While it is, of course, possible that a perfect monogamy may become the dominant form of sexual life, it rests under suspicion, in view of the manner in which its champions proceed. An unquestionably good cause need not resort to hysterics, to persecution, to suppression of free speech, in order to maintain itself. It will rather demonstrate its superiority by clearcut reasoning, and welcome the freest experiments with rival plans, in order that its greater value may be made evident to all. If monogamy is to emerge the winner, it is certain that its victory must be preceded by a long period of infinitely greater tolerance than at present. As to the certainty of such triumph, however, no sufficient data have yet been presented.
The three great changes dwelt on by Dr. Jacobi are assuredly not conclusive. The
recognition of equality between the sexes is no guarantee that new fetters are to be put on
the male, when the more natural sequence would seem to be the removal of the shackles with
which the female has so long been bound. The intelligent control of conception certainly
does not inevitably make for a more rigid monogamy. The industrial emancipation of woman,
while sounding the death note of commercialized prostitution, merely removes a spur to the
acceptance of otherwise undesired relations. To support his personal inclination to the
monogamic position, Dr. Jacobi rests mainly on the somewhat dubious supposition that sex
passion tends to decrease pari passu with the advance of civilization, and on the assurance
that the race is developing self control. Neither of these facts, if facts they may be held to be,
has of itself a necessary bearing on the question of monogamy. Restraint from excess does not
necessarily involve exclusive devotion to one object. The refined epicure eats delicately, but
enjoys a greater variety of viands than the undiscriminating glutton, to whom quantity is the
prime consideration. There are men and women of varied loves, whose total of sexual
indulgence is immeasurably less than that of many insatiable married persons, whose
extravagant excesses, tho confined to the "virtuous" marriage couch, would be tolerated in
few brothels.
As to the permanent existence of a prostitute class, the thing is scarcely conceivable. The
offensive vulgarity of a purely mercenary relation, while tolerated under existing circumstances
as a miserable makeshift, must ultimately become incompatible with a finer type of
humanity. If it be true (which is subject to the gravest doubts) that man is instinctively
polygamous, and that the vast majority of women are monogamous, the result may be the
establishment of monogamy as the rule, tempered by the existence of a less specialized class
of women than the prostitutes of today, who will become willing partners of such men as
attract them, while an ever increasing percentage of men may yield to the inevitable, and
abandon all thoughts of extra matrimonial relations. Such women, however, would not be
looked on as outcasts, but would have a clearly recognized function in social life. This theory,
however, is not one which commends itself as containing a large element of probability.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Jacobi falls into the common error of confounding free love
with promiscuity. The two conceptions are as opposite as the poles. The very essence of free
love is discrimination, which promiscuity specifically denies. Nor does free love necessarily
negative monogamy. On the contrary, a voluntary and often lifelong monogamy is extremely
common in actual free love circles. The radical conception is neither monogamic nor antimonogamic.
It is simply voluntaristic. It denies the exemption of the department of sex from
the universal principle that evolution results from variation and experimentation.
Whether the ultimate ideal shall consist for the average individual of a single love,
several coördinate loves, a central love with several subordinate attractions or of all these,
depending on the temperament of the particular person, it does not presume to say. Much
can be said for each conception from a theoretic standpoint.
What is important is not to
discount the future, nor to compel the entire human race to stretch itself on a Procrustean
bed of Mrs. Grundy's workmanship. The notion that all ideals save what may chance to be
our own are vile, and that those who espouse and act according to them are degraded, sinful
or degenerate, must be abandoned. Unsanctioned sex relationship has never, merely because
unsanctioned, involved real and necessary degeneration for either participant. The mental
attitude of one or both, surrounding circumstances or the expressed disapproval of others,
especially when manifested by direct persecution, fully account for any real demoralization
resulting. If we cannot take a large and calm view, which recognizes this fact, we shall never
approach a solution of the problem.
The question of the general social consequences of this or that standard of sex
relationship is purely one of fact, to be ascertained, like any other fact, by scientific methods,
stripped of preconceptions, and based on the study of actual experiments under normal
conditions. Just as among all persons of decent intelligence it is fully recognized that nature
places no stigma on "illegitimacy", and that "bastardy" is no ground whatever for reproach,
so must the real student of sexual phenomena dismiss from his mind all thought of a
necessary connection between extra marital sex relationship and criminality.
Hysterical sentimentalists and bigoted religious dogmatists have too long assumed to
speak with wholly unwarranted authority on the subject of sex, concerning which they are
by all scientific principles the least qualified of all persons to speak at all. They must now give
way to the scientific investigator and the quietly reasoning sociologist.