Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/337

Rh from genuine affection, alone the spectacle of old maids who have found no husbands, would be as rare as that of old bachelors, who enjoy in their free, licentious life all the pleasures with none of the moral burdens or limitations of matrimony, and prostitution would only be practiced by a small number of degenerate beings who can only breathe in corruption and infamy and whose unbridled impulses are without the slightest value for the preservation of the species. When material considerations enter no longer into the contracting of a marriage, when woman is free to choose and is not compelled to sell herself, when man is obliged to compete for woman's favor with his personality and not with his social position and property, then the institution of matrimony will become a truth instead of the lie it is now, the sacred and sublime spirit of nature will bless every embrace, every child will be born surrounded by the love of its parents as with a halo, and will receive, as its first birthday present, the strength and vitality with which every couple that has been formed by the attraction of affinity endows its offspring.