It is very easy to repeat our initial propositions, to recall that we are on another planet, and that all the customs and traditions of the earth are set aside, but the faintest realisation of that demands a feat4 of psychological insight. We have all grown up into an invincible5 mould of suggestion about sexual things; we regard this with approval, that with horror, and this again with contempt, very largely because the thing has always been put to us in this light or that. The more emancipated6 we think ourselves the more subtle are our bonds. The disentanglement of what is inherent in these feelings from what is acquired is an extraordinary complex undertaking7. Probably all men and women have a more or less powerful disposition8 to jealousy9, but what exactly they will be jealous about and what exactly they will suffer seems part of the superposed factor. Probably all men and women are capable of ideal emotions and wishes beyond merely physical desires, but the shape these take are almost entirely10 a reaction to external images. And you really cannot strip the external off; you cannot get your stark11 natural man, jealous, but not jealous about anything in particular, imaginative without any imaginings, proud at large. Emotional dispositions12 can no more exist without form than a man without air. Only a very observant man who had lived all over the planet Earth, in all sorts of social strata13, and with every race and tongue, and who was endowed with great imaginative insight, could hope to understand the possibilities and the limitations of human plasticity in this matter, and say what any men and any women could be induced to do willingly, and just exactly what no man and no woman could stand, provided one had the training of them. Though very young men will tell you readily enough. The proceedings14 of other races and other ages do not seem to carry conviction; what our ancestors did, or what the Greeks or Egyptians did, though it is the direct physical cause of the modern young man or the modern young lady, is apt to impress these remarkable16 consequences merely as an arrangement of quaint17, comical or repulsive18 proceedings.
But there emerges to the modern inquirer certain ideals and desiderata that at least go some way towards completing and expanding the crude primaries of a Utopian marriage law set out in section 4.
The sound birth being assured, does there exist any valid19 reason for the persistence20 of the Utopian marriage union?
There are two lines of reasoning that go to establish a longer duration for marriage. The first of these rests upon the general necessity for a home and for individual attention in the case of children. Children are the results of a choice between individuals; they grow well, as a rule, only in relation to sympathetic and kindred individualities, and no wholesale21 character-ignoring method of dealing22 with them has ever had a shadow of the success of the individualised home. Neither Plato nor Socrates, who repudiated23 the home, seems ever to have had to do with anything younger than a young man. Procreation is only the beginning of parentage, and even where the mother is not the direct nurse and teacher of her child, even where she delegates these duties, her supervision24 is, in the common case, essential to its welfare. Moreover, though the Utopian State will pay the mother, and the mother only, for the being and welfare of her legitimate25 children, there will be a clear advantage in fostering the natural disposition of the father to associate his child’s welfare with his individual egotism, and to dispense26 some of his energies and earnings27 in supplementing the common provision of the State. It is an absurd disregard of a natural economy to leave the innate28 philoprogenitiveness of either sex uncultivated. Unless the parents continue in close relationship, if each is passing through a series of marriages, the dangers of a conflict of rights, and of the frittering away of emotions, become very grave. The family will lose homogeneity, and its individuals will have for the mother varied29 and perhaps incompatible30 emotional associations. The balance of social advantage is certainly on the side of much more permanent unions, on the side of an arrangement that, subject to ample provisions for a formal divorce without disgrace in cases of incompatibility31, would bind32, or at least enforce ideals that would tend to bind, a man and woman together for the whole term of her maternal33 activity, until, that is, the last born of her children was no longer in need of her help.
The second system of considerations arises out of the artificiality of woman’s position. It is a less conclusive34 series than the first, and it opens a number of interesting side vistas35.
A great deal of nonsense is talked about the natural equality or inferiority of women to men. But it is only the same quality that can be measured by degrees and ranged in ascending36 and descending37 series, and the things that are essentially38 feminine are different qualitatively39 from and incommensurable with the distinctly masculine things. The relationship is in the region of ideals and conventions, and a State is perfectly40 free to determine that men and women shall come to intercourse41 on a footing of conventional equality or with either the man or woman treated as the predominating individual. Aristotle’s criticism of Plato in this matter, his insistence42 upon the natural inferiority of slaves and women, is just the sort of confusion between inherent and imposed qualities that was his most characteristic weakness. The spirit of the European people, of almost all the peoples now in the ascendant, is towards a convention of equality; the spirit of the Mahometan world is towards the intensification43 of a convention that the man alone is a citizen and that the woman is very largely his property. There can be no doubt that the latter of these two convenient fictions is the more primitive44 way of regarding this relationship. It is quite unfruitful to argue between these ideals as if there were a demonstrable conclusion, the adoption45 of either is an arbitrary act, and we shall simply follow our age and time if we display a certain bias46 for the former.
If one looks closely into the various practical expansions of these ideas, we find their inherent falsity works itself out in a very natural way so soon as reality is touched. Those who insist upon equality work in effect for assimilation, for a similar treatment of the sexes. Plato’s women of the governing class, for example, were to strip for gymnastics like men, to bear arms and go to war, and follow most of the masculine occupations of their class. They were to have the same education and to be assimilated to men at every doubtful point. The Aristotelian attitude, on the other hand, insists upon specialisation. The men are to rule and fight and toil47; the women are to support motherhood in a state of natural inferiority. The trend of evolutionary48 forces through long centuries of human development has been on the whole in this second direction, has been towards differentiation49. [Footnote: See Havelock Ellis’s Man and Woman.] An adult white woman differs far more from a white man than a negress or pigmy woman from her equivalent male. The education, the mental disposition, of a white or Asiatic woman, reeks15 of sex; her modesty50, her decorum is not to ignore sex but to refine and put a point to it; her costume is clamorous51 with the distinctive52 elements of her form. The white woman in the materially prosperous nations is more of a sexual specialist than her sister of the poor and austere53 peoples, of the prosperous classes more so than the peasant woman. The contemporary woman of fashion who sets the tone of occidental intercourse is a stimulant54 rather than a companion for a man. Too commonly she is an unwholesome stimulant turning a man from wisdom to appearance, from beauty to beautiful pleasures, from form to colour, from persistent56 aims to belief and stirring triumphs. Arrayed in what she calls distinctly “dress,” scented57, adorned58, displayed, she achieves by artifice59 a sexual differentiation profounder than that of any other vertebrated animal. She outshines the peacock’s excess above his mate, one must probe among the domestic secrets of the insects and crustacea to find her living parallel. And it is a question by no means easy and yet of the utmost importance, to determine how far the wide and widening differences between the human sexes is inherent and inevitable60, and how far it is an accident of social development that may be converted and reduced under a different social regimen. Are we going to recognise and accentuate61 this difference and to arrange our Utopian organisation62 to play upon it, are we to have two primary classes of human being, harmonising indeed and reacting, but following essentially different lives, or are we going to minimise this difference in every possible way?
The former alternative leads either to a romantic organisation of society in which men will live and fight and die for wonderful, beautiful, exaggerated creatures, or it leads to the hareem. It would probably lead through one phase to the other. Women would be enigmas63 and mysteries and maternal dignitaries that one would approach in a state of emotional excitement and seclude64 piously65 when serious work was in hand. A girl would blossom from the totally negligible to the mystically desirable at adolescence66, and boys would be removed from their mother’s educational influence at as early an age as possible. Whenever men and women met together, the men would be in a state of inflamed67 competition towards one another, and the women likewise, and the intercourse of ideas would be in suspense68. Under the latter alternative the sexual relation would be subordinated to friendship and companionship; boys and girls would be co-educated — very largely under maternal direction, and women, disarmed69 of their distinctive barbaric adornments, the feathers, beads70, lace, and trimmings that enhance their clamorous claim to a directly personal attention would mingle71, according to their quality, in the counsels and intellectual development of men. Such women would be fit to educate boys even up to adolescence. It is obvious that a marriage law embodying72 a decision between these two sets of ideas would be very different according to the alternative adopted. In the former case a man would be expected to earn and maintain in an adequate manner the dear delight that had favoured him. He would tell her beautiful lies about her wonderful moral effect upon him, and keep her sedulously73 from all responsibility and knowledge. And, since there is an undeniably greater imaginative appeal to men in the first bloom of a woman’s youth, she would have a distinct claim upon his energies for the rest of her life. In the latter case a man would no more pay for and support his wife than she would do so for him. They would be two friends, differing in kind no doubt but differing reciprocally, who had linked themselves in a matrimonial relationship. Our Utopian marriage so far as we have discussed it, is indeterminate between these alternatives.
We have laid it down as a general principle that the private morals of an adult citizen are no concern for the State. But that involves a decision to disregard certain types of bargain. A sanely74 contrived State will refuse to sustain bargains wherein there is no plausibly75 fair exchange, and if private morality is really to be outside the scope of the State then the affections and endearments76 most certainly must not be regarded as negotiable commodities. The State, therefore, will absolutely ignore the distribution of these favours unless children, or at least the possibility of children, is involved. It follows that it will refuse to recognise any debts or transfers of property that are based on such considerations. It will be only consistent, therefore, to refuse recognition in the marriage contract to any financial obligation between husband and wife, or any settlements qualifying that contract, except when they are in the nature of accessory provision for the prospective77 children. [Footnote: Unqualified gifts for love by solvent78 people will, of course, be quite possible and permissible79, unsalaried services and the like, provided the standard of life is maintained and the joint80 income of the couple between whom the services hold does not sink below twice the minimum wage.] So far the Utopian State will throw its weight upon the side of those who advocate the independence of women and their conventional equality with men.
But to any further definition of the marriage relation the World State of Utopia will not commit itself. The wide range of relationships that are left possible, within and without the marriage code, are entirely a matter for the individual choice and imagination. Whether a man treat his wife in private as a goddess to be propitiated81, as a “mystery” to be adored, as an agreeable auxiliary82, as a particularly intimate friend, or as the wholesome55 mother of his children, is entirely a matter for their private intercourse: whether he keep her in Oriental idleness or active co-operation, or leave her to live her independent life, rests with the couple alone, and all the possible friendship and intimacies83 outside marriage also lie quite beyond the organisation of the modern State. Religious teaching and literature may affect these; customs may arise; certain types of relationship may involve social isolation84; the justice of the statesman is blind to such things. It may be urged that according to Atkinson’s illuminating85 analysis [Footnote: See Lang and Atkinson’s Social Origins and Primal86 Law.] the control of love-making was the very origin of the human community. In Utopia, nevertheless, love-making is no concern of the State’s beyond the province that the protection of children covers. [Footnote: It cannot be made too clear that though the control of morality is outside the law the State must maintain a general decorum, a systematic87 suppression of powerful and moving examples, and of incitations and temptations of the young and inexperienced, and to that extent it will, of course, in a sense, exercise a control over morals. But this will be only part of a wider law to safeguard the tender mind. For example, lying advertisements, and the like, when they lean towards adolescent interests, will encounter a specially88 disagreeable disposition in the law, over and above the treatment of their general dishonesty.] Change of function is one of the ruling facts in life, the sac that was in our remotest ancestors a swimming bladder is now a lung, and the State which was once, perhaps, no more than the jealous and tyrannous will of the strongest male in the herd89, the instrument of justice and equality. The State intervenes now only where there is want of harmony between individuals — individuals who exist or who may presently come into existence.
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1
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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6
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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reeks
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| n.恶臭( reek的名词复数 )v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的第三人称单数 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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incompatibility
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| n.不兼容 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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qualitatively
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| 质量上 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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intensification
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| n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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differentiation
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| n.区别，区分 | |
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50
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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51
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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52
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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53
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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54
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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56
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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57
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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58
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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enigmas
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| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
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seclude
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| vi.使隔离，使孤立，使隐退 | |
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piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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71
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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73
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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74
sanely
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| ad.神志清楚地 | |
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75
plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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76
endearments
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| n.表示爱慕的话语，亲热的表示( endearment的名词复数 ) | |
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77
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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78
solvent
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| n.溶剂；adj.有偿付能力的 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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propitiated
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| v.劝解，抚慰，使息怒( propitiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
auxiliary
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| adj.辅助的，备用的 | |
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83
intimacies
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| 亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为 | |
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84
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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85
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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86
primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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87
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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88
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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89
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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