MIA > Archive > Bax > New Standpoint
From Outlooks from the New Standpoint, pp.151-160.
There are few points on which the advanced Radical and the Socialist are more completely in accord than in their theoretical hostility to the modern legal monogamic marriage. The majority of them hold it, even at the present time, and in the existing state of society, to be an evil. Yet strange to say, they, most of them, contract these legalised monogamic unions, the excuse being the stigma on offspring and other inconveniences which are attendant upon the adoption of any other course. That there is considerable inconvenience in any other course cannot be denied. It cannot be denied that this is largely because persons who profess to be otherwise emancipated, and who ought to know better, pander to the current view by adopting an ostracising attitude toward at least the female side of the illicit equation. They defend their action in rather lame fashion, urging the convenience of current society and the general desirability on grounds of expediency of legal forms. It is to these persons that I chiefly address myself.
Let us see, first, to what historical period the strict monogamic marriage primarily belongs. Needless to say, it begins with civilisation; but in the early stages of civilisation the tie is loose; polygamy is indeed the rule here and monogamy the exception. Throughout ancient civilisation the right of concubinage and of hetarism even in the Graeco-Roman civilisation, often also the duty of showing sexual hospitality (the offering of the wife or daughter) to guests. Christianity tried to impose strict monogamy on the world, but signally failed. Whether monogamy was originally any more than a counsel of perfection in the Christian scheme may be doubted, especially in view of the Pauline injunction that a bishop was to be “the husband of one wife,” which looks very much its if the “humble” Christian was at that time very often the husband of more than one wife, like the ordinary free subject of the empire, who, as a rule, had connexion with his female slaves. At all events, the early Middle Ages presents a state of things in which marriage was ecclesiastical rather than legal. It fell under the canon law, and not the common or statute law of the country. All formal marriage was ultimately abolished about the eleventh century in the case of the clergy, but this did not prevent them from having unwedded wives, or concubines, who, in some cases (e.g., in the kingdom of Naples) enjoyed, by express enactment, the same rights of immunity from secular jurisdiction, i.e., from the criminal law, as their partners. Even to this day in Spain and Italy, it is stated to be often made a condition of a priest occupying a certain curé that he should keep a concubine, with a view to the protection of the parishional wife and daughter.
The open and avowed freedom of the Middle Ages (a relic of the old group-marriage surviving possibly in the ius primae noctis) in the relations of the sexes, is a universally acknowledged fact. Ecclesiastical anathemas against fleshly lusts had little effect on the practice of men. Unfortunately, the freedom was often connected, as it always must be, where formal monogamy is maintained, with the breach of a plighted troth, that is to say, with deliberate deception. And this necessarily complicates the question from an ethical point of view, though the recognition of the fact by both parties may have tended to mitigate its evils. Neither in ancient nor in mediaeval times then has monogamy probably ever been any but a counsel of perfection, in ancient times only existing in the loosest and most conventional manner; and in mediaeval times, though exalted to the rank of a religious sacrament, never permanently maintained by public opinion in this exalted position, whatever may have been the case in sporadic outbursts. In the ancient world even the prostitute had often a high social position; in the Middle Ages incontinence was a sin to be purged by a slight penance; social ostracism, where it existed, confined apparently by a singular irony to the case of unmarried females. [2] But in this as in other matters the original Christian counsel of perfection present throughout the Middle Ages in the background, and ever and anon making itself felt in customs, institutions, and decrees gradually solidified as the barbaric element in mediaeval civilisation died down, and, in proportion as the middle classes rose to power, became permanently embodied in law and public opinion. Puritan sentiment was, of course, severely monogamic; and in the severity of the Protestant judgment of the “sin” of unchastity, we have the converging of two or three lines of thought.
The original Christian counsel of perfection was based on the notion that the relation between the sexes was symbolical of the mystical relation between the soul and the divinity, or in the form which it afterwards took between Christ and the Church. The sensual object thus fell into the background; marriage was only a toleration of the weakness of the natural man, as saith the Anglican marriage service. The notion of “purity” or abstinence from sexual intercourse as a sign of supreme virtue may be traced to three different co-operating factors –
There exists to this day a sect of Hindoo Yogis who, in order that they may not enjoy the pleasures of eating and drinking, and at the same time may not lower the dignity of the divine nature within them by performing the lower animal functions, subsist on a little milk, which they leave in their stomachs for a while, until the system has absorbed sufficient nourishment to sustain life, and then throw up again by swallowing a ball with a string attached to it, thereby averting the necessity of its passing through their bodies. This is aptly characterised by the late Mr. King, in his work on The Gnostics, as “the finest possible reductio ad absurdum, of the notion of meritorious continence.” These highly logical ascetics we commend to the serious attention of the Social Purity League, who are, we fear, as yet very far from the kingdom of heaven of true continence. Out of these three elements then is compounded the theoretical aspect of Protestant or. Puritan sexual morality. The last mentioned is deducible from the “Introspective” or individualistic ethics, which was the main element in Christian ethics.
But behind this speculative aspect of modern monogamic morality, is a very practical economic consideration, a consideration which has come to the fore in proportion as the belief in the speculative side of things has faded. The reverence of the bourgeois for the monogamic principle now rests almost entirely on the fact, that he objects to being exposed to the danger of having to put his hand in his pocket for the maintenance of his neighbours’ children. This is the real core of “La morale bourgeoise.” Now, in an individualistic society like ours, this sentiment is not, perhaps unnatural or particularly reprehensible, and it doubtless represents a very real difficulty in the solution of the problem, certainly under present and perhaps under imperfectly socialistic conditions. Clearly no one has a right to recklessly procreate children under circumstances like those of our present society without ensuring, as far as possible, their adequate support. Legalised monogamic marriage, it may be said, is some sort of check on this, and a fortiori, on possible demands on the ratepayer’s pocket. Granted, so much, but let us have no cant in this matter.
In the present day there are but two alternatives – the mystical sanction of monogamy, and what we may term the vestryman sanction. The only rational position of those who take up the strict lines of legalised monogamic chastity and sniff disapprovingly at the fact, or the notion, of sexual intercourse outside this relation, is the mystical-christian sanction. Such a one must regard marriage and the sexual relation generally, as the sacred symbol of a solemn, mystical truth, otherwise he is a blatant fraud. For though he may “most powerfully and potently” believe in the economic or vestryman sanction, yet this alone, while it might lead to reasoned remonstrance, could not possibly evoke any genuine unction of the kind one is accustomed to associate with conventional laudations of chastity, and condemnations of its breach, or with finger-pointings at the non-respectable woman. For this sanction has a quite, peculiar flavour, which could in reality only be caused by an outrage on our deepest feelings, such as would rend our hearts, and not merely by one that might possibly rend our trousers-pockets. The unctuous saint, if we are persuaded of his sincerity, one may respect and even love, but the unctuous vestryman no man can love. Besides, the “vestryman” sanction – that is the one consisting of mere economical expediency – loses its direct force in at least two cases within the limits of our present society. It loses it where the question of offspring is eliminated by “practical malthusianism,” or other causes; it loses it where the offspring are as well provided for as they would be in marriage. It loses it, as a matter of course, when the economic basis of society, from being individualistic, has become socialistic. The vestryman or trousers-pocket sanction of marriage is, therefore, obviously not of a nature to give the institution a fundamental ethical basis, and hence, we are justified in saying that monogamy as an ethical principle collapses with the collapse of theological mysticism. For this reason, the various Christian sects are trying to constitute themselves the custodians of monogamy and the conventional sexual morality, as the only remunerative occupation left them, except philanthropy after the loss of public interest in God and Christ.
In addition to the Christians there are the Positivists and miscellaneous rhetoricians who seek to prop up monogamy by phrases. They are, however, a very feeble folk, so far as this question is concerned. We have already pointed out the only two solid arguments for the monogamic principle and the sexual abstinence it involves. Now, these good people can’t exactly accept either the “mystical” or the “vestryman” position. Hence, they take refuge in deliciously vague declamation on the nobility, on the loftiness, of the ideal which handcuffs one man and one woman together for life We are never allowed to see precisely where the nobility and the loftiness come in, but we are assured that they are there. The mere commonplace man, if left to himself, would probably think that it rested entirely upon circumstances, upon character, temperament, and whether the perpetual union of two persons was desirable. There are excellent men and women (possibly the majority) born with dispositions for whom a single permanent union is doubtless just the right thing; there are other excellent men and women who are born with lively imaginations and bohemian temperaments for whom it is not always precisely the right thing. Now, the plain man of ordinary reflection would imagine that all there phases of human nature have their justification and their corresponding ideals. No, says the Positivist, or other rhetorical upholder of strict monogamy, there is only one absolute ideal, and on to the procrustean bed of this ideal all men and women must be stretched. An admirable specimen of this school of windy rhetoric is to be found in an article on marriage by Miss A. Chapman in the Westminster Review for April, 1889. This interesting young lady would apparently modify the institution of matrimony in the sense of making it absolutely indissoluble on the one hand and on the other by making the woman supreme dictator! Then she thinks we should have ideal marriage! Of course, there is the usual rant about the individual who would be prejudiced by this beautiful arrangement (a rather large number we are afraid), sacrificing himself for the good of the whole, which we are exhorted to believe, on the strength of much tall writing, is inextricably bound up with it. The good of the whole, forsooth! as if it were possible for an institution which admittedly, in the natural course of things, must breed suffering for individuals can, by any possibility, be for the good of the whole! It may be the duty of the individual an special occasions to sacrifice himself for the happiness of the “whole,” but that is a very different thing from his sacrificing himself on behalf of an institution which involves, in its essential nature, a perpetual sacrifice for those that succeed him. For how could a society in which such an institution existed be either a healthy or a happy one, either as a whole or for the individual? If this be not so, it is clearly the duty of every individual to protest against it openly by word and deed, rather than for the sake of gaining the applause of mawkish sentimentalists to sanction it either by speech or action.
Herein we have an instance of the distinction between bourgeois morality and socialist morality. To the first it is “immoral” to live in a marital relation without having previously subscribed to certain legal formalities, but it is perfectly “moral” to stifle conviction, or to act against conviction, for the sake of worldly advantage, to enter the Church without believing in its dogmas, to enter the army and serve in wars which your conscience disapproves, to embark in journalism mid advocate political or other views you really despise, because it answers your purpose. To the second these are the things that defile a man, but to live in a state of unlegalised marriage defileth not a man, “nor woman neither.” There are some persons even, who need enjoining to deny themselves the pleasures of asceticism and the smug self-satisfaction they derive from it.
There is a good deal of talk about marriage as the union of two souls, etc., and many men, on the strength of this, endeavour to persuade themselves that they really find their wives’ society and converse interesting and elevating. By this and similar subterfuges they try to embellish and cover up the gross physical fact which it expresses. That in a few cases, social intercourse is the most prominent motive in marriage we would not for a moment deny, but in nine cases out of ten the assumption of its existence is a pious fraud which the modern man of culture practices upon himself. Who has not suffered from the wives of friends? In the present day, with notions in the air of the equality of the sexes, a man’s friend is apt to require him to enjoy his wife’s society as much as his own, which is rather hard. For one may be quite prepared to love one’s neighbour, but yet may strongly resent having to love one’s neighbour’s wife as well. With the husband the sexual interest covers up the intellectual vacuity; but, unluckily, his friend sees everything in its true colour. As a matter of fact, no man who can get men’s society straightaway desires women’s, for he says men’s is better. Hence the institution of the “club” in this country and the “cafe” on the continent. The efforts of noble-minded men who try to find something intellectually interesting in the subject of their monogamy when there is nothing, though perhaps a praiseworthy discipline, are exceedingly painful to the onlooker.
Enforced monogamy and its correlate, prostitution, is the great historical antithesis of civilisation in the sexual sphere, just as mastership and service is in the economic sphere, or as God and nature in the speculative sphere, or as sin and holiness in the sphere of ethics generally. The group-marriage promiscuity of primitive barbaric society is as far removed from prostitution as from compulsory monogamy. With the rise of private-property holding and of cities, monogamy and prostitution tended to supervene over group marriage. This antithesis is the negation of group-marriage; in proportion as group-marriage disappears it obtains pre-eminence. Socialism will strike at the root at once of compulsory monogamy and of prostitution by inaugurating an era of marriage based on free choice and intention, and characterised by the absence of external coercion. For where the wish for the maintenance of the marriage-relation remains, there external compulsion is unnecessary; where it is necessary, because the wish has disappeared, there it is undesirable. The above is all we can foresee in the matter.
In this, as in other departments, the modern man, immersed in the categories of the bourgeois world, sees everything through them. For him, therefore, there exists only legalised monogamic marriage and prostitution, both of which are based essentially on commercial considerations. The one is purchase, the other hire. He cannot see the higher and only really moral form of the marriage-relation which transcends both, and which is based neither on sale nor hire. Prostitution is immoral as implying the taking advantage by the woman of a monopoly which costs her no labour for the sake of extorting money from the man. But the condition of legal marriage – maintenance – does the same.
If it be asked, is marriage a failure? the answer of any impartial person must be – monogamic marriage is a failure – the rest is silence. We know not what new form of the family the society of the future, in which men and woman will be alike economically, free, may evolve, and which may be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile, we ought to combat by every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of the inherent sanctity of the monogamic principle. Economic development on the one side, and the free initiative of individuals on the other, will do the rest.
1. By the word “monogamy,” as used below, is to be understood not merely the union either temporary or permanent of one man with one woman, but such union plus some form of legal compulsion or interference other than that which obtains in ordinary cases of contract.
2. This is the case still in many parts of the Continent of Europe, where the cachet of being a legal wife or widow covers a multitude of irregularities.
Last updated on 14.1.2006