THE ETHICS OF SEX 195 



which the " marriage for money," with all its 

 respectability, never approaches. It is pos- 

 sible that the ignoble may ignobly use our 

 words as a cloak for lust or for the devilry of 

 seduction, but our apology is for love, and we 

 side with Meredith : " Say not the mad, say 

 the enamoured woman. Love is a madness, 

 having heaven's wisdom in it & spark. But 

 even when it is driving us on the breakers, 

 call it love; and be not unworthy of it, hold 

 to it." v 



What the incontinent lovers have done is 

 to spoil a very fine thing, but it does not 

 merit social ostracism or lasting obloquy. It 

 was not very long ago a general practice in 

 some parts of the civilised world, sometimes 

 lingering as a survival of barbarism, some- 

 times deliberately countenanced as a rough 

 way of discovering whether the woman chosen 

 could become a house-mother or not. In any 

 case, our point is that those lovers who lost 

 control have done far less harm to social 

 stability than does the man who cannot look 

 at a woman without lusting after her, and far 

 less harm than the syphilitic who turns from 

 his whoring to poison his unsuspecting wife, 

 and kill or blind or rot their child. 



When all is said, however, it must be 

 admitted that irregularity in love-making is 

 a bad start, and that there must be some good 

 reason for the ancient and widespread social 

 infamy of the bastard. The reason is two- 

 fold. First, because too often the psychical 

 element is wanting, and then there is no 

 marriage at all, but mere pairing of the lower 

 animal sort; though perhaps even this is 



