Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/91

Rh Let us meet the hypocrites with straightforward language.

Is it immoral that the breast of the youth and the maiden is filled with the longing of love? No! Why then do you, priests, demand that they should be ashamed of it, when they have not asked your permission? You are the immoral ones.

Is it immoral that a woman should bear a child to her beloved? No! Why do you cast her out, then? You are the immoral ones, the barbarians. You will demand that the trees shall be ashamed to blossom and to bear fruit.

The human being who is ashamed of his nature is not worthy to be a human being. What reasonable ground can you preachers of morality find for shame which you, under the conditions which you have decreed, connect with sexual love and the act which causes the existence of man? You might with the same right subject. eating and drinking to your conditions and expose them to condemnation. If you are ashamed of the sentiment and the act which caused your existence, you ought also to be ashamed of your existence itself, for which you sometimes have sufficient reason.

There is no greater and more senseless barbarity than that "moral" passion for condemning which makes the pregnancy of woman a disgrace if nature has not been granted permission by