ntiments of love
and conjugal affection have been produced in the middle class. They
probably have their roots in the mores of the bourgeoisie of the Middle
Ages and in those of the lowest class of free people in the Greco-Roman
empire. This middle class is the class which has taken control of modern
society, and whose interests are most favored by modern economic
developments. They have set aside the old ideas of male dominion and of
ascetic purity. In the middle of the nineteenth century the poems of
Coventry Patmore and the novels of Anthony Trollope perhaps best
expressed the notions of conjugal affection which English-speaking
people entertained at that time. It seems that now those notions are
thought to be philistine, and there is a reaction towards the old
aristocratic standards. The "good husband," as correlative to the good
wife, belongs to modern pair marriage. The erotic element has been
refined and suppressed, or at least disavowed. The ideals which have
been accepted and favored have disciplined and concentrated masculine
waywardness, and they have made the sex sentiments more durable. All
this has integrated the family more firmly, and the family mores have
cultivated and preserved the sentiments. We have seen many cases in
which, out of the unconscious and unpremeditated action of the mores,
results have been produced which have been most important for the weal
or woe of men, but it is one of the most marvelous of these cases that
conjugal affection, perhaps the noblest of all sentiments, should have
been developed out of the monopolistic tyranny of men over women, and
out of the ascetic negation of sex, the common element in which is a
prurient and unhealthy sensuality.

+382. "One flesh."+ The notion or figure of "one flesh" is not peculiar
to the Jewish or Christian religion. In the Old Testament it clearly
refers to carnal union. It has been used to express the ideal that
marriage should be the fusion of two lives and interests. It is
instructive to notice, in all the discussions of marriage which are to
be found in all ages, how few and commonplace are the things which have
been said, and how largely refuge has been taken in figures of speech.
"One flesh," if not carnal, is only ritual, but ritual conceptions are
only conventional conceptions,--good amongst those who agree to repeat
the formulas and perform the ritual acts. They are not realities. The
problem of marriage is that two human beings try