Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/141

Rh will not go to heaven for this reason, and she has not yet found heaven on earth either — on account of this marrying.

But now we come to another point. It lies in the simple question: Would the idea of "marrying," and of "marriage contract," ever have come up if women could look out for their own subsistence, if they were economically independent of men? Would the idea of "marrying" and of "marriage contract" ever have come up if no children resulted from marriage, or if the children reared and educated themselves?

I believe that after some reflection those questions will be universally answered in the negative. It is the necessity incumbent on us in present conditions to save women and children from helplessness, from ruin, and not the nature of marriage, that brought society, which did not wish to be burdened with the care of women and children, to change marriage into an obligatory relationship controlled by law. And it is also this economic consideration on the part of society which invented the illegitimate procreation of children, and has made the birth of a human being whose germ has not been blessed by a priest or an official a disgrace. Because a Héloïse may chance to be poor and her child may possibly need the support of society, this society stamps the mother a harlot, and clothes its niggardliness in the hypocritical robe of moral indignation at so much