Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/331

Rh any inclination to disregard them, but because our conventional morality keeps a sharper lookout upon woman's conduct and punishes her lapses more severely than man's—an instinct however, which is so relentlessly attacked by the laws and morality, and which makes such a successful resistance to them, must have much deeper and more solid foundations than those others over which civilization has obtained control. Another argument has more weight: Human love although principally nothing more than the impulse for the possession of a certain individual with the purpose of reproduction, is yet something more; it is an enjoyment of the intellectual qualities of the beloved being; it is also friendship. This element of love survives its physiological element. Certain it is, that the sentiment felt for the loved one is not the same after possession, as it was before. But it is a profound and powerful sentiment still, sufficient to form the foundation for the desire and even for the necessity of a life-long union whose justification is no longer the natural aim of marriage, reproduction, but the want experienced by an intellectually more highly developed individual for companionship with one of similar culture. Even in the most constant hearts, even when the original passion was the most violent conceivable, love undergoes this transformation after the honeymoon or after the birth of the first child; it is still far from considering the yoke of matrimony a burden, but yet it is by no means a perfectly safe protection against the outbreak of a new passion. But there are other circumstances which aid the will in its struggle with t polygamous instinct. When the union of two persons, who gave evidence of their natures being harmoniously attuned Leach other to a certain degree, by loving for a brief period, has lasted a while it becomes a habit, which sustains fidelity most wonderfully. They perhaps, after