Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/117

Rh the women of the present, and let us ask ourselves whether they, when they have become economically independent of men, will still consent to, and find their happiness in, being merely the changing concubines of modern Turks. Those married people who are entirely suited to each other and are happy together will certainly not separate for the mere reason that they have full liberty to do so, and those who are not happy together can by an unrestricted change certainly not harm society as much as they now do. Let us even consider the possibility that a man might unite himself with a different woman every year, and consider whether it would be more immoral for him to have had a dozen wives or several hundred mistresses during his lifetime.

A further question by the doubters, who draw their conclusion only from present conditions, will be whether the liberty of changing the marriage relation, and the support of the children by the State, would not have to result in the destruction of the family.

The family is formed by the mutual attachment of the married couple, and by their love for their children. This attachment and this love are a natural need, and satisfy an interest than which there is none higher and greater. It is, therefore, an entirely false supposition that parents who really love each other could find it to their