Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/108

98 highest possible character and to the continual advancement of the race.

I think I have fairly summarized the essence of Mr. Grant Allen's proposal, which, though enforced with all his literary skill and piquancy of illustration, can, in my opinion, only be fitly described by the term already applied to it by one of his reviewers, "detestable." It purports to be advanced in the interests of the children and of the race; but it would necessarily impair that family life and parental affection which are the prime essentials to the well-being of children; while, though it need not necessarily produce, it would certainly favor, the increase of pure sensualism, the most degrading and most fatal of all the qualities that tend to the deterioration of races and the downfall of nations. One of the modern American advocates of greater liberty of divorce, in the interest of marriage itself, thus admirably summarises the essential characteristics and purport of true marriage: "In a true relation, the chief object is the loving companionship of man and woman, their capacity for mutual help and happiness, and for the development of all that is noblest in each other. The second object is the building up a home and family, a place of rest, peace, security, in which child-life can bud and blossom like flowers in the sunshine." For such rest, peace, and security, permanence is essential. This permanence need not be attained by rigid law, but by the influence of public opinion, and, more surely still, by those deep-seated feelings and emotions which, under favorable conditions, render the marriage tie stronger and its influence more beneficial the longer it endures. To me it appears that no system of the relations of men and women could be more fatal to the happiness of individuals, the well-being of children, or the advancement of the race, than that proposed by Mr. Grant Allen.

Before proceeding further with the main question it is necessary to point out that, besides the special objections to each of the proposals here noticed, there is a general and fundamental objection. They all attempt to deal at once, and by direct legislative enactment, with the most important and most vital of all human relations, regardless of the fact that our present phase of social development is not only extremely imperfect but vicious and rotten at the core. How can it be possible to determine and settle the relations of women to men which shall be best alike for individuals and for the race, in a society in which a very large proportion of women are obliged to work long hours daily for the