Page:Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment.djvu/87

 Rh to the future of the race. It must not be supposed that by “sexual relations” the mere physiological act of copulation is meant. Many parasite wives are loved, and many extra-legal mistresses kept, and cherished because of their charming personalities and reciprocated affection; all this properly comes within the meaning of “sexual relations.”

Not always does the husband of a parasite wife pay a price for her. Frequently she purchases him, and keeps him. But the outcome is the same in those cases, in which the “wife,” already independent, uses her position to exempt herself from any social return.

The cure for the evil of nonreproduction of the fit and mated is not to be easily found. Perhaps it can be effected only by a fundamental revolution in the social attitude towards marriage. At present the marriage of the “upper classes” is too much a matter of bargain and sale; among the “lower classes” too much a matter of slavery. The ideal marriage, in which there is a practical copartnership, involving the rearing of several children, and in which the husband and wife together contribute to industry, or art, or science, whether the contribution is directly credited to both or to the husband alone, is unfortunately found principally among the “middle classes.” Those strata of society which practice real marriage will grow and strengthen, while those which