All these illustrations of sentiments adapted to circumstances justify the inference, that among ourselves the continuance of monogamic marriage will go on strengthening the sentiments appropriate to it, and will in time create a feeling of extreme repugnance towards any violation of the nuptial tie.
In the interim, we must be satisfied with crude approximations to this remote ideal.
Compromise is the term which best characterizes our current morality. Compromises are
unavoidable in our transitional stage of civilization, and especially within the sphere of sex
relations.
That even in the far more stable monogamic relation of the distant future compromises
will obtain, may be gathered from the following passage: "It by no means follows", says Lecky,
"that because the life long union of one man and one woman should be the dominant type
it should be the only one, or that the interests of society demand that all connections should
be forced into the same die. Connections which were confessedly only for a few years have
always subsisted side by side with permanent marriages. In the immense variety of
circumstances and characters, cases will always appear in which, on utilitarian grounds,
extra matrimonial connections might seem advisable".
Such alliances are at present clandestine and therefore demoralizing. The urgent need
of secrecy leads to deceit and crime and other reprehensible forms of conduct. Hence,
sporadic attempts have been made to obtain public recognition for free unions under certain
oppressive economic conditions which preclude wedlock.
Possibly, future evolution will discover a means of reconciling permanent marriage with
alliances of a less stable character, by removing the stigma now attaching to them, and
declaring them legitimate, tho reserving the highest ethical sanction for life long monogamy.
To sum up our ratiocinations before leaving the subject, we may say that mankind will
in time relegate prostitution and adultery to the past, and marital relations will be entered
upon without undue delay after puberty. Possibly we are not trespassing far on forbidden
ground by taking one more step, and saying that the general advent of clean and early
marriages will foreshadow an ultimate single standard of pre matrimonial continence, equally
binding for both sexes.