Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/103

Rh from a state of passionate attachment into a condition of quiet friendship; but at the same time, I maintain that true friendship exists only in marriage.

The question whether between persons of the same sex real friendship is possible has never, so far as I know, been met with a doubt. And yet I am very much inclined to answer it with a downright no.

All sympathies and antipathies of men are founded in egoism in the good sense. Self-interest is the natural guide in all steps, and there is no danger in acknowledging this when a correct, general principle is added to this guide as its test, that is, when the pursuit of self-interest is placed under moral control.

The duration and value of a union between two people depends entirely on whether these persons are fitted to conform to their respective egoisms, that is, to mutually satisfy their needs, be these needs intellectual, emotional, or physical. But now it is clear, and experience confirms it every day, that two persons of the same sex, even if in individual qualities they attract or agree with each other, can yet never in the long-run have in all things the same interests, but will sooner or later in some case or other show themselves as competitors. Individual examples to the contrary occur only where exaggeration and exaltation sacrifice the personal interests of the different persons to