Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/122

106 the essence, and the contents have been lost and the inner bond has been rent in twain, and if one party withdraws from this compulsion in order to avenge outraged liberty outside of marriage, and to bring to light the fruits of enforced hypocrisy, this proof of a no longer existing marriage is called adultery.

Adultery is said to be a breach of faith. But what is faith? It is nothing more than active love. But if love is to be active, it must above all things exist. So long as I love I cannot become "unfaithful;" and as soon as I become unfaithful I no longer love. To assume fidelity as distinct from love is indeed a contradiction in the premises. Fidelity is love persisting in action and through action. It is, therefore, at bottom not at all a duty, but a frame of mind, or the necessary outcome of this frame of mind. Fidelity without this frame of mind, i.e., merely physical or mechanical abstinence, cannot have the least moral value with regard to the essence and aim of marriage.

But it is again the men and the pious people who have made the discovery that there is also fidelity without love, without faithful sentiments, i.e., self-denial which, for the sake of a foreign imaginary aim, must sacrifice its feelings to a false relationship. As we have seen above, manas the stronger had accustomed him self to use and abuse, by wilful change and in every manner, the degraded