Part 5
If the evils of industry were removed a great many social ills would cease. For instance, if women were independent, industrial members of the community, they would never be forced into distasteful, ill-assorted or convenient marriages, which are the most fruitful of all the sources of vice and crime in children, and consequently in the community. But beyond the industrial and dependent relations of the sexes there are many purely social ills that as much as those of industry require a remedy. Marriage is regarded as a too frivolous matter; is rushed into and out of in a haste that shows utter ignorance or else a total disregard for its responsibilities, and as if it were an institution specially designed for the benefit of the selfish wishes and passions of the sexes. But to look at marriage in this light is to not see it at all in that of the public good, or ultimately, in that of individual happiness. Marriages that are based upon selfishness or passion can never result in anything save misery to all concerned. Men and women who cannot look above these interests, who do not recognize that these interests should be secondary; who, after finding that their personal feelings would lead them to marry, cannot coolly ask themselves, are we prepared to become God’s architects to create His images, and be governed by the truthful reply, are not fit to marry. Many have the idea that I am opposed to marriage, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am opposed to improper marriages only; to marriages that bring unhappiness to the married, and misery to their fruits; and such as do this, had I the power, I would prohibit. I would guard the door by which this state is entered with all the vigilance with which the young mother watches her first-born darling babe; I would have no one enter its precincts save on bended knee and with prayerful heart, as if approaching the throne of God; as if to enter there were to more than in any other way to give one’s self to the service of God. So strictly would I guard it that none who should once enter could ever wish to retrace their steps. I would make divorces an unknown thing by abolishing imprudent and ill-assorted marriages. I would make the stigma so great that woman should find it impossible to confront the world in a marriage for a home, for position, or for any reason save love alone; and I would have her who should sell her person to be degraded in marriage, as culpable, as guilty, as impure at heart, as she is held to be who sells it otherwise. I would put every influence of the community against impure relations and selfish purposes, in whatever form they might exist, and encourage honour, purity, virtue and chastity. I would take away from marriage the idea that it legally conveys the control of the person of the wife to the husband, and I would make her as much its guardian against improper use as she is supposed to be in maidenhood. It should be her own, sacredly, never to be desecrated by an unwelcome touch. I would make enforced commerce as much a crime in marriage as it is now out of it, and unwilling child-bearing a double crime. As the architects of humanity, I would hold mothers responsible for the character and perfection of their works; make them realize that they can make their children what they ought to be, every one of them God’s image in equality. I would have them come to know that their bodies are the temples of God, and that within their inner sanctuaries, within “the holy of holies” God performs his most marvellous creations; that it is there that God Himself dwells, there that He will make Himself manifest to man, and that every act that He does not inspire is sacrilege, is worship of the Evil One, while every other, is an offering of sweet incense to the Heavenly Father. I would have man so honour woman that an impure or improper thought, or a self desire other than a wish to bless her, could never enter in his heart, would have him hold her to be the holy temple to which God has appointed him to be High Priest, as elaborately set forth by St. Paul in Hebrews, as the Garden of Eden into which the Lord God put him, “to dress it and to keep it,” forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the tree that stands in the midst of the garden; would have him awake to the consciousness that, by not so regarding her, he is repeating the sin of Adam, and by not compelling him to so regard her, she is repeating the sin of Eve; and that by these sins they are thrust out of the garden, and prevented from eating of the fruit of the tree of life and living forever; more than this, I would enlarge the sphere of parental responsibility so that they should be held accountable for the instruction of their children in all of the mysteries of sex, so that none could go into marriage in ignorance of the laws and uses of the reproductive functions. I would rob the subject of the mawkish sentimentality in which it is submerged, and make it a common and proper matter for earnest consideration and complete understanding. Indeed, I would make it a crime to enter marriage in ignorance of any of its possible duties and responsibilities; and twice a crime to bear improper children, for they who, to satisfy their own propensities, bring children into the world marked with the brand of Cain or Judas, are the worst kind of criminals. I would frown upon prostitution in every form; and make promiscuousness an abomination in the sight of man as it is in the sight of God; and I would drive out of the race the morbid passions that are consuming it. I would stop marrying until it should be no longer done in ignorance; and child-bearing until it could be done intelligently, so that every child might be a son or else a daughter of the living God. And I would have every woman remember the injunction of St. Paul, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband as it is fit in the Lord,” but in no other way; and men, “Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.” And if there be any other things let St. Paul also speak for me of them. “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.”
NOTES.
LYCURGUS—“considering education to be the most important and the noblest work of a law-giver, he began at the very beginning and regulated marriages and the birth of children.... He strengthened the bodies of the girls by exercise in running, wrestling, and hurling quoits or javelins, in order that their children might spring from a healthy source and so grow up strong, and that they themselves might have strength, so as easily to endure the pains of childbirth. He did away with all affectation of seclusion and retirement among the women, and ordained that the girls, no less than the boys, should go naked in processions, and dance and sing at festivals in the presence of the young men. The jokes which they made upon each man were sometimes of great value as reproofs for ill-conduct; while on the other hand, by reciting verses written in praise of the deserving, they kindled a wonderful emulation and thirst for distinction in the young men: for he who had been praised by the maidens for his valour went away congratulated by his friends; while on the other hand, the raillery which they used in sport or jest had as keen an edge as a serious reproof; because the kings and elders were present at these festivals as well as all the other citizens. This nakedness of the maidens had in it nothing disgraceful, as it was done modestly, not licentiously (as in ballet dances and music halls and ball-rooms of the present day), producing simplicity, and _teaching_ the women to _value good health_, and to love honour and courage no less than the men. This it was that made them speak and think as we are told Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, did. Some foreign lady, it seems, said to her, ‘You Laconian women are the only ones that rule men....’ She answered, ‘Yes; for we alone bring forth men....’ They considered that if a child did not start in possession of health and strength, it was better for itself and for the State that it should not live at all.”—_Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Bohn’s Standard Library._
* * * * *
Lycurgus did not view children as belonging to their parents, but above all to the state; and therefore he wished his citizens to be born of the best possible parents; besides the inconsistency and folly which he noticed in the customs of the rest of mankind, who are willing to pay money, or use their influence with the owners of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of horses or dogs, while they lock up their women in seclusion and permit them to have children by none but themselves, even though they be mad, decrepit, or diseased; just as if the good or bad qualities of children did not depend entirely upon their parents, and did not affect their parents more than anyone else.... Adultery was regarded amongst them as an impossible crime.... The training of the Spartan youth continued till their manhood. No one was permitted to live according to his own pleasure, but they lived in the city as if in a camp, with a fixed diet and public duties, thinking themselves to belong not to themselves but to their country.... Lycurgus would not entrust Spartan boys to any _bought_ or _hired servants_ nor was each man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon as they were seven years of age he himself received them from their parents, and enrolled them in companies. A superintendent of the boys was appointed, one of the best born and bravest of the state.... The boys were taught to compress much thought in few words; though Lycurgus made the iron-money of little value he made their speech have great value. One of his great reforms was the common dining-table.... In Sparta, as was natural, lawsuits became extinct, together with money, as the people had neither excess nor deficiency, but were all equally well off, and enjoyed abundant leisure by reason of their simple habits.
Women’s Printing Society, Limited, 66, Whitcomb Street, W.C.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P 3, added “THE REVIEW OF A CENTURY; OR, THE FRUIT OF FIVE THOUSAND YEARS” chapter heading. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.