So far in this discussion we have assumed that love means monogamous love. We did so, for the reason that we could not consider every question at once. But we have promised to deal with all the problems of sex in the light of reason; and so we have now to take up the question, what are the sanctions of monogamy, and why do we refuse sanction to other kinds of love?
First, let us set aside several reasons with which we have nothing to do. For example, the reason of tradition. It is a fact that Anglo-Saxon civilization has always refused legal recognition to non-monogamous marriage. But then, Anglo-Saxon civilization has recognized war, and slavery, and speculation1, and private property in land, and many other things which we presume to describe as crimes. If tradition cannot justify2 itself to our reason, we shall choose martyrdom.
Second, the religious reason. This is the one that most people give. It is convenient, because it saves the need of thinking. Suffice it here to say that we prefer to think. If we cannot justify monogamy by the facts of life, we shall declare ourselves for polygamy.
What are the scientific and rational reasons for monogamy? First among them is venereal disease. This may seem like a vulgar reason, but no one can deny that it is real. There was a time, apparently3, when mankind did not suffer from these plagues, and we hope there may be such a time again. I shall not attempt to prescribe the marital4 customs for the people of that happy age; I suspect that they will be able to take care of themselves. Confining myself to my lifetime and yours, I say that the aim of every sensible man and woman must be to confine sex relations to the smallest possible limits. I know, of course, that there are prophylactics5, and the army and navy present statistics to show that they succeed in a great proportion of cases. But if you are one of those persons in whose case they don't succeed, you will find the statistics a cold source of comfort to you.
John and Mary go to the altar, or to the justice of the peace, and John says: "With all my worldly goods I thee endow." But the formula is incomplete; it ought to read: "And likewise with the fruits of my wild oats." Marriage is a contract wherein each of the contracting parties agrees to share whatever pathogenic bacteria the other party may have or acquire; surely, therefore, the contract involves a right of each party to have a say as to how many chances of infection the other shall incur6. John goes off on a business trip, and is lonesome, and meets an agreeable widow, and figures to himself that there is very little chance that so charming a person can be dangerous. But maybe Mary wouldn't agree with his calculations; maybe Mary would not consider it a part of the marriage bargain that she should take the diseases of the agreeable widow. What commonly happens is that Mary is not consulted; John revises the contract in secret, making it read that Mary shall take a chance at the diseases of the widow. How can any thinking person deny that John has thus committed an act of treason to Mary?
I know that there are people who don't mind running such chances; that is one reason why there are venereal diseases. All I can say is that the sex-code set forth7 in this book is based upon the idea that to deliver mankind from the venereal plague, we wish to confine the sex relationship within the narrowest limits consistent with health, happiness and spiritual development; and that to this end we take the young and teach them chastity, and we marry them early while they are clean, and then we call upon them to make the utmost effort to make a success of that union, and to make it a matter of honor to keep the marital faith. We do this with some hope of effectiveness, because we have made our program consistent with the requirements of nature, the genuine needs of love both physical and spiritual.
The second argument for monogamy is the economic one. We have dreamed a social order where every child will be guaranteed maintenance by the state, and where women will be free from dependence8 on men. What will be the love arrangements of men and women under this new order is another problem which we leave for them to decide, in the certainty that they will know more about it than we do. Meantime, we are for the present under the private property régime, and have to love and marry and raise our children accordingly. The children must have homes, and if they are to be normal children, they must have both the male and female influence in their lives; which means that their parents must be friends and partners, not quarreling in secret. This argument, I know, is one of expediency9. I have adopted it, after watching a great number of people try other than monogamous sex arrangements, and seeing their chances of happiness and success wrecked10 by the pressure of economic forces. To rebel against social compulsion may be heroism11, and again it may be merely bad judgment12. For my part, the world's greatest evil is poverty, the cause of crime, prostitution and war. I concentrate my energies upon the abolishing of that evil, and I let other problems wait.
The third reason is that monogamy is economical of human time and thought. The business of finding and wooing a mate takes a lot of energy, and adjustment after marriage takes more. To throw away the results of this labor13 and do it all over again is certainly not common sense. Of course, if you bake a cake and burn it, you have to get more material and make another try; but that is a different matter from baking a cake with the deliberate intention of throwing it away after a bite or two.
The advocates of varietism in love will here declare that we are begging the question. We are assuming that love and the love chase are not worthy14 in themselves, but merely means to some other end. Can it be that love delights are the keenest and most intense that humans can experience, and that all other purposes of life are contributory to them? Certainly a great deal of art lends support to this idea, and many poets have backed up their words by their deeds. As Coleridge phrased it:
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love
And feed his sacred flame."
This is a question not to be played with. Experimenting in love is costly15, and millions have wrecked their lives by it. The sex urge in us is imperious and cruel; it wants nothing less than the whole of us, body, mind and spirit, and ofttimes it behaves like the genii in the bottle—it gets out, and not all the powers in the universe can get it back. I have talked with many men about sex and heard them say that it presents itself to them as an unmitigated torment16, something they would give everything they own to be free of. And these, mind you, not men living in monasteries17, trying to repress their natural impulses, but men of the world, who have lived freely, seeking pleasure and taking it as it came. The primrose18 path of dalliance did not lead them to peace, and the pursuit of variety in love brought them only monotony.
I stop and think of one after another of these sex-ridden people, and I cannot think of one whom I would envy. I know one who in a frenzy19 of unhappiness seized a razor and castrated himself. I think of another, a certain classmate in college whom I once stopped in a conversation, remarking: "Did you ever realize what a state you have got your mind into? Everything means sex to you. Every phrase you hear, every idea that is suggested—you try to make some sort of pun, to connect it somehow or other with sex." The man thought and said, "I guess that's true." The idea had never occurred to him before; he had just gone on letting his instincts have their way with him, without ever putting his reason upon the matter.
That was a crude kind of sex; but I think of another man, an idealist and champion of human liberty. One of the forms of liberty he maintained was the right to love as many women as he pleased, and although he was a married man, one hardly ever saw him that he was not courting some young girl. As a result, his mental powers declined, and he did little but talk about ideas. I do not know anyone today who respects him—except a few people who live the same sort of life. The thought of him brings to my mind a sentence of Nietzsche—a man who surely stood for freedom of personality: "I pity the lovers who have nothing higher than their love."
A question like this can be decided20 only by the experience of the race. Some will make love the end and aim of life, and others will make it the means to other ends, and we shall see which kind of people achieve the best results, which kind are the most useful, the most dignified21, the most original and vital. I have seen a great many young people try the experiment of "free love," and I have seen some get enough of it and quit; I could name among these half a dozen of our younger novelists. I know others who are still in it—and I watch their lives and find them to be restless, jealous, egotistical and idle. My defense22 of monogamy is based upon the fact that I have never known any happy or successful "free lovers." Of course, I know some noble and sincere people who do not believe in the marriage contract, and refuse to be bound by law; but these people are as monogamous as I am, even more tightly bound by honor than if they were duly married.
It seems to be in the very nature of true and sincere love to imagine permanence, to desire it and to pledge it. If you aren't that much in love, you aren't really in love at all, and you had better content yourself with strolling together and chatting together and dining together and playing music together. So many pleasant ways there are in which men and women can enjoy each other's company without entering upon the sacred intimacy23 of sex! You can learn to take sex lightly, of course, but if you do so, you reduce by so much the chances that true and deep love will ever come to you; for true and deep love requires some patience, some reverence24, some tending at a shrine25. The animals mate quickly and get it over with; but the great discoveries about love, and the possibilities of the human soul in love, have come because men and women have been willing to make sacrifices for it, to take it seriously—and more especially to take seriously the beloved person, the rights and needs and virtues26 of that person. From the lives of such we learn that love is nature's device for taking us out of ourselves, and making us truly social creatures.
Early in my life as a writer I undertook to answer Gertrude Atherton, in her glorification27 of the sex-corruptions of capitalist society. She indicted28 American literature for its "bourgeois29" qualities—among these the fact that American authors had a prejudice in favor of living with their own wives. Mrs. Atherton set forth the joys of sex promiscuity30 as they are understood by European artists, and I ventured in replying to remark that "one woman can be more to a man than a dozen can possibly be." That sounds like a paradox31, but it is really a profound truth, and the person who does not understand it has missed the best there is in the sex relation. There is a limit to the things of the body, but to those of the mind and spirit there is no limit, and so there is no reason why true love should ever fall prey32 to boredom33 and satiety34.
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1
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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prophylactics
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| n.预防剂( prophylactic的名词复数 )；预防用品；预防法；避孕用品 | |
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incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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7
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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expediency
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| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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12
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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14
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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glorification
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| n.赞颂 | |
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28
indicted
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| 控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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promiscuity
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| n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交 | |
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31
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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32
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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33
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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34
satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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