f4 THE APPETITES. 



pose could be accomplished, with equal or greater success, by other 

 means. It is rather for the refinement and elevation of both its 

 parties; that the one, in whom passion is dangerously and injuriously 

 predominant, may be toned down to temperance, and that the other 

 in whom passion is dangerously and injuriously deficient, may be 

 toned up to enjoyment; so that of this union there may be born, not 

 the greatest number of children, but the highest and most finished 

 types of human childhood. In such a marriage, it is plain that the 

 appetite of which we are speaking will always regulate itself well 

 and wisely; for the very condition of its existence and urgency 

 rests in the fact that it is both spontaneous and mutual. A good hus- 

 band would as soon think of inflicting any other sort of torture upon 

 the object of his tenderest affection, as to worry her with solicita- 

 tions and importunities for that to which she had no inclination of 

 her own; and a good wife, who should thus be made to know that 

 the crown and seal of her husband's happiness depended upon her 

 active and voluntary sympathy with his wishes, would be as cap- 

 able of denying food to the hunger of her heart's idol, as of failing 

 in the generous warmth of her response to his feelings in this 

 respect. 



False Marriages It follows, by immediate, natural and 

 necessary consequence, that all marriages, so called, in which this 

 sentiment of mutual tenderness does not prevail, are not true and 

 real marriages, but merely false and seeming ones; and that the in- 

 tercourse of such persons is not much better than a legalized prosti- 

 tution. For how much better is the woman who reluctantly and 

 unsympathetically submits to the embraces of a husband, because 

 he furnishes her with a home and luxuries, and has thus purchased 

 the right to her person, than the degraded creature who, for a similar 

 consideration and without the sanction of a violated vow, submits 

 to the same thing? And how much better is the other party the 

 man who can thus brutally claim and use his wife as a purchased 

 possession, because the law gives him the right to her, and it is "so 

 nominated in the bond," than the wretch who outrages the moral 

 sense and good order of society by his kept mistress, or his habitual 

 visits to the dens of prostitution ? That the children of such parents 

 should be born vicious and depraved, can be no matter of surprise 

 to those who have properly estimated the base ties by which their 

 fathers and mothers are held together. Indeed, it could not be 

 otherwise, in accordance with the laws of Nature and of God. The 

 first effect of these unions falsely called marriages and well named, 

 by the French, marriage de convenance, marriage for convenience 

 is, of course, the excessive indulgence of the sexual appetite. The 

 husband has purchased and brought home, and why should he not 

 take possession of, the trembling and shuddering bride? He does. 

 Her sensations, it is true, are those of unmitigated and immitigable 

 loathing. Whatever native capacity for love and the pure and de- 

 lightful offices of marriage she possesses is slain murdered outright 



