Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/314

300 the doctrine of celibacy has never been literally followed except by those individuals who were suffering from religious mania, a disease which is almost always co-existent with disturbances or irregularities of the sexual system, and which like them is a manifestation of a morbid state, proceeding from the same pathological modifications in the condition of the brain. But Christianity never completely abandoned this doctrine, the church canonized certain married couples as saints, because they had never touched each other, while together during a long married life sexual intercourse remained theoretically a sin in its eyes, even if it was allowed in practice, and in the course of centuries its constant pressure upon civilized mankind has forced it to its present standpoint, that is, to the conviction that sexual love is a disgrace, continence a moral duty and the gratification of the chief impulse of every living being, a sin deserving the severest penalties. Man has the same instincts in Christianism as in paganism; he desires and obtains woman's favor the same; but he has not the pure and ennobling sentiment that he is engaged in a laudable action, but is haunted by the idea that he is treading forbidden paths; it seems to him as if he were committing a crime that must be concealed, he feels degraded by the compulsion to deception and hypocrisy, and condemned to a perpetual lie against himself, the beloved object and mankind in general, by the necessity for leaving unavowed the natural aim of his affections the possession of the beloved being. Christianity will not concede that love is legitimate; there is therefore no room for love in the institutions permeated by it. Marriage is one of these institutions, its character is influenced by Christian morality. From the theological point of view, it has nothing in common with the love between man and woman. A marriage is not entered into to allow them to