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Transcriber's Note -- The edition from which this play was taken
was printed without most contractions, such as dont for don't and
so forth. These have been left as printed in the original text.
Also, abbreviated honorifics have no trailing period, and the word
show is spelt shew.
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GETTING MARRIED, PREFACE TO

Bernard Shaw

1908


THE REVOLT AGAINST MARRIAGE

There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and
thought than marriage. If the mischief stopped at talking and
thinking it would be bad enough; but it goes further, into
disastrous anarchical action. Because our marriage law is inhuman
and unreasonable to the point of downright abomination, the bolder
and more rebellious spirits form illicit unions, defiantly sending
cards round to their friends announcing what they have
done. Young women come to me and ask me whether I think they ought
to consent to marry the man they have decided to live with; and