to live together. They
are two and not one. Since they are two, their tastes, desires,
characters, and wills are two. Ethical philosophers or jurists may be
able to define the "one-flesh" idea by translating it into rights and
duties, but no state authority can enforce such a definition. Therefore
it is nugatory. The idea belongs in an arena beyond state or family,
where two make a world. It is beyond the mores also, except so far as
the mores have educated the man and woman to a sense of the conduct
which is necessary to marital harmony, by the judgments which are
current on the hundreds of cases, real or imaginary, which come up for
discussion. How then shall two wills be one will? The old way was that
one will (the woman's) always was bound to yield. Since that no longer
seems right, the modern way is endless discussion, a defeat for one, and
all the inevitable consequences in daily experience and effect on
character.

+383. Pair marriage.+ Pair marriage is the union of one man and one
woman in which all the rights, duties, powers, and privileges are equal
and alike for both, the relationship being mutual and reciprocal in all
points. It therefore produces a complete fusion of two lives and
interests. Pair marriage and all its attendant mores are products of
monopoly. Herodotus[1240] says of the Agathyrsi that they practiced
communalism of women in order that they might all be brethren, without
envy or enmity to each other. That is one solution. In it peace and
harmony are given a higher place than sex interests. Pair marriage aims
at the highest satisfaction of sex interests by monopoly. It sacrifices
peace and harmony. Any monopoly exists for the benefit of those who are
embraced in it. Its evil effects are to be found by turning to those who
fail to get entrance to it. While our mores now require that a man and
woman shall come together through love, and therefore make a selection
of the most special and exclusive kind, we have no apparatus or
intelligent method for making such a selection. The notion that such a
selection is necessary, therefore, adds a new difficulty and obstacle.
Pair marriage also, partly on account of the intenser sentiment of
parenthood and the more integrated family institution, increases
expense, and makes the economic conditions of marriage more severe. Pair
marriage forces a large fraction of the population to celibacy, and it
is they who are the excluded who suffer by that arrangement.