AMAND ROUTII, M.D., F.R.C.P., ON MOTHERHOOD. 57 



Marriage should be considered as the only state in which inti- 

 mate sex relationships may occur, and all such relationships 

 apart from marriage should be morally prohibited. 



Curiously, yet not unexpectedly, as Dr. Foerster says, most of 

 the suggestions for sexual reform proceed from women writers, 

 such as Ellen Key, the Swedish authoress, but undisciplined 

 and weak men are easily led by the subjective reasoning of these 

 emotionalists, and join in the immature worship of merely 

 natural instincts. 



This " new morality " or " new ethics " considers that marriage 

 ceases to be a justifiable state when love, in any of its meanings, 

 fades, and must give way to new relationships. 



Loyalty to one's partner is ignored. The paths of evolution 

 of two personalities are not thought worth running parallel for 

 a lifetime. Thus Motherhood ceases to be the link of the sacred 

 union of the partners as in a normal Christian monogamous 

 marriage, but becomes merely a loose tie between mother and 

 child, whether the mother be married or not. 



The " Right to Motherhood " becomes an easy further step, 

 and the still further step, the " right to sex-life " soon follows, 

 and with it that false S3^mpathy which, whilst anxious to help 

 the illegitimate child and its mother, demands that all distinction 

 between the married and the unmarried mother should be 

 obliterated, and even to declare as Forel does, " that any such 

 distinction is immoral." It is even claimed that all moral 

 condemnation of unmarried mothers should be done away with, 

 as in this way alone can the position of these women be raised. 



Like the action of all moving pendulums, whether material 

 or ethical, there has been a tendency to go from the one extreme 

 of early Victorian severity to an encouragement of unmarried 

 maternity, and even to assume that the " right to motherhood," 

 apart from marriage, needs consideration. 



Such tendencies prove the existence of loose irrational free 

 thinking on the sacred union of the sexes. 



I will quote a few warning words from a woman scientist, 

 and they should rivet our attention, for they clearly show what 

 this change in the moral standard may lead to, involving as it 

 does the assumption that chastity is not essential to social life. 

 These are the words as quoted in the newspapers : — 



" It must be remembered that chastity imposes a rule of life 

 which is contrary to natural impulses, and that there are many 

 more girls than boys, women than men in the land. It must 



