xplain the private disrepute of perhaps a
majority of first-rate men; its advantages have been set forth in George
Moore's "Euphorion in Texas," though in a clumsy and sentimental way.
What is behind it is the profound race sense of women--the instinct
which makes them regard the unborn in their every act--perhaps, too, the
fact that the interests of the unborn are here identical, as in
other situations, with their own egoistic aspirations. As a popular
philosopher has shrewdly observed, the objections to polygamy do not
come from women, for the average woman is sensible enough to prefer half
or a quarter or even a tenth of a first-rate man to the whole devotion
of a third-rate man. Considerations of much the same sort also justify
polyandry--if not morally, then at least biologically. The average
woman, as I have shown, must inevitably view her actual husband with
a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she
cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the
fact that he is their father, nor can she help feeling guilty about
it; for she knows that he is their father only by reason of her own
initiative in the proceedings anterior to her marriage. If, now, an
opportunity presents itself to remove that handicap from at least some
of them, and at the same time to realize her ideal and satisfy her
vanity--if such a chance offers it is no wonder that she occasionally
embraces it.

Here we have an explanation of many lamentable and otherwise
inexplicable violations of domestic integrity. The woman in the case is
commonly dismissed as vicious, but that is no more than a new example
of the common human tendency to attach the concept of viciousness to
whatever is natural, and intelligent, and above the comprehension of
politicians, theologians and green-grocers.

24. Intermezzo on Monogamy

The prevalence of monogamy in Christendom is commonly ascribed to
ethical motives. This is quite as absurd as ascribing wars to ethical
motives which is, of course, frequently done. The simple truth is that
ethical motives are no more than deductions from experience, and that
they are quickly abandoned whenever experience turns against them.
In the present case experience is still overwhelming on the side of
monogamy; civilized men are in favour of it because they find that it
works. And why does it work? Because it is the most effective of all
available antidotes to the alarms and terro