DR. JACOBI'S article, in the main excellent and convincing, probably contains as strong meat as the average reader will be able to digest. Those of us who have come to somewhat more positive conclusions of a radical nature, cannot complain of being too harshly treated. Like Dr. Jacobi, tho without his lurking bias in favor of institutional monogamy, which, in spite of his efforts at strict neutrality, persists in peeping out here and there in his discussion, we abjure the rôle of the prophet. The possibilities of unforeseen adjustments in future standards governing sex relations are innumerable; and an increasing modesty is sequent upon continued study of the subject.
The concluding volume of Havelock
Ellis's splendid series on "The Psychology of Sex" includes perhaps as satisfactory a summary
of the views best warranted in the present state of research and thought on the subject, as is
now extant; altho the existing tendency toward the acquisition of knowledge on the subject
of sex, and the recasting of old theories and dogmas in the light of added discoveries, will
doubtless throw much light on the yet obscure phases of the problem.
Even in the present state of knowledge, it is possible to assert authoritatively that the axe
has been laid to the root of the prevalent superstitions concerning sex. We are at last learning
that this last stronghold of the exploded absolutist philosophy must give way to the universal
principle of relativity of standards. In practically every other department of ethical and social
conduct, the lesson was learned long ago; but Spencer himself, the great exponent of
relativity, lost sight completely of his own principle when treating of matrimonial
institutionalism. Clear thinker tho he was, the obsession of his age was upon him; and it is
the British bon bourgeois and not the scientific reasoner who pronounces dogmatically in favor
of the future dominance of an increasingly rigorous monogamy.
Herein may be seen the fallacy of the attempt to crush the iconoclastic assailant of the
monogamic ideal, by pointing out the fact that the majority of the leaders in scientific
thought hold firmly to the conventional principle. It is on a par with the unfortunate citation
of Gladstone as a profound thinker loyal to the orthodox religious creed. When Blackstone,
great jurist as he was, rehearsed in abundant detail the amazing list of disabilities imposed on
married women by the common law of England, and in all seriousness and good faith affirmed
that the shackles of woman's enslavement were so many proofs of the good will of the
common law toward her and of its zeal for her protection, he presented himself as a
permanent type of the masterly mind, which is yet incapable of escaping from a fixed rut of
thought on certain issues assumed to have been once for all settled by a preceding age.
Unfortunately, however, such issues have a way of becoming again unsettled; and not
Blackstone, Gladstone nor Spencer can stay the tide of investigation.
Without doubt, the double standard of sex ethics is hopelessly doomed. It was from the
beginning rooted in in justice, and founded on male domination. It is the asserted will of the
slave owner, and cannot stand in an age of growing recognition of equal rights. The only
dispute is with reference to the nature of the re adjustment which must follow the
disappearance of this monstrosity of custom. Perpetual monogamy for both sexes, monogamy
for most women coupled with the special ministration to men's sexual demands by a small
percentage of women corresponding to the prostitute class of today, and free love under
some aspect or under several aspects, probably sum up the entire range of choice for a society
which is to be conceived as progressing, rather than retrograding; since institutional polygamy
and polyandry, complex marriage and disorderly promiscuity may be dismissed as incapable
of finding serious advocates.
The first proposition is of course the popular one. All who seek the applause of the
conventional world vie with one another in the loudness of their declarations of adhesion to
it. The pulpits are ex officio committed to it, regardless of any possible considerations to the
contrary. In most self styled "respectable" circles, no other view can even obtain a hearing;
and the mere suggestion that any different proposition deserves even a decent investigation
is met with hysterical shrieks of vituperation. The frantic howls and violent appeals to
emotional prejudice, which assailed George Meredith and later Mrs. Elsie Parsons, for the
mere hint that some form of trial marriage might prove worth considering under conceivable
conditions, may be expected by any person who ventures to ask in all good faith for
permission to test the innate sacredness of the commonly worshipped taboo.