Page:Meta Stern Lilienthal - Women of the Future - 1916.pdf/27

 music, in sculpture and painting. Some of the loftiest, most enduring works of genius in the world were inspired by free love.

Socialism will set love free by removing the sex relation from all economic considerations and placing it upon the high pedestal of idealism where it properly belongs. Socialism will make for human happiness, and to be happily mated is one of the fundamental conditions of human happiness. Far from encouraging low and loathsome sex relations, a Socialistic society will encourage the pure, honest union between one man and one woman, and will teach its sons as well as its daughters the importance of coming into marriage clean and healthy in body and mind in order to fulfill the sacred function of propagating a healthy race. Only one restriction that advanced society will have to place upon love, a restriction that many thoughtful persons all over the world are advocating to-day. It will have to prevent race propagation by persons who have criminal tendencies or are afflicted with hereditary diseases.

But, the reader may ask, what legal restrictions will keep people married? If young persons who have married for no other motive but love still experience a change of sentiment after some years of living together, what will they do? They will do exactly what thousands of unhappily married couples are doing to-day. They will separate, divorce, or whatever the annulment of the marriage relation may then be called. There will only be one difference. The divorce will be made easy, quick, decent, without notoriety and without mud-slinging. Instead of people being compelled to accuse each other publicly of wrong-doing, often giving the reasons that the law demands instead of the real reasons for their estrangement, they will be permitted to part quietly, peaceably, with the utmost consideration for each other's feelings. But here the free love ghost crops up again. It is claimed that if divorce is made so easy that people can have it for the asking, there will be a general breaking up of marital ties. Wicked human nature, unrestrained, will cause men and women to rush from one marriage