A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles
David Hume · en
It must never be forgotten, however, that this question of marriage and
every other social question must be viewed in relation to kindred
topics. A sectional treatment of society will surely mislead if we fail
to recall the changes going forward in every department of life, and the
close connexion that exists between the forces of social and individual
evolution. Scientific meliorism implies a reconstruction of domestic
life; and, within the new environment, the instructing of youth and its
guidance in sex-conduct will become comparatively easy. Nor is it only
by the training and guidance of youth that marriage will be favourably
affected in a new domestic system. The tendency to tyranny within the
home—an abhorrent feature of past monogamy—will have no opportunity to
appear; and two undesirable female types—the idle fine lady and the
household drudge—will become as extinct as the dodo.
Outside the precincts of home, large social and industrial changes will
promote the disappearance of the prostitute, and finally there will
emerge the truly emancipated woman, fearless and enlightened—a capable
guide to man in the task of consciously subordinating passions that are
selfish and transitory to those deeper attachments and higher emotions
that give birth to spiritual love. “Is marriage a failure?” has been
boldly asked and widely discussed in comparatively recent years; and
that the audible answer—sadly re-echoed in thousands of hearts—was in
the affirmative, shows a wholesome awakening to facts—an awakening that
inevitably precedes all real reforms in an epoch of conscious evolution.