Page:Meta Stern Lilienthal - Women of the Future - 1916.pdf/26

 in the future. It is quite probable that ceremonies will be abolished altogether as useless and ridiculous, and that a mere declaration of the contracting parties, with the recognition of certain obligations toward each other and their offspring, will be all the law will require. The fact is that laws have little influence and ceremonies still less influence in securing marital happiness and fidelity. The person who utters a solemn marriage vow is not likely to be more faithful than the one who merely signs a paper as a matter of form, and the young couple who have been joined in the pompous ceremony of a church wedding are not likely to go forth on their honeymoon any more blissfully and romantically than the pair who have been quietly united in a simple office by a municipal judge. Marriage is made not by its outward form, but by its inward worth. Forms change with changing social orders, but the need of the sexes for one another remains, their relation only becoming more idealized and more beautiful with increasing civilization.

Socialism is frequently accused of favoring free love. Whenever that accusation is made, the person making it should be compelled to define exactly what he means by free love. If free love is supposed to signify promiscuity, a sex relation practiced at the lowest stage of barbarism, then Socialism does not and cannot favor it, because it is quite inconceivable that Socialism should favor anything leading to social retrogression and to race degeneration. But if free love means the removal of artificial and unnecessary restrictions, the greatest possible freedom of choice, and the least possible amount of outside interference, then Socialism can calmly countenance the accusation of favoring free love. As a matter of fact, love has always been free. You can no more bind it than you can bind genius or the spirit of revolt. Despite the most stringent laws of state and church, despite the most cruel punishments. people have always loved illicitly, and those who broke their bonds and loved freely were often the greatest men and women of their age. Even where the body was bound the soul could not be fettered. No human laws could crush the love that kindred spirits felt for one another. It was poured forth in rhyme and