much so, that one would suppose the Almighty had issued a decree, tl at man should be held responsible for the actions of both sexes, and that he would at the judgment-seat be held to answer for all the sins of women. (It is due to justice that he should answer for some of them.) Men and women are seldom joined together by God, or consistently with physiological law, which is God's law; consequently there is little danger of man's putting asunder what God has joined together. It is doubtful if tase of this kind ever occurred, in this or any other country, in any age c the world. We see that freedom of affection, and even sexual promiscuity, do not necessarily degrade or demoralize woman or generate diseases, as illustrated by the easy-going Japanese, and the Oneida Community. In monogamic society these liberties when taken, degrade and demoralize woman, because they debar her from association with the virtuous and the respectable; and they cause diseases, because in prostitution, at least, cohabitation takes place for a pecuniary consideration and greed of gain, inducing the most unnatural excesses, attended finally with dissipation, personal neglect, and disgust for one's self. The flesh and the spirit, both, may be said to be scourged. During the reign of polygamy in Utah, the Mormons boasted that there was no such thing as prostitution among them; but polygamy alone was not sufficient to prevent prostitution. There were harlots in the days of the patriarchs, and we find that this class of women is common in Oriental countries where polygamy is practised. The non-existence of prostitution among the Mormons during polygamy, was undoubtably due to two facts: first, no more women flocked to their territory than were wanted for wives; second, the Church so assisted the poor Mormons that all the men could have one or more wives, while indigent women were too well provided for to be tempted to adopt or driven into a life of shame. With these somewhat disjointed items thrown together in one paragraph I will bring this chapter to an end, simply remarking that to the close student of sociology it is a matter of regret that two such interesting departures from customary usages as the Oneida complex marriage and Mormon polygamy, should have gone out before showing to the world what they could have done in the neglected field of stirpiculture. It would be interesting now, if some one having time for such investigation, would visit the regions where these experiments were tried, and note their effects upon the children that were born in these respective communities.

CHAPTER V.

DEFECTS IN MARRIAGE SYSTEMS.

HE author has no desire to arouse the prejudices of the public, and would gladly leave the task he is about to undertake in this chapter to abler heads and stronger hands. But some one must undertake the unpopular work of exhibiting the defects of the old marriage-systems, and of awakening the inventive ingenuity of the age to the discovery of new rules and customs for the regulation of intercourse between the sexes; for we are now rapidly drifting into the vicious manners and practices of the Grecians in the days of Pericles, without adopting their virtue, frankness, and honesty. Paris, London, and New York, are worse in their sexual morality to-day than were the people of ancient Athens, for the reason that while the practices of their citizens are no better, their professions are, and the souls of husbands and wives are weighed down with deceit and hypocrisy.

While science and art are performing what in other days would have been regarded as miracles, in nearly all departments of life, the marriage systems of the world are just about what they were fully 500 B. C., and not so perfect, in fact, as that one which was inaugurated in the early history of the republic of Rome, when law had nothing to do with the marriage relation. Why is this? I need hardly tell the intelligent reader It has somehow gotten into the heads of the people, that marriage is a divine institution, and consequently must not be meddled with. It is supposed by many unacquainted with the domestic history of the angients, that our Saviour was the originator of our monogamic system of marriage. This error must be dispelled by a persual of the History of Marriage given in this volume. The monogamic system was more strictly adhered to by the Romans two thousand five hundred years ago, and by the northern barbarians of Europe long before Christian teachers were admitted among them, than it has been by any peoples in Christendom.

For want of time and space, I must beg to be excused from any lengthy theological discussion of this subject. The adage "when doctors disagree," etc., is eminently applicable here. Still, I will not altogether dodge it.

1

Is marriage a divine institution? If so, which of the various forms presented in the preceding chapter? Besides the Monogamic system, originated by the ancient Romans, 700 or 1000 B. C., and the Polygamic, which came down to us with the indorsement of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, at least one new system has sprung up which claims to be Christian-"Complex Marriage." Jesus of Nazareth did not marry, St. Paul was an old bachelor and decried marriage. We have seen what St. Jerome, one of the early Christian translators has said of it, calling it a tree that should be cut at the root, and we also find that the early Christian church regarded it simply as a น 'necessary evil," which should be disposed of as soon as practicable. Lastly, we have to-day five different sects, claiming to be Christian, wherein we find one prohibiting the marriage of the clergy (the Catholics); another holding to the Monogamic system for the clergy as well as the laity (the great body of Protestant Christians); another which believes that all the popular systems of marriage encourage selfishness and vice, and present for a remedy what they call the Complex System, or what the outside world would call no marriage at all (the Communists); another which claims that Polygamy is the true relation, and that he who can present the most dazzling array of wives and children will be the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven (the Mormons under Brigham Young); and finally, a sect which believes all sexual association, even for the purpose of procreation, sinful, marriage a sort of compromise with the devil, etc. (the Shakers). All these sects prove (or they think they do) the correctness of their position by the Old and New Testaments. But Christ did not command man to marry, or not to marry. When questioned, he simply answered in a way to give people to understand that they should live up faithfully to their contracts. With his pure nature, he could not counsel fraud or a course of action calculated to lead to deception and violation of promises solemnly given. No one doubts that truth is divine, that every thing which partakes of deception, unfaithfulness, and fraud, has its origin in evil; consequently, when we voluntarily surrender certain individual liberties, with the understanding that the one with whom we make this contract shall do the same, any clandestine or open violation of the agreement is perfidy. Impressed with the conviction, that in this violation of good faith, women were "more often sinned against than 'sinning," our Saviour, when the woman was brought to him charged with adultery said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." He did not cruelly upbraid her, and make her feel that she had committed an unpardonable sin, one which merited the sneers of men and the reproaches of women. It is with a compound mixture of sadness, mirth, and contempt for hypocrisy, that one pictures in his imagination those men, rank with matrimonial perfidy, creeping out of the pure presence of Jesus of Nazareth, and away from a sorrowful woman who could

not have committed the offence with which she was accused, without the aid of some man, every whit as good as they were, perhaps better, creeping out with bowed heads and crouching bodies, dropping hats and tumbling one over another! For be it remembered, when he looked up he found they had all run away!

What evidence is there that any form of marriage has so received the Divine sanction, that it cannot be regulated, or changed if necessary, to promote the health and happiness of mankind! In the early history of marriage we find that aman simply took to himself a wife; no ceremony or public demonstration marked the event. In course of time, as if to make a woman feel the responsibility of her new position, and incite her to fidelity, the "taking" was celebrated by feasts. Finally, when a wife began to cost something, these festivities were mixed with more or less of the religious elements of those times, so that woman more than ever should realize the sacred obligation she had assumed. Time rolled on, and women doubtless would continue, in a slight measure, to imitate the infidelity of their hus bands, so that the ancient Romans inaugurated the custom of employing priests to solemnize the nuptial ceremony. "We first find," says Norton, "priests performing the nuptial ceremony among the ancient Romans, and as the Christian religion was early introduced into Rome, from the pagan priests the Christian clergy, perhaps, borrowed the custom of celebrating marriages also. Soter, the fifteenth bishop, who occupied the chair of Saint Peter, from 168 to 176, was the first to make it obligatory upon the churchpeople to be married by a priest." The next step we find our sex taking to impress upon woman the sanctity of the institution, was the performance of the ceremony at the door of the church. Undoubtedly they would have chosen to go in, and make the ceremony altogether a religious one, had they not felt a little hesitation about so far committing themselves to the compact of marriage. On the church steps they felt, perhaps, that they could make a little mental reservation without perjury. We find in Brande's Antiquities, "the custom of marrying at the church door extended down to modern nations. Chaucer in his 'Wife of Bath,' alludes to it as follows:

'She was a worthy woman all her live,

Husbands at the church door had she five.'

Until 1599, the custom continued in France, and until the time of Edward VI. in England. Edward I. was married at the door of Canterbury Cathe dral, September 9, 1299, to Margaret, sister of the king of France."

It did not take so long however as the latter date indicates, for the last opaque device of men, to become transparent to women. The former finally found that nothing would answer, but to enter in and make the obligation sacredly binding on men and women alike. According to Du Cange, mar riage was first celebrated in the churches in 1226. "It is said," remarks au

essayist, "that Pope Innocent the III. was the first who ordained the cele bration of marriage in the church, before which it was totally a civil con tract, whence arose dispensations, licenses, and other remnants of papal benefit. Shelford thought it came with the Council of Trent. The Counci! sat within the Bishopric of Trent, Germany, from the year 1545 to 1563." Although there is a little disagreement as to the exact year, the statement that it originated with Pope Innocent the III. is in harmony with the testimony of Du Cange. So what began with custom, ended at a later time with a rule instituted by the pope, and by the church. History does not tell us just when our sex became so hardened that they could thus sacredly pledge their fidelity and then without compunction violate that pledge; consecrate the promise in holy places and then disregard the promise, but the fact is, a large body of our sex, as far back as we can look into the past, have done it, and are still doing it. Though the institution of marriage is not divine, I repeat, Truth is, and compacts so solemnly entered into, have all the sacredness of an oath made with the Bible at the lips. If this fact were more forcibly impressed upon the minds of the people, more men and women would be faithful to their marriage vows than are found to be now, under the doctrine that marriage is a divine institution. The professed Christian now-a-days, loses sight of his sacred vows, when the marriage ceremony is celebrated,-half believes there is some mistake about the institution being divine, and when he stumbles into temptation and yields to it, he consoles himself with reflections upon the universal fallibility of mankind, and a sublime trust in the "scheme of redemption." The man of the world, when tempted, in combating in his own mind the popular idea that the institution is divine, also overlooks altogether the sacredness of his promise to the one who becomes his wife, and however high-minded and honorable in his ordinary business transactions, does not for a moment accuse himself of rank dishonesty, when he violates the marriage compact.

There are, therefore, two very weighty reasons why the popular mind should be disabused of the erroneous impression that any present marriage institution is of divine origin. First, because this impression puts the religious world at war with all attempts on the part of philanthropic physio logists to improve the customs regulating the sexual association of men and women. Second, because common principles of honor are overshadowed by the prominence given to the supposed divinity of a prevailing marriage system, so much so as to be made invisible to thousands who regard their "word as good as their oath," and an oath too sacred to make perjury excusable under any circumstances.

If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, it is hardly less than blasphemous to attribute any marriage system yet invented to divine origin. Not one of