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Rh without feeling ourselves laid under obligations of reciprocity. The most convincing proof that fidelity is not exacted by the natural aim of love, the interest of reproduction, but is a condition artificially implanted in humanity, an outcome of self-love, vanity and selfishness is this very lack of reciprocity. If it were a matter of organic necessity, the fidelity of the husband would be an obligation as inviolable as the fidelity of the wife; but as it is only a matter of succeeded egotism, the egotism of the strong in conquering the egotism of the weak in the course of the development of customs and morality, and as the husband is the stronger, he has been able to adapt and form laws, customs, opinions and sentiment to his own advantage and to the prejudice of the wife. He demands unconditional fidelity from his wife but does not concede to her the right to demand the same from him. When she forgets herself, she has committed a deadly sin, whose lightest penalty is public contempt; when he does the same, he has only been guilty of a charming little lapse from duty for which the law has no penalty, at which society smiles discreetly and good-naturedly, and which the wife pardons with tears and caresses if she took it seriously in the first place. And the unfairness of this dual standard is increased by the circumstance that in reality, it is not the same whether the husband or the wife is guilty of infidelity; for if the wife sins, she is passive in the matter—led astray by a man, that is, a power independent of her will; she succumbs to a force, which is stronger than her powers of resistance; but when the husband sins, he is not passive; he sins because he wishes to sin; there are very few Josephs outside of the Bible, and a Mrs. Potiphar is a rarity; the man takes the initiative in sin, he goes in quest of it, and commits it with concentrated purpose and premeditation, with energy and