XXIII HUxMAN SELECTION 515 



commended to choose as temporary husbands the finest, 

 healthiest, and most intellectual men, thus ensuring a 

 variety of combinations of parental qualities which would 

 lead to the production of offspring of the highest possible 

 character and to the continual advancement of the race.^ 



I think I have fairly summarized the essence of Mr. 

 Grant Allen's proposal, which, though enforced with all 

 his literary skill and piquancy of illustration, can, in my 

 opinion, only be fitly described by the term already 

 applied to it by one of his reviewers, " detestable." It 

 purports to be advanced in the interests of the children 

 and of the race; but it would necessarily impair that 

 family life and parental affection which are the prime 

 essentials to the well-being of children ; while, though it 

 need not necessarily produce, it would certainly favour, the 

 increase of pure sensualism, the most degrading and most 

 fatal of all the qualities that tend to the deterioration of 

 races and the downfall of nations. One of the modern 

 American advocates of greater liberty of divorce, in the 

 interest of marriage itself, thus admirably summarizes the 

 essential characteristics and purport of true marriage. 

 '"' In a true relation, the chief object is the loving 

 companionship of man and woman, their capacity for 

 mutual help and happiness, and for the development of 

 all that is noblest in each other. The second object is the 

 building up a home and family, a place of rest, peace, 

 security, in which child-life can bud and blossom like 

 flowers in the sunshine."'^ For such rest, peace, and 

 security, permanence is essential. This permanence need 

 not be attained by rigid law, but by the influence of public 

 opinion, and, more surely still, by those deep-seated 

 feelings and emotions which, under favourable conditions, 

 render the marriage tie stronger and its influence more 

 beneficial the longer it endures. To me it appears that 

 no system of the relations of men and women could be 

 more fatal to the happiness of individuals, the well-being 



1 See " The Girl of the Future" in The Universal Review, May, 1890, 

 and a previous article entitled, "Plain Words on the Woman 

 Question," in The Fortnightly Review, October, 1889. 



2 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in the Arena, April, 1890. 



L L 2 



