Page:Annie Besant, Marriage A Plea for Reform, second edition 1882.djvu/56

 returns Grisette No. 2, 'do you not walk behind them, and listen to what they say?' 'I have done so, and they do not say a word.' 'Ah, it is his wife.' But what might be George's feeling if he knew his wife might leave him some morning? 'If conserve of roses be frequently eaten,' they say in Persia, 'it will produce a surfeit.' The thousands of husbands and wives yawning in each other's faces at this moment need not go so far for their proverb. If it be well, as it seems to me to be, that this most intimate relation between man and woman should be made as durable as the object for which it is formed will admit, surely the bond should be real to the last, a bond of kindliness, thoughtfulness, actual helpfulness. So long as the strength in the bond lies simply in the disagreeable concomitants of breaking it, so long as it is protected by the very iron hardness which makes it gall and oppress, what need is there of the reinforcement of it by the cultivation of minds, the preservation of good temper, and considerate behaviour? Love is not quite willing to accept the judge's mace for his arrow. When the law no longer supplies husband or wife with a cage, each must look to find and make available what resources he or she has for holding what has been won. We may then look for sober second thoughts both before and after marriage. Love, from so long having bandaged eyes, will be all eye. Every real attraction will be stimulated when all depends upon real attraction. When the conserve becomes fatiguing, it will be refreshed by a new flavour, not by a certificate. From the hour when a thought of obligation influences either party to it, the marriage becomes a prostitution." ("The Earthward Pilgrimage," pp. 289, 290, 291).

A remarkable instance of the permanence of unions dissoluble at pleasure is to be found related by Robert Dale Owen, in an article entitled "Marriage and Placement," which appeared in the Free Inquirer of May 28, 1831. It deals with the unions between the sexes in the Haytian Republic, and the facts therein related are well worthy of serious attention. Mr. Owen writes:—

"Legal marriage is common in St. Domingo as elsewhere. Prostitution, too, exists there as in other countries. But this institution of placement is found nowhere, that I know of, but among the Haytians.

"Those who choose to marry, are united, as in other countries, by a priest or magistrate. Those who do not choose