children. Passionate lovers do not think of children, but society must
needs put their claims before all others. Probably the historical
reason why society came to insist on monogamy and to condemn all
irregular unions lay in the fact that it is the inalienable right of a
child to be brought up by a father and a mother, and that no society
can be strong and finely ordered unless its foundations are laid in
family life, wherein men and women co-operate to give the rising
generation every possible chance.

I assume that I am addressing honest minds that wish to handle the
issues of life sincerely and wisely, and to them I am sure it must be
worth pointing out that it can never be right for individuals to order
their lives on principles which could not be given a universal
application. I can well understand a passionate couple being quite
sure that they will hold to one another throughout life, though they be
in no way legally tied. I can imagine that many such couples would
resent as a profanity the mere suggestion that they could ever want to
part. But imagine what society would become if legal ties were
abolished. You and your man or woman may be quite sure that you would
never part, but you know that thousands would. Couples would set out on
the joint life with little thought, and allow the first painful
misunderstanding to part them. Many men would shake off their
obligations almost as soon as they found they were becoming heavy. Both
men and women would pass from one temporary union to another,
mutilating their better natures in the process. Thousands of women
would be left in helpless loneliness. Tens of thousands of children
would go uncared for and neglected. The picture becomes more horrible
the more carefully you look into its details. And as you look you begin
to see the real value of our moral standard. It is not an instance of
the fussiness of Mrs. Grundy. It is not an instance of slave morality