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 By the same Author. 
 
 New and Revised Edition, in limp cloth, price is., by post is. 2d. r 
 
 The Spirit of the fflatohopn. 
 
 Dedicated to the Peers of Scotland. 
 
 " A noble little book, and one of great interest We cordially re- 
 commend this poem to our readers, for not only is the theme a lofty one 
 and replete with ideas of noble sublimity, but the expression and form 
 of them is beautiful and harmonious." Lucifer. 
 
 '"The Spirit of the Matterhorn ' is a gem full of noble thoughts, 
 which could have been uttered only by one who desired to leave his 
 race better than he found it." Agnostic Journal. 
 
 London : WATTS & Co., 17, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.G.
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 RELATION OF THE SEXES. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO WOMEN. 
 
 THE MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 Ha 
 
 NOTE. 3 ' 
 
 Q* 
 
 I WISH to correct a misrepresentation that has arisen since I first delivered this 
 lecture. It has been stated that I am advocating polygamy. I beg now to distinctly 
 point out that I am not doing so. The term "polygamy" implies a man living 
 with more wives than one at a time, as such. This is quite distinct from a 
 kind of plurality of marriage which I suggest, and which I clearly define as a man 
 living with only one woman as his actual wife ; and, vice versd, a woman living with 
 only one man as her husband, though avoiding, if possible, the necessity of separa- 
 tion and estrangement from children, if any. I would advocate between husband and 
 wife where marriage has ceased to be valid that is to say, where marital relations 
 had entirely ceased to exist between them that they should remain, if possible, on 
 terms of sisterhood and brotherhood. This, though constituting a natural divorce, 
 in such cases not to be avoided, might still evade the cruelty of separation, if they 
 both wished this, though not enforcing it, if both or either desired to sever 
 all connection. I simply contend that, if a man requires it, it is proper he should 
 have one wife, and a woman one husband ; yet in the case of two people being married 
 already, and that marriage being no longer valid, all sexual relations having ceased 
 between them these two people wishing to avoid the cruelties of a separation, 
 they should be allowed and encouraged to do so, on the terms of sisterhood and 
 brotherhood, even had legal divorce actually taken place between them ; especially, 
 it must be remembered, as, in the present state of our social law, they may have been 
 unable to procure this legal divorce, not having committed the necessary offences of 
 cruelty and adultery to secure it ; in which case, if they are to obey the existing 
 social law, they are condemned to a life of celibacy, which you cannot enforce, 
 even did you burn man at the stake for this lapse. He (the man), at any 
 rate, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, will evade it by doing in dishonour, 
 and mostly in secret, that which I maintain should be made honourable and legitimate 
 when such cruel circumstances have arisen. Call it what you please plural marriage 
 or legitimate concubinage I say it would be preferable to the illegitimate one that 
 now exists widely, and which cannot be avoided under present conditions. 
 
 I repeat, I am not advocating polygamy. What I assert is that it is not the 
 natural and rational law of mankind that a man's marital relations can be in all cases 
 confined to one woman (his wife) during the whole of his life that is to say, no sexual 
 relations before marriage, and none after except with the wife, under any circum- 
 stances whatever, except on the death or divorce of the wife, when he can marry 
 again if he chooses. That is our social law. I have remarked in my lecture that 
 not one capable man in ten thousand could, on his death-bed, swear that he had 
 truly obeyed this law. Can any answer be more decisive than this, and that it is not 
 the natural, rational law for man's present state ? Thus terrible evils have followed the 
 attempt to enforce that which all men will evade, should pressure be brought upon 
 them to do so by circumstances which they have been utterly unable to control ; and 
 the very basis from which we start is founded on law that is unnatural at present. 
 
 QUEENSBERRY.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 5, line 3, for "More like 200,000 I should say" read 
 " Probably between 100,000 and 150,000." 
 
 . Page 23, line 17, for "had it been possible for a second WIFE" 
 read " had it been possible for a second WOMAN." 
 
 Page 24, lines 13 and 14, after "what they now are often obliged 
 to do in secrecy and dishonour " add " PERHAPS TO SAVE THE LIVES 
 
 OF THEIR WIVES." 
 
 Page 26, line 14, for " TRUE law" read " NATURAL law."
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 AND THE RELATION OF THE SEXES. 
 
 IN dealing with such an all-important and complicated problem as the 
 relation of the sexes under our present marriage laws, I am perfectly 
 aware that I am undertaking a most arduous and onerous task, and 
 one that will, in all probability, bring upon my head a perfect storm of 
 odium and reprobation. But, feeling acutely that the time has arrived 
 when the subject is ripe for attack and discussion, I shall fearlessly 
 throw myself into the breach, regardless of all consequences to myself. 
 Knowing full well that truth will always prevail in the end, I fear not 
 to injure the cause I advocate, even though the views which I shall 
 endeavour to express may in the end prove to be erroneous ; 
 for in that case they will simply fall to the ground, and will be im- 
 potent to effect any change in public opinion. Nor do I dread the 
 censure of social bigotry. I am well aware that they who point the 
 finger of scorn are often secretly grateful to the man who ventures to 
 propose necessary reform. 
 
 I wish, in the first place, to state that I do not claim to be entirely 
 original. An ancient sage observed that " there is nothing new under 
 the sun ;" and, although this paper is, in large measure, the result of 
 more than twenty years of my own earnest thought and deliberation, 
 it is only right I should state that I have made free use of a pamphlet 
 published anonymously and called " The Future of Marriage," to the 
 author of which a lady unknown to me I am glad to express my 
 hearty acknowledgment. 
 
 The cause which I am here to advocate is the greater happiness 
 of the human race, more especially as that happiness may be promoted 
 by the reform of our present marriage laws. The question I would pro- 
 pose to your serious and thoughtful attention is this : What is the true 
 natural law of marriage ? By natural I mean most in harmony with 
 human needs, and most conducive to human welfare. Has the natural
 
 4 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 law been discovered ? If so, how is it that men are still experiment- 
 ing with different systems, varying according to religion and country, 
 while with the lower animals, as we call them, the question has been 
 decided long ago ? Animals all have their special laws which 
 they instinctively obey. It is left for man alone to create 
 laws, venerate them as right and proper, and then disobey them ! 
 All animals do not, indeed, have the same laws. For instance, some 
 birds, like the grouse and the partridge, mate in pairs, while the 
 pheasant and domestic fowl keep a harem. The stag has many hinds, 
 but the sexual habits of the genus do not vary in different parts of the 
 globe. The laws which the Highland red deer obeys are those which 
 the golden-haired deer of the Andes also fulfils. The partridge and 
 grouse of this country have the same laws as they have in other 
 countries. The like holds good through the whole animal creation, 
 one universal motive seeming to underlie all its laws namely, the 
 best preservation of the species. Among mankind, on the other 
 hand, there is no agreement. We find polygamy among Turks, 
 monogamy (so-called) among Christians, plurality of wives among the 
 Mohammedans and Mormons, trigamy and polyandry among certain 
 savages and South Sea Islanders. 
 
 I fancy I hear someone in the audience exclaim, " Well, but we are 
 not animals !" Are we not ? Why, then, do we speak of the lower 
 animals, if we do not recognise ourselves as the higher ones ? But 
 whether we are animals or not I will not discuss here. What I ask is 
 this : Ought we human beings to be worse than the brutes ? Alas ! it is 
 only with the female of the human race, especially in countries where 
 they have endeavoured to enforce a strict monogamy, that a large propor- 
 tion of them have sunk to the degradation of prostituting themselves 
 that is to say, that women will voluntarily make themselves common 
 to many males at .the same time, and stoop to polyandry for the sake 
 of payment. This is what the female of no animal species does ; it 
 exists only in humanity. Nevertheless, my argument is that the evils 
 of prostitution must be accepted as a necessary accompaniment and 
 natural result of a strictly enforced monogamous marriage law. Hence, 
 then, we are confronted with this dilemma : either prostitution, with all 
 its horrors and degraded womanhood, must be shown to be compatible 
 with the welfare of those who practise it, or our marriage laws are
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes, 5 
 
 not adaptable to us as we are at present. Schopenhauer, writing on this 
 subject fifty years ago, said there were 80,000 prostitutes in London. 
 I wonder how many there are now. More like 200,000 I should say. 
 "What are they," said Schopenhauer, "but the unfortunate women 
 who, under the institution of monogamy, have come off worst ? Theirs 
 is a dreadful fate. They are the human sacrifices offered up on the 
 altar of monogamy." 
 
 But let me return to the questions I set out by propounding. 
 What is the natural human marriage law? Has mankind yet dis- 
 covered it? And, if so, how is it that men are still trying different 
 systems, while animals have settled laws which they instinctively obey ? 
 I ask again, Are we worse than animals ? I answer emphatically, 
 No. But this appears to decide the answer to the question, Has 
 man yet discovered the true law for his present state of imperfection? 
 That he has not done; for surely it should be as instinctive in 
 man to obey a universal law as it is with the lower animal races. 
 If men had found the true laws, I maintain that long ago they 
 would have spontaneously obeyed them. As it is, not one man in 
 ten thousand here in this country could swear on his death-bed 
 he had strictly obeyed our social law. But if our laws are con- 
 trary to nature, and not suitable to our present imperfect state, can 
 anyone wonder that they are so constantly infringed, and that we find 
 ourselves in the dreadful moral muddle that exists to-day in the civilised 
 world ? I say it is a pity and a disgrace that our laws are often such 
 that to obey a social law we must disregard a natural one ; and vice versa, 
 that in obeying a natural one we have to violate the social. I blame 
 not the so-called offenders, but the wrong law for the present time. If 
 man is, by his nature, doomed to impurity, absolute despair is the only 
 reasonable attitude to assume. But I have come to the conclusion 
 that nowhere on the face of this earth has the natural law of the 
 sexes yet been truly carried out. To my mind the nearest approach 
 to it is witnessed, strange to say, in the life of certain savages. I 
 refer to some Indians* who, in their natural state, while often living with 
 only one wife, are allowed by native custom to take a second or even 
 a third, but without necessarily putting away the first. Probably only 
 
 * I refer here to Patagonian Indians.
 
 6 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 some ten per cent, take advantage of the privilege. This custom 
 does not necessitate divorce, separation, and estrangement from 
 the children. On the other hand, the women are reduced to the 
 position of slaves, and this is the blot in their system ; otherwise I 
 should affirm that there was more true monogamy among these people 
 than anywhere else, and preferable in many ways to our own system. 
 For do not we men here take second and third unlawful wives aye, 
 and many more in the course of our lives, when it becomes necessary ? 
 Yes, and often when it is not necessary. But it is done in secrecy and 
 dishonour. 
 
 It may be seen that what I contemplate is some modification of the 
 existing marriage law, as being indispensable to the removal of various 
 evils which proceed from a common origin. Not that the reforms can 
 begin with the laws. Laws follow, not precede, changes of social opinion. 
 It is this opinion that I would strive to influence. What is wanted is that 
 our rigid monogamic law should be broken in such a way as to fulfil a 
 higher law, to give liberty to the emotions, and to subserve the welfare 
 of society by following Nature's guidance. I do not propose to suggest 
 polygamy as a panacea for the evils of our modern social life. To such 
 an idea it would rightly be objected that many evils, of the worst of 
 which we are probably ignorant, have been found as the concomitant 
 of polygamy, and that, in fact, this form of marriage has been outgrown 
 by all the most advanced countries. To re-impose it would be mis- 
 chievous, as it is happily impossible. What is imperatively needed 
 is liberty to modify marriage, and in certain cases, where the bond has 
 ceased to be valid, to allow plurality of marriage, or a legitimate concu- 
 binage. If, as will most frequently occur, the welfare of all concerned 
 can be best promoted by the observance of the ordinary rule, let that 
 rule be observed, with the full consciousness of a free obedience. But 
 we must recognise what it actually is that confers sanctity on the 
 rule : not that it is merely a restraint, but because it secures the larger 
 end of human good ; and this can be established only by allowing some 
 deviation from the recognised order when those larger ends would not 
 be secured by rigid adherence to it, it having become dangerous nay, 
 impossible, in certain cases for individuals to obey the behests of a strict 
 monogamy. This need not tend at all to set aside the actual practice 
 of monogamy. That could still be held up as the highest ideal,
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 7 
 
 or rather, for the first time, a true monogamy would be rendered 
 possible. The question to-day is not whether we shall give up 
 monogamy, but how we are to make it a reality. What we have at 
 present, in this and in many other European countries, is often a thinly- 
 disguised polygamy and polyandry, deprived, by that disguise, of 
 all the humanising influence that would gather round them if they 
 were the recognised relations of the sexes. It would be almost better 
 to have an avowed polygamy than this sham and dishonest monogamy. 
 But if it be established that monogamy i.e., one woman for one man 
 during lifetime is the highest form of marriage, by which the good 
 of the community, as well as of the individual, is most likely to be 
 attained, it is quite certain that its hold upon us can be secured only 
 by the principle which elevates the good of the community above any 
 external form. Good as monogamy may be, it ought never to be 
 enacted by legal force, and should be relaxed in cases where the 
 maintenance of it is no longer desirable. Even supposing that, 
 for a time, great use were made of this relaxation, an immense 
 advantage would be gained in the direction of honesty and truth- 
 fulness. Wives would at last begin to know exactly what their 
 husbands were about, and, though this disillusioning would entail 
 considerable pain and grief on the woman's side, the gain in moral 
 sincerity would be incalculable. 
 
 The evils of the hypocrisy and treachery which at present exist 
 among us can hardly be exaggerated. The most atrocious cruelties are 
 constantly committed by men who have no natural tendency to cruelty, 
 simply because the honest daylight, in which they would see things as 
 they are, is excluded from a whole region of their lives. The 
 secrecy in which this region is wrapped shuts out the best womanly 
 qualities of mind and heart from participation in certain relations 
 of men, and causes those relations to be carried out with a cynical 
 brutality that would be impossible to any man if he knew that they 
 would be scanned by the woman he most loved and esteemed. It 
 is not possible to have any change for the better except on the 
 conditions of perfect openness between men and women. The dis- 
 regarding of the secrecy which has been brought about by the wrong 
 idea of what is due to the wife will no doubt give a severe blow to the 
 feelings of women, and it will seem to them that the world has all at
 
 8 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 once become much lower than it was before. We shall hear, on all 
 sides, lamentations on the awful wickedness of the times, and the names 
 of those who first suggested invading the fancied conventional sanctity 
 of the home will be held up to execration. But this will only be 
 because the real evils were hitherto ignored. The same outcry is 
 always raised when the position of a privileged class is assailed, and 
 especially when a mask is removed behind which wrongs had been 
 perpetrated with impunity. It is on the hand that dares to lift the 
 mask that the anger of insulted prejudice wreaks itself. He who dares 
 to meddle with a social evil must be prepared to encounter wrath and 
 opprobrium. Perhaps it may seem a bitter satire to describe the often 
 over-tasked wives of Britain as a privileged class, but it is a fact that 
 the degradation of the outcast women is the price paid for the main- 
 tenance of the wife in her position of social privilege. For this 
 degradation is chiefly due to the secrecy enforced by our social refine- 
 ment. It is evidently not what these unfortunates do that so ruins 
 their moral nature, for it is much the same as is done in all mariages de 
 convenance. But they are placed beyond the pale of the natural kind- 
 ness of their fellow creatures, and are thus driven to become creatures 
 of prey and the common enemies of the society that outlaws them. 
 And this outlawing is enforced for good ends by good women, 
 hundreds and thousands of whom bear about them an aching sorrow 
 and pity for their less fortunate sisters. They would bestow all 
 their goods, give their bodies to be burned, suffer anything and every- 
 thing, except the one only thing that is of any use, and that is, to 
 face the facts of the world as they are. It seems always easier to 
 endure any form of self-chosen martyrdom than to submit to that 
 which heaven appoints. If women can only bear to know the truth 
 and gird themselves up to the task of helping men according to, and 
 not against, the nature of the world they find themselves in, we may 
 hope for some light to arise on the fearful horrors of which I speak. 
 
 The proposal to allow some variation from the rigid monogamic 
 order has nothing in it to recommend itself to the licentious. Our 
 present system, or rather chaos, suits them so admirably that they are 
 sure to be loudest in their opposition to a change. What could be 
 more favourable to the indulgence of selfish licence than the condition 
 of things that prevails in our towns? The hopeless struggle for
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 9 
 
 existence on the one hand, and the harsh rigour of the respectable, 
 who close the door upon the first lapse, on the other, fill the streets 
 with victims for the profligate. Pushed alike out of the workshop and 
 the home .by a cruel competition, the libertine finds them, in an 
 embarras de richesses, ready to his hand. Society, engaged in scrupu- 
 lously whitening its own sepulchres, prudently asks no questions, and 
 thus secures him an immunity in his vice. What should prevent him 
 from leading the chorus of indignant shrieks when a profane hand is 
 put out to touch this goodly edifice ? Who profits so much by the 
 hypocrisy that is threatened with exposure ? Any change in society 
 which has for its necessary condition the entire co-operation and 
 perfect openness between men and women in regard to sexual relations 
 will threaten his lawless pleasure, for only some women can be misused 
 as long as other women close their eyes to the fact. It need not, there- 
 fore, be feared by those who are sincerely anxious to guard the purity 
 of the home from selfish indulgence that the proposed change has in 
 it any tendency in the direction of laxity ; on the contrary, it would be 
 a blow directed against the present unbridled licence. 
 
 I have already declared my belief that at present there exists 
 nowhere on the face of this earth a true natural marriage law. There 
 may be good in all the institutions now in vogue ; but how can they 
 all be right ? A true law would surely have had a chance by this 
 time of becoming universal. No one will affirm that the animals do 
 not carry out the laws which God and nature appointed. It would be 
 absurd to pretend that they have received any revelation on the matter, 
 and I deny that we have received any either. I attack all the 
 present laws of marriage, only with a view to extracting the good 
 they contain, and from these beneficial elements to formulate the true 
 behests of nature. I therefore commence by attacking the law of my 
 own country, which is an abortive endeavour to enforce a strict 
 monogamy. We see with what result. I repeat, and it cannot be 
 denied, that our inflexible monogamous marriage system has for its 
 essential condition the co-existence of prostitution. Have women 
 realised what a fearful evil this prostitution is, not only in the terrible 
 degradation it has entailed on countless thousands of their own sex, 
 but on the separate ground altogether of a certain malignant disease 
 which it has produced, and which has prevailed in all countries where
 
 io Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 monogamy has been in force for centuries ? For obvious reasons the 
 nature of this disease cannot be dealt with in this address. Its frightful 
 and demoralising results are too well known. Engendered by an un- 
 lawful alliance and endured in secret, it has ruined the health of con- 
 fiding wives, polluted the characters of faithless husbands, and wrecked 
 the happiness of many homes. It is quite time that measures were 
 adopted by which domestic circles should be protected from the con- 
 tamination of this appalling evil an evil that is not only a curse to 
 the wrong-doer, but poisons the blood and blasts the lives of the 
 unoffending offspring. 
 
 Fortunately, most of the mothers and matrons of our race have been 
 protected from this disease, and prostitutes rarely produce children. But 
 how many of our men have escaped the dreadful taint ? I may be wrong, 
 and I hope medical men may be able to contradict me ; but I believe 
 that, if a registry had been kept for three generations, you would with 
 difficulty find men who could produce clean bills of health. That is 
 to say, it would be hard to discover father, grandfather, and great- 
 grandfather who had not, at some time in their life, been affected by 
 this disease. It is no wonder, then, that our asylums for the insane 
 should be filled with lunatics ; nor need we be astonished at the 
 numerous nervous diseases and disorders which afflict our race at 
 the present day. The marvel is that we are as sound as we are ; but 
 what might we not have been by this time had women realised the truth 
 before ? Why, what we may hope to become, as a race, when they 
 do realise it, and insist upon changed conditions. 
 
 You must perceive that I bring serious charges in asserting of our 
 monogamist marriage system, not only that it is responsible for this 
 fearful evil of prostitution, but that it is answerable for the still more 
 baneful results of a disease, the cure of which has probably vitiated, 
 beyond conception, the constitution of our present race. Prostitu- 
 tion is a force, and cannot be got rid of under the marriage 
 regime which now obtains. It seems strange that while the laws 
 of physics have become universally recognised, and no one dreams 
 of attempting to annihilate a particle of matter or of energy, we 
 neglect to apply the same principle to moral forces, but think and act 
 as if we could easily do away with an evil while leaving unchanged 
 that which created it and gave it strength. Simply to suppress prosti-
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 1 1 
 
 tution, and leave everything else as it is, would be disastrous if it were 
 possible ; but it is not possible. The weakness of all existing efforts to 
 put down prostitution is that they are directed against it as an isolated 
 corruption, whereas it is only one of the symptoms proceeding from a 
 constitutional disorder. 
 
 It might have been possible at an earlier period of human develop- 
 ment to judge of right and wrong by a reference to the individual 
 alone, and to a superior being to whom he owed obedience ; but 
 happily the faith in the solidarity of the race has now become part of 
 our moral heritage, and the opinion of any person who ignores its 
 importance in ethics is of no more account than that of an idiot in 
 intellectual matters. We do not, indeed, always act as if we believed in 
 this solidarity ; but no man before whom it was clearly displayed would 
 seriously assert that to be virtue which could be practised only at the ex- 
 pense of another's vice. Therefore it is that I assert that either our 
 marriage laws are wrong now, or prostitution must be shown to be com- 
 patible with the well-being, moral and physical, of the women who practise 
 it. I also demand here, Where is the authority for these laws ? I will 
 myself accept no criterion but that of human experience. I do not wish 
 to drag the subject of religion into this lecture ; but, even supposing we 
 accept the authority of the Bible, it must be confessed very little 
 is said about the matter in the Bible. What is said is mostly in 
 favour of polygamy. Christ himself was altogether silent on the 
 topic. The fact is, monogamy is Romanism still. Most of us, in these 
 Protestant countries, congratulate ourselves upon our happy release 
 from the Papal bondage ; but we are mistaken. We have not escaped. 
 Rome, in these matters, still binds us in as strong shackles as the iron 
 chains of the Inquisition. It was her priests who bound us in the 
 fetters of monogamous marriage as the law of God for mankind. They 
 had no authority to do so. If so, let them produce that authority. 
 The laws of God are the laws of nature. There is no law of nature, 
 human or divine, in man's present state, which confines him to one 
 woman as his only wife during all his lifetime. I do not say this 
 under the sanction of any revelation, but from direct inspection of the 
 facts of human nature, and particularly the cardinal fact that there are 
 more females than males. The condition of some men at present is 
 one of degeneracy and licentiousness, the fruit of centuries of hereditary
 
 12 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 wrong-doing. Let man, however, go back to natural principles, and 
 he will regenerate himself. 
 
 I believe that, under proper social conditions, not ten per cent of 
 the male population would take more than one wife. They would 
 shrink from the burden and anxiety, although many a married man's 
 heart goes hungry. If it be objected by religionists that God created 
 only one woman from and for Adam, it is sufficient for me to reply 
 that both the man and the woman were supposed to have been created 
 perfect perfect in health and perfect in morals. I do not believe 
 this story myself, and look upon it as only allegorical of what 
 mankind will ultimately be. We are now imperfect in both health 
 and morals, and we require a social system adapted to men 
 and women as they are. If it be objected by women that any 
 licence in the direction of allowing a plurality of wives for men in 
 certain cases, or of providing some legal form for a legitimate con- 
 cubinage, which would secure recognised rights to such women, would 
 lead to frightful abuses and immoralities, and that many men would 
 abuse these privileges to their hearts' content, my reply is, that I am 
 not responsible for the licentious propensities produced by our diseased 
 civilisation ; but they would have to be suppressed, and they would be 
 so. Why should we be worse here than among certain Indians and 
 other communities where they allow marital liberty? Among these 
 people the liberty is not abused. Therefore, as far as this point is 
 concerned, the system has been tried and not found wanting. Surely 
 women can take care of themselves ; and, if there was some law 
 providing for legitimate, honourable relations, whether of plural 
 marriage or concubinage, between men and women, the weapdns for 
 defence would be placed in the hands of the women themselves. It is 
 reasonable to expect that women would not prefer illicit relations with 
 men if the laws of the country provided, some legal form by which 
 those relations could be rendered honourable and above board, with 
 legitimacy for their children, should there be any, thus giving them 
 protection and safeguards which they do not now possess. Which 
 manifests more base and selfish passion the man who would, if he was 
 allowed, publicly espouse the partners of his love, and take them to his 
 home and heart, and provide for them and his children ; or the man 
 who steals away in the dark from his own home, indulges in secre t
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 13 
 
 passion, and then abandons the partner of that passion to a life of 
 wretchedness and shame? Our system has made ideal marriages 
 possible ; but the price is too costly. 
 
 I think I hear women exclaim : " Well ; but how about us ? Are 
 you men only to be considered, and are we women to be treated, 
 like those in polygamous countries, as beasts of burden and as 
 slaves?" My reply is, Certainly not. The women of this county- 
 would never go back from the liberty they have already obtained. 
 It has been lately substantiated by the Jackson case that the law 
 does not compel a woman to live with her husband as such against her 
 free will, and that he cannot seize upon her person and compel 
 her to do so. I say that this is one of the most glorious victories 
 that woman has yet gained in the progressive emancipation of her sex 
 towards freedom. In speaking to women of the possibility of some- 
 times allowing plurality of marriage, or, if you please, legitimate con- 
 binage for men, I have almost invariably been met with the hasty 
 reply : " Then why should not we women have also a plurality of 
 husbands ?" Let me here point out, and lay stress on, the fact that 
 there is a great difference between polygamy, which is a man living 
 with more wives than one at a time (which I do not advocate) 
 and a plurality of marriage, by which I mean a man taking a 
 second, or even a third wife, when, from ill-health or various other 
 causes, his first wife had ceased to be such ; though he would not 
 necessarily put her away. He would still then be only living with one 
 woman as his wife (which is what I do advocate). I have drawn this 
 distinction in answer to those women who asked the question : " Why 
 not a plurality of husbands for us ?" Surely they do not mean at a 
 time. That is too monstrous. No woman could mean such a thing. 
 I will not discuss it, nor waste time, nor insult you over such obscene 
 notions as no animal would entertain. They mean, of course, May not 
 a woman have a second, or even a third husband when she has 
 become separated, as wife, from the first or the others, as the case may 
 be ? My reply is, Why, certainly. That can already be done by 
 obtaining a divorce ; and, had I the power, I would most certainly 
 facilitate the laws of divorce, which have already been conceded, to 
 enable women in these positions to obtain relief without recourse to 
 adultery. This is another victory which women must resolve to gain.
 
 14 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 In alluding to the question of divorce I must say that I consider 
 it to be a hideous and a hateful expedient, and one about which Christ 
 is reported to have said that it was only permitted because of the 
 hardness of men's hearts. At the same time, we have unfortunately to 
 recognise that divorce is, with prostitution, one of the necessary accom- 
 paniments of a monogamous marriage law, and that the system cannot 
 do without it. We have lately seen Roman Catholic countries obliged 
 to yield to popular sentiment on the question, and ignore the bigotry of 
 their national religion, which forbids it, and will not recognise that 
 divorce is justifiable. History reveals the gross immoralities that have 
 existed in all Roman Catholic countries where monogamous marriage 
 was enforced, and divorce was not allowed. The very fact that a law 
 of divorce has been conceded betrays beyond all doubt the weak spot 
 in the at present rigidly-maintained monogamous system. It is thereby 
 acknowledged that it may in certain cases be impossible and danger- 
 ous for individuals to continue the orthodox mode of marriage. But 
 a further step must be taken. 
 
 The time has come when the Government of this country should 
 interfere, and when laws should be further made for the decent and 
 honourable dissolution of marriages which have ceased to be morally 
 valid. Thousands of people in this country would thus be set free from 
 the most intolerable positions, which, while entailing upon themselves 
 acute miseries, only terminated by death, are also a constant source 
 of scandal and danger to the community, by bringing the institution 
 of marriage into disrepute. The divorce law which we have already 
 wrenched from the Church party should be modified in many ways to 
 meet these cases. More especially on the woman's side I would 
 facilitate divorce, and yet in every way try to reduce the necessity of 
 making use of it on the man's side. For here men and women cannot 
 be exactly on an equality. It is a worse crime for a wife to commit 
 adultery than for a husband to do so. A woman, at any rate, knows 
 that her child is her own, whoever the father may be ; while, should the 
 wife be unfaithful to her husband, he may find himself in the position 
 of fathering children that are not his own. Who is it, indeed, that 
 dares to separate fathers and mothers, and children from their parents, 
 and estrange them, as the case may be ? God has nowhere been 
 reported to say in the Bible that he hated polygamy (which I am not
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 15 
 
 advocating) ; but he is said to have declared that he hated " putting 
 away" (Mai. ii. 16). So do I, so that in this instance I find myself 
 in agreement with the God of the Bible. Divorce may be a detest- 
 able thing, and yet, under the institutions which I am protesting against, 
 it may be as necessary to use divorce as it would be to amputate a 
 diseased limb or to cut out a cancer. Divorce is the only remedy our 
 monogamic system will allow of at present. At any rate, let us have 
 a fair and equitable law, not the monstrous injustice of the present one. 
 The statutes now regulating the community actually tempt men and 
 women to commit adultery and cruelty before granting relief, however 
 necessary it may have become. 
 
 Let me here give you an illustration of what I mean of how 
 plurality of marriage might reduce the necessity of this cruel divorce in 
 the case of men, by repeating to you a short anecdote. It is taken 
 from a pamphlet I once found in Salt Lake City, advocating plural 
 marriages for men a plan which you could hardly yet apply to 
 women, though personally I would not object, always provided the 
 woman was living with one man only as her husband. The anecdote 
 gives an account of the conversion to Christianity of an old Indian 
 chief. The chief was living with two wives at the time. The first was 
 aged and childless ; the other was young and attractive, and the mother 
 of a fine boy. One of these wives he was required to put away, as an 
 indispensable requisite to baptism and church membership. The old 
 chief, after careful deliberation, could not decide which to repudiate. 
 The first he was bound by every honourable motive to love and cherish, 
 especially on account of her age and infirmity ; while the other was 
 devotedly attached to him, and was the mother of his son and heir, 
 whom he could not give up, and from whom he could not separate the 
 mother. He therefore submitted the case to the missionaries to decide. 
 They decided against the younger one, and, as he was old himself and 
 his other wife was barren, that she must also give up her child. This 
 mandate was obeyed with a martyr-like fortitude, which nothing but 
 the strongest religious motives could have inspired, opposed as it was 
 to every natural sentiment of love and honour. And thus, in one day, 
 was the young wife and mother deprived of her husband, her child, and 
 her home, and sent away a bereaved and lonely outcast into the wide 
 world. The report which the missionaries themselves gave of this
 
 1 6 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 affair closed by saying that " the repudiated wife and bereaved mother 
 died of a broken heart." 
 
 With many people monogamy creates a spirit of hypocrisy, which, 
 behind a veil of abstemiousness, conceals a mass of hidden corruption. 
 Its direct tendency is to stimulate intrigue and lying, as well as the 
 equally detestable vices of prostitution and adultery. It is, moreover, 
 a notorious fact that, wherever monogamy is observed, the common 
 cause of murder is unhappy marriage. Husbands constantly murder 
 their wives, and wives murder their husbands, or incite others to do so. 
 Napoleon Buonaparte would never have divorced the Empress Jose- 
 phine had plural marriage or legitimate concubinage been deemed lawful 
 and proper. His desire for an heir was most intense, most natural, 
 and most commendable. A son seemed to be all that was wanting to 
 secure the stability of his throne, the good of his people, and the 
 peace of the world. Yet the system of monogamy demanded the 
 divorce of the woman by whose alliance he had been greatly assisted 
 in his brilliant career. Before this crisis all his history is bright ; after, 
 all is dark. One cannot even now, after so long a time, contemplate 
 the tears of Josephine, and the subsequent disasters of Napoleon, without 
 nursing the narrow bigotry of strict monogamy, and wishing that the golden 
 age of reformation had dawned in time to save their lives from blight. 
 
 A woman's instincts revolt against the thought of plurality of husbands, 
 and, judging the man's feelings by her own, she cannot understand, and 
 will not believe, he can possibly have affection for more than one woman 
 at a time. My own belief and experience is that a man will love only 
 one woman sexually at a time. He may, however, have a deep affection 
 for another, or even others. But, as this point involves a constitutional 
 difference in the sexes, it is one in which women's feelings, educated as 
 they are in Christian countries, may not guide them aright. Man can never 
 know, except imperfectly, the infinite tenderness of a mother's love, and 
 that only by reason and observation. Experience does not teach him 
 its fulness, and his paternal love does not exactly resemble it. So, also, 
 a woman can never know the purity of a man's conjugal love, except 
 by similar observation and reason. It appears to me that almost all 
 great men, if not all, have been actually polygamists at some time of 
 their lives, even though they transgressed the laws of ordinary social 
 life. This fact raises the question whether only that man can be great
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 17 
 
 who conforms to the limited rules of monogamic chastity. It seems a 
 fearful wrong that our laws are such that there is no honourable way by 
 which men can acknowledge their so-called mistresses, and avow their 
 children who are branded as illegitimate. Some of these great men 
 may have been brave ; but they were not sufficiently so : they had no 
 right to practise their polygamies in the dark. 
 
 Here I cannot do better than to quote to you from the pamphlet I 
 mentioned at the beginning of this lecture. The writer's language is far 
 more forcible and eloquent than anything I could give you. She says : 
 
 "The theory of a supernaturally-imposed social order, guarded by 
 divine sanction, is hardly held by any considerable proportion of 
 thinking men to-day. It is pretty clearly recognised that such 
 matters are left for man to work out as best he can ; and, 
 however necessary it may be for society to guard jealously the order 
 once established from the caprice and restlessness of individuals, yet 
 the development of man, and the needs arising out of the increasing 
 complexity of his condition, will necessitate ultimately changes in the 
 forms of social life. A mere intolerance of pain is alike unmanly and 
 unwomanly ; but that is no true philosophy or ethic which refuses to 
 see in wide-spreading inevitable suffering ground for inquiry into the 
 nature and authority of the institutions which necessitate it. No 
 advance in political or social development has been made without the 
 spur of acute suffering, and this beneficent function of pain should not 
 be overlooked. Viewing the facts of life in Europe to-day, the ocean 
 of wasted womanhood in our streets, the degeneration of the race 
 consequent upon vice, the frightful corruption of children of both 
 sexes in the lowest orders, the enforced celibacy which shrivels 
 up the moral and physical health of our finest girls, the cruel com- 
 petition for marriage which makes them hate each other's rivals ; 
 viewing, too, the fruitless tension by which moral forces are locked up 
 in the mere effort to keep things as they are, one must say that our 
 present rigid monogamy needs some other justification of its exist- 
 ence than that of the general happiness it produces. True, it furnishes 
 the conditions under which the highest specimens of human nature are 
 evolved ; it has given us ideally perfect unions of man and woman, and 
 yielded inexhaustible material to the poet and the novelist ; but at 
 what a cost !
 
 1 8 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 " It is well to set before ourselves the problem we have to solve. It 
 is to fulfil the physical conditions for the greatest benefit of the race, 
 and, at the same time, to satisfy to the full the demands of the moral 
 nature. It might seem at first sight as if these two requirements were in 
 antagonism to each other, as if it would be comparatively easy to do 
 the best thing for the body if the conscience would but be silent, and 
 as if one could readily discern the dictates of a moral nature if one 
 might turn a deaf ear to the demands of the physical. But, in 
 truth, there could not be a greater mistake. So wonderful is the unity 
 of our complex nature that the very appetites will not serve as trust- 
 worthy guides if there is impurity i.e., the rule of the merely selfish 
 instincts in the heart ; while, on the other hand, morality can be saved 
 from becoming a superstitious and cruel asceticism only by stooping 
 humbly to interrogate physical needs. The traceable good of man is 
 the corner-stone upon which his morality must be built up anew ; 
 for, indeed, at present, the very word ' morality ' has a sickening 
 sound when we remember how it is applied. A man may be dead to 
 every claim of honour, affection, and pity ; he may grind the poor, 
 lay traps for the weak and vicious, and pocket the gains of the 
 gin palace and the brothel ; but, if he has only one visible wife, no 
 matter how he treats her, he is a moral man. Our boys are brought up 
 in the idea that morality is something primarily to do with them- 
 selves in a special department of their own health. A young girl is 
 allowed, unwarned, to perpetrate the greatest of all wrongs, that of 
 taking the place of a deserted mistress, who is perhaps by this act 
 thrown into what is called an immoral life, though it is scarcely more 
 impure than that which receives the sanction of its mean theft at the 
 altar ; and this wrong she is taught to justify for the sake of the ' morals ' 
 of the man she marries. Truly the word needs a new definition. If 
 we are ever to have a morality to bind men effectually together, it must 
 be a reality, and not a despicable sham. It must come touched with 
 heroism, tender with pity, and endowed with healing virtue. It must 
 be bold with the courage of a purity incapable of stain, nor shrink, with 
 timid prudence, from confronting the evil which has its allies in its 
 own heart. Above all, it must be an honest morality, calling things by 
 their right names, and not afraid to face facts ; and, if it calls itself, 
 as surely it must, religion, it must not commit the practical irreligion of
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 19 
 
 disregarding the revelation of God in the bodies as well as in the souls 
 of men. This morality must satisfy alike the demands of man and 
 woman ; and this brings us to a vital point, the neglect of which goes 
 far to explain the comparative failure of all our efforts, hitherto made, 
 to stem that which we have been obliged to call the social evil. 
 
 " And now perhaps, for the first time in history, is it possible for 
 women to take in hand the emancipation of their own sex, for now at 
 last their eyes have been opened to the sight of the world as it is their 
 fool's Paradise is broken up. They know now, as they never knew 
 before, at what cost these English homes are kept up. The agitation 
 about the State regulation of vice has at least had this good result, that 
 it has dispelled the ignorance which alone rendered possible these 
 horrible eyils which shame and disgrace our civilisation. It is not 
 wonderful that men have striven so long to keep knowledge from the 
 woman whose purity they guarded with loving reverence. If their care 
 has proved unavailing, it is that a better purity than the precarious one 
 of ignorance should be her heritage the purity not of Eden, but of 
 Gethsemane ; a baptism not of water, but of fire ; purity not chiefly 
 concerned with keeping itself free from stain, but in burning up evil 
 with the ardours of pity and love. When once the conviction is forced 
 home upon good women that their place of honour and privilege rests 
 upon the degradation of others as its basis, they will never rest till 
 they have either abandoned it, or sought for some other pedestal. 
 
 " Thousands of women, perhaps the majority of the upper classes, are 
 still honestly ignorant of the utter sham which monogamy is in Europe 
 to-day ; but the days of such ignorance are numbered, and, when they 
 know, the revolution will not be long delayed. The ground is under- 
 mined in every direction ; the thinnest possible crust hides from us the 
 seething mass beneath. Some change is at hand, whether of mere dis- 
 solution or of reconstruction depends upon the moral forces that are at 
 work in the crisis. If all the conscience of the nation entrenches itself 
 behind the crumbling bulwarks of an external morality, and clings 
 timorously to the old order, what but utter chaos can ensue ? But if 
 it march boldly forward and take the initiative, claiming for its own the 
 whole field of useful action, then indeed a new world may arise from 
 the ruins of the old. No doubt all the social relations form part of one 
 vast and complicated problem, and no true solution can be found for
 
 2O Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 one part that does not touch all the others ; but it is a legitimate view 
 which regards the sexual relation as a key to the rest. It is there that 
 the need for deliverance is most intense ; and, until a new principle is 
 introduced here, all the other disorders will cry in vain for a remedy. 
 Let women realise this. Prostitution is the means by which the 
 immunity of the wife is kept up. Horrible as this fact is to contem- 
 plate, it becomes credible nay, impossible to doubt when one sees 
 it only as one instance of the system of compensation existing through- 
 out the whole social body. If every wife under our present system casts 
 her shadow on a blighted woman's life, no less does every idle lounger 
 in the clubs, every consumer of wealth he has not assisted to produce, 
 fasten the rivets on some slave of excessive toil. If, in the slums of 
 East London, human beings are packed together like herrings in a 
 barrel, one need only look at the mansions of the West, and the villas 
 and the spacious gardens of the suburbs, for the counterpoise and the 
 cause. No, our badness will never be improved away till our goodness 
 is made better. Our slums exist for the purpose of shaming our 
 palaces ; to our vice is committed the task of purifying our virtue." 
 
 It will be here seen that the writer of the pamphlet referred to 
 contemplates, like myself, some modification of our existing marriage 
 laws. What is wanted is for the rigid monogamic law to be broken in 
 such a way as to fulfil a higher one. This movement may take various 
 forms ; but certain conditions must be fulfilled. The husband and wife 
 must act by mutual consent. If either acts alone or in secrecy, 
 thus wronging the other, it will be of no avail. This has been done 
 thousands of times, and it is being done every day without bringing 
 the emancipation which is needed. It is not licence that is wanted, 
 for licence is already unlimited where secrecy is preserved ; but what 
 society requires is liberty to obey a truer law, which, by rendering the 
 secrecy unnecessary, would strike a death-blow to that licence. The 
 freedom that must be claimed is freedom to give, not to take. The 
 wife must, in certain cases, assert her liberty to give a new life to 
 another woman through her husband, who thus becomes the instrument 
 of her giving. It cannot be too often pointed out that vice owes more 
 than half its strength to the thwarting and checking of good and whole- 
 some impulses. It is the very capacity of bestowing joy that, deprived 
 of its natural outlet, constitutes the power for temptation wielded by
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 2 1 
 
 the careless and irresponsible hands of our girls ; and, on the other 
 hand, the consequences of this starvation of the natural affections are 
 even more fatal to young men. The craving that drives nine-tenths of 
 them into haunts of vice is not sensual in its origin, however it may be 
 in its manifestations. Some sort of emotional relations with women 
 they must have; and they only drink of these poisoned fountains 
 because the purer streams are barred from them. It might, indeed, 
 seem that the greater freedom of the emotional relations between the 
 sexes would be attainable without any distinct breach of the law ; but 
 it is true that so long as any union outside the monogamic order, with 
 whatever justification, is regarded as the one unpardonable sin, every 
 approach to such a danger will be guarded jealously, and the most 
 innocent reciprocation of affection viewed with suspicion. This 
 enormous waste of power for joy is the price we pay for keeping up 
 that rigid law. It may well be doubted whether the negative wrong 
 incurred be not greater than the positive crime avoided, if, indeed, it 
 were avoided, and not simply concealed. Especially may this be 
 doubted when one looks at the highest prerogative of a woman's life, 
 motherhood, from which she may be debarred. Some day it may dawn 
 upon society that the injunction which Carlyle was never wear)' of 
 reiterating, to produce the best that is in us (" Were it but the infini- 
 tesimal fraction of a product, produce it in God's name "), may apply 
 here also ; and it may be held then to be a positive duty for a perfectly 
 healthy woman, with strong natural affections, to produce a child. As it 
 is, the strong man is considered bound to use his muscles, the artist to 
 paint his picture, the thinker to utter his thoughts ; but the one duty of 
 her, who alone can produce the noblest of nature's handiworks, is to 
 crush her heaven-born desire to enrich the world. She too, then, must 
 claim her liberty not to take, but to give her best. The giving birth to 
 children is the most important event connected with human existence, 
 and should be kept free in all its associations from serfdom and forced 
 obedience. A new birth should be the outcome of unalloyed affection 
 and perfect harmony between husband and wife. But, alas ! under the 
 present conditions of society it is too often the result, and the purely 
 mechanical sequel, of the gratification of mere animal propensities on 
 the one side, amid aversions of feeling on the other. No marvel, there- 
 fore, that so many " depraved " characters with malignant dispositions
 
 22 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 are born into the world. To ensure a generation physically healthy 
 and endowed with an evenly-balanced mentality, freedom of union, 
 apart from all licence, is indispensable. 
 
 The admission by a wife of another woman into union with her 
 husband is a form in which liberty to modify the sexual relation might 
 be exhibited. Such a liberty would help towards the solution of all the 
 difficulties of the problem. It would diminish the number of single 
 women. It would enable women to enjoy both marriage and a career 
 by sharing the burdens of wifehood and motherhood. It would lessen 
 the strain that keeps up prostitution. It would relax the keen competi- 
 tion for marriage, and the social rivalry that ruins the better nature of 
 young girls. But all these positive and visible benefits are as nothing 
 compared with the renovating influence which would flow from this 
 new attitude of woman in thus claiming her liberty to give, instead of 
 attesting her rights to take and to hold. She would strike the key-note 
 of a true harmony, which would vibrate from end to end of the social 
 body. I hear married women exclaim : " Ah, it is all very well, but we 
 women will not, and never can, agree to this accepting of another 
 woman into union with our husbands. The thing is impossible and 
 preposterous to propose to the women of England. They who have 
 for centuries regarded the sanctity of the home as associated with the 
 sacredness of one and only woman, the first wife, will never consent to 
 such an innovation." Well, but is not this a matter of education and 
 custom, seeing that in most of the countries where Christianity is not 
 followed men do take second and third wives, and live with all of them 
 as such, where polygamy is practised, and this without the existence 
 of hatred and malice ? 
 
 General Gordon, who was a sincere Christian, and had ample 
 opportunity of comparing the results of the laws of the Mohammedans 
 with the state of social morality in Britain and in other Christian 
 countries, once said : " Well, the Mohammedans may allow themselves 
 more licence in regard to the number of their wives ; but, at any rate, 
 they do not run after one another's wives." In Paraguay, which, I 
 believe, was at one time the freest country in the world as regards the 
 relations of the sexes, a man might even offer a visitor the women about 
 him as an act of natural hospitality. If, in that region, men played 
 such tricks as they do in these countries of disregarding other men's
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 23 
 
 rights, and the fate of women they pursue for their own pleasure, they 
 would simply have been murdered, without any horror or sensation 
 being created. 
 
 I ask women here to reflect that what I am advocating is already being 
 done, and cannot be prevented. How many men are there who will 
 hesitate, when all relations with their own wives have ceased as such, to 
 take other women as their unlawful wives ? What I wish to protest 
 against is the idea that a man who has ceased to have any relations 
 with his wife, as such, must come to hate and detest her ; for he still 
 may have the deepest affection both for her and for his children. Yes; 
 but if you could compel him, which your social law endeavours 
 to do, to live a life of celibacy, he would in all probability come 
 to hate the sight of her ; and this, indeed, is happening every 
 day. I am as confident in my own mind as I am of my own 
 existence that tens of thousands of homes would have been saved from 
 ruin and destruction, with all the disastrous consequences to the children 
 of such homes, had it been possible for a second wife sometimes 
 to relieve the excessive burdens of the first. In the Bible we have the 
 example of Jacob, who, when he took Rachel as a second wife, did 
 not put away Leah, his first. Speaking with a Mormon woman once 
 upon this point, she said : " The hatred and jealousy that exist among 
 women where monogamy is practised do not exist among us here, 
 where plural marriage is allowed." She did not believe that taking a 
 second wife would necessarily rob the first of any part of the love her 
 husband had for her, any more than the birth of a second child 
 robbed the first-born of its parents' love ; but she knew that, with us, 
 if a man professed to love a second woman at all, his affection for the 
 first must be gone, and the wife would be ready to kill both him and 
 her. Never shall I forget the spontaneous cry, long years ago, of 
 one then very dear to me : " Ah, I am sure there ought to be another 
 wife. " 
 
 It need not be supposed that I expect anything I may say here to 
 result in my suggestions being immediately adopted by women in 
 general, or even by single individuals. But there must be a commence- 
 ment to all things, including new ideas. A seed may be sown, and 
 what will be the result of the crop who can tell ? I have endeavoured, 
 firstly, to lay my finger upon the blot of our existing marriage law, with
 
 24 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 all its attending horrors of prostitution, child murder, adultery, and 
 divorce ; secondly, to point out that divorce itself is the only remedy at 
 present available to mitigate the evil consequences of marriages which 
 are unhappy, because they are evidently not built upon a true basis ; 
 thirdly and lastly, I have proposed alterations in our present laws which 
 I think would alleviate these fearful ills. At the same time, the 
 reforms I have outlined would in no way render it less possible for 
 individuals to carry out a true monogamous law in their own lives, if 
 they have been fortunate enough to form true alliances. But if it is 
 impossible, all at once, for our women to accept, under special circum- 
 stances, the patriarchal plan of admitting another woman to the home, 
 why should not laws be made to meet the cases of legitimate concubin- 
 age, where men could do without shame what they now are often obliged 
 to do in secrecy and dishonour, and bestow an honourable legitimacy 
 upon the children ? And how is it, I would also ask, that one so rarely 
 comes across illegitimate children so seldom finds them living among 
 us. I will quote what a distinguished clergyman of Brooklyn once said : 
 " Why send missionaries to India and other places when child-murder 
 is here of daily, almost hourly, occurrence ? Aye, when the hand that 
 puts money into the contribution-box to-day, yesterday, or a month ago, 
 will to-morrow murder her own unborn offspring." It is as natural for 
 a woman to bear children as for an apple-tree to bear apples. You 
 can, of course, dig about the tree, or so maim and injure it, that it will 
 not bear fruit ; but, if it shrivels up and dies, can you be surprised ? 
 Many influences may combine to cause the mother to destroy her 
 helpless child, as to conceal the results of sin, to avoid the burdens of 
 maternity, to secure ease and freedom, etc., etc., or even from the false 
 idea that maternity is vulgar; but it is true beyond question that the 
 primary cause of this sin lies far back behind all these influences. 
 Though doctors, ministers, and moralists have said much on the sub- 
 ject, and written more, it is reasonable to suppose that they will never 
 accomplish much of anything in the way of reform until they recognise 
 the part that man acts in all these cases, and demand reform where it 
 is most needed, and where only it can be secured. 
 
 For God's sake, then, let us see to it that any relations which a man 
 may determine to form with the other sex shall be openly and honour- 
 ably formed, and honourably maintained. Nothing that I have said
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 25 
 
 here can be taken to show that a true monogamous life is not possible 
 for the individual, and that it is not in all probability the true law of 
 the perfect man, and the highest ideal to be sought for by all men 
 and women at present. No doubt examples of this ideal may be seen 
 embodied to-day, and have frequently occurred in the past; but 
 I fear those cases have been, and are, the exception, and not the rule. 
 If you burnt men at the stake for the act of adultery, you would still 
 be powerless to prevent it under our present system. 
 
 The question I again ask is this, What is the natural law of marriage 
 for the human race ? I cannot help thinking that the law which 
 controls all the rest of the animal creation must also apply here to us 
 human beings viz., that of the best preservation of the individual 
 species. What, then, is that law for us ? I will allow that nature directs 
 us in the end towards a true monogamy. The pretty equal proportion 
 of the sexes, though, as I have already stated, there are more females 
 than males, as well as the almost universal instinctive preference of both 
 ' men and women to choose one person, point to monogamy as having 
 the greatest probabilities in its favour. It is to be hoped, too, that the 
 amelioration of other social conditions, the enfranchisement of labour, 
 the increase of culture, intellectual and moral, and of the means of 
 public health, will tend to make monogamy more and more possible. 
 Let men be free to choose, and they will in the end choose that which 
 nature points out to be the best, as animals have done already ; but, at 
 present, men are not free, and we should seek to remove the obstacles 
 which prevent them even finding out what they ought to choose. My 
 own answer to the question I have submitted for consideration 
 namely, What is the true human marriage law ? is this : That everything 
 points to a true monogamy (always perhaps liable in exceptional cases 
 to deviation) as the law that the perfect man and woman would in- 
 stinctively obey ; but that at the present stage of human imperfection 
 man is not adapted to a strict monogamy. I hold that no law you can 
 make can compel him always to be a real monogamist, and that, in en- 
 deavouring to enforce obedience to such a law, most frightful evils have 
 arisen in the past, and will assuredly continue to arise in the future. 
 
 It seems to me impossible in the present days of science and research 
 to accept the story of Adam and Eve, and of man created perfect. In 
 fact, we possess proof that it is not true, and that mankind has been
 
 26 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 evolved from lower forms of life truly tidings of great joy. Mankind is 
 not a fallen race, but a rising one ; and, without altogether repudiating 
 the Bible story, we must now look upon it as an allegorical forecast of 
 man's ultimate and complete adaptation to his surroundings in a word, 
 of perfect man and woman. But we are not perfect as yet, far from it ; 
 and it may be millions of years yet before our race arrives at so 
 desirable a consummation. This leads me back to the argument of 
 some sincere Christian religionists, to which I have referred at the 
 commencement of my address, that God created one woman for 
 Adam. In answer to 'this I reply : Both Adam and Eve were supposed 
 to be created perfect perfect in health and perfect in morals. We 
 are now imperfect in both, and require a social system adapted to men 
 and women as they are. Let us, then, while still clinging to the idea 
 that a true monogamy is most probably the true law of the perfect 
 man, and while always holding this ideal before us as the highest, the 
 best, and the most desirable to attain to, make laws to render it 
 possible for the community, as nearly as they can, to approach this 
 ideal. As I said before, some Indians, in their natural state, can give 
 us all a lesson in these matters ; for, although many live with more 
 than one wife, there are individuals among them who live with but 
 one, and are, therefore, true monogamists. In these communities, I 
 believe, there is no such thing as prostitution, adultery, or divorce, 
 except when they have become vitiated by coming in contact with the 
 white man, his religion, rum, and revolvers. 
 
 As to the probability of our race arriving at the state of perfection 
 to which I have alluded, when mankind may universally and instinctively 
 obey a true monogamic law, it is prophesied in Shelley's beautiful lines : 
 
 " Then that sweet bondage which is Freedom's self, 
 That rivets with sensation's softest ties 
 The kindred sympathies of human souls, 
 Shall need no fetters of tyrannic law. 
 Those delicate and timid impulses 
 In nature's primal modesty arise, 
 And with undoubting confidence disclose 
 The growing longings of that dawning love, 
 Unchecked by dull and selfish chastity, 
 The virtue of the cheaply virtuous, 
 Who pride themselves on senselessness and frost.
 
 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 27 
 
 No longer prostitution's venom bane 
 Poisons the springs of happiness and life. 
 Woman and man, in confidence and love 
 Equal and free and pure, 
 Together tread the mountain paths of virtue, 
 Which no more are stained with blood 
 From many a pilgrim's foot." 
 
 Does anyone here require to be told that I, among tens of thousands 
 of men whose faith is the same as my own, really believe in the possi- 
 bility of this ultimate perfection of mankind ? I can only say to such 
 that I do believe it with all my heart and soul, and that it is an ex- 
 planation to me of all the evils and troubles that now exist in this 
 world. Mankind is going through a process of adaptation, a continual 
 evolution ; and this accounts for all pain and suffering here upon the 
 earth. I cannot do better than conclude this lecture by giving to you 
 as a peroration Herbert Spencer's concluding sentences in his essay on 
 the evanescence of evil. When he is dead, he will in all probability 
 be recognised as the greatest philosopher whom the world up to his 
 time had produced. After showing beyond all doubt that what we 
 call evil (which is only non-adaptation of constitution to conditions) 
 must gradually disappear through a process of adaptation, which has 
 always been, and is still, going on, he says : " Progress, therefore, is 
 not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilisation being artificial, 
 it is a part of nature, all of a piece with the development of the embryo 
 and unfolding of the flower. The modifications that mankind has 
 undergone, and is still undergoing, result from laws underlying 
 the whole organic creation ; and provided the human race continues, 
 and the constitution of things remains the same, those modifications 
 must end in completeness. As surely as the tree becomes bulky 
 when it stands alone, and slender when one of a group ; as surely as the 
 same creature has assumed the different forms of cart-horse and race- 
 horse, according as his habits demanded strength or speed ; as surely 
 as a blacksmith's arm grows large, and the skin of a labourer's hand 
 becomes thick ; as surely as the eye becomes long-sighted in the sailor, 
 and short-sighted in the student ; as surely as the blind attain a more 
 delicate sense of touch ; as surely as a clerk acquires rapidity in 
 writing and calculation ; as surely as a musician learns to detect an
 
 28 Marriage and the Relation of the Sexes. 
 
 error in a semitone, in what to others seems to be a very babel of 
 sounds ; as surely as a passion grows by indulgence and diminishes 
 when restrained ; as surely as a disregarded conscience becomes inert, 
 and one that is obeyed active ; as surely as there is any efficacy in 
 educational culture, or any meaning in such words as habit, custom, 
 practice ; so surely must the human faculties be moulded into complete 
 fitness for the social state, so surely must the things we call evil and 
 immorality disappear, so surely shall man become perfect." 
 
 Without any desire to be dogmatic, I have ventured to suggest in 
 this address some thoughts for your careful and earnest consideration ; 
 and, while maintaining that much that I advocate is already being widely 
 done here, I have pointed out that it is at present done in dishonour 
 and secresy, the necessary result of existing conditions, and that it 
 cannot be avoided under those conditions. I have spoken to you as to 
 wise men and women ; "judge ye what I say." 
 
 Printed by Watts 6 Co., ij,Johnsoifs Court, Fleet Street, London.
 
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