Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/320

306 this compulsion can only be exercised practically in one way: by forging a chain that will bind the man indissolubly to the woman whom he wishes to make a mother. This chain is the marriage for life. And to make it more easy to be determined which father is responsible for which child, to obviate any possible danger of imposing the duty of a child's support upon the wrong father, no man is allowed to have children except by one woman, and no woman save by one man. This is the single marriage or monogamy. And now the relations are simple and summary. You wish to possess a certain woman? All right: you must swear to maintain her and the children proceeding from the union, throughout your entire life. Do you become tired of the woman after a while? So much the worse for you. You have her now and you must keep her. You find that you made a mistake in your selection, that you deceived yourself when you believed that you were in love. You should have examined your own sentiments more closely, have considered the matter more ripely. It is too late now to have this excuse accepted. You are in love with another? That is no concern of ours. You must still carry the burden of your wife and children and we, society, will not allow you to shift it upon our shoulders.

The instinct of self-preservation of the race never ceases to act, as long as it possesses any vital energies. The only way the% in which the race can ensure the life of the women and children in an economic organization founded solely upon egotism and individualism, that is, ensure its own perpetuation, is by a life-long single marriage. Our economic institutions are necessarily followed by our institution of matrimony. In reality marriage has come to be a means of gratifying the selfishness of the parents, as it is not contracted from love, nor according to the