swanton: institutional marriage 227 



and are bound to react injuriously upon their inhabitants. Under 

 such conditions natural sympathy is overridden and the sexes are 

 brought into unions on materiaUstic or institutional grounds which 

 result in an unstable combination. Secondly, legitimate procrea- 

 tion being impossible as the result of mutual regard it takes place 

 merely to satisfy the purely sensual appetites and is bound to 

 reacth armfully on the parents and to the detriment of the future 

 generations. Finally, law having proscribed as ''immoral" nat- 

 ural unions founded on sympathy and having prescribed as 

 moral those founded on convention, the perception of what 

 constitutes true morality is difficult if not impossible of appre- 

 hension, with the result that truly normal unions may take 

 place not recognized by society as moral, prostitutions occur 

 sanctified by law and by religion, while in the face of this gro- 

 tesque failure of society to recognize true values some will throw 

 over all belief in and practise of morality and will form and 

 break off unions to suit their every caprice, thus practically 

 throwing the whole marriage institution overboard. Yet in such 

 cases the first sinner is society itself, in prescribing unions from 

 irrelevant considerations of clan, caste, sect, propinquity, prop- 

 erty, and position. 



