserted children. The
"wronged" husband returns and kills the "betrayer" of his wife. He
believes in the sacredness of marriage, the holiness of home.
It may be admitted that the deserted wife did wrong, and that the man
who cared for her and her worse than fatherless children also did wrong,
but certainly he had done nothing for which he deserved to be murdered.
A woman finds that her husband is in love with another woman, that he
is false, and the question is whether it is her right to kill the other
woman. The wronged husband has always claimed that the man led his wife
astray, that he had crept and crawled into his Eden, but now the wronged
wife claims that the woman seduced her husband, that she spread the
net, wove the web and baited the trap in which the innocent husband was
caught. Thereupon she kills the other woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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