MARRIAGE 13 



of divorce, bastardy, prostitution, and abortion, thank our 

 God complacently that we are not as other animals. 



Incredible conceit I boundless stupidity ! Surrounded 

 on all sides as we are by endless examples of absolutely 

 wholesome obedience to the Law of Increase, having 

 before our eyes instant and invariable evidence of a code 

 of sexual conduct which needs no Society for the Protec- 

 tion of Helpless Infancy, which requires no Foundling 

 hospital for the mothering of abandoned offspring, which 

 secures the end and aim of Marriage without force majeure 

 of prohibition or punishment, we yet have the unparalleled 

 audacity to even our worst vices with the beasts, and cast 

 their name as an uttermost reproach on those who pass the 

 limit of even human license. 



Truly of all the darknesses and blindnesses regarding 

 sex and its place which are due to that fateful hiding 

 away of truth behind a fig-leaf, the most Egyptian, 

 the most deplorable is that which makes it possible for 

 us to stigmatise the exceptional sinner as " a perfect 

 beast ! " 



If that shibboleth of speech, Marriage, be indeed 

 lacking amongst our fellow mortals, the conception for 

 which that shibboleth stands — if we judge by the Book 

 of Common Prayer, or even by common sense — is ever 

 present with them. 



For Marriage is a convention of right conduct having 

 for its object the safeguarding of the next generation. In 

 other words, it is the voluntary resignation of individual 

 right in sex, and its dedication to the race. 



But surely this convention presupposes, it must in fact 

 presuppose, the possibility of wrong conduct by which the 



