ing much
deeper than this.

And this brings us to the base counterfeit of monogamy that is
accepted and practised by many among us to-day; base because it is a
monogamy largely mitigated by clandestine transitory loves--tipplings
with sensation and snackings at lust which betray passion. Facts of
daily observation may not be shuffled out of consideration by any
hypocrisy. They must be faced and dealt with. Our marriage system is
buttressed with prostitution, which thus makes our moral attitude one
of intolerable deception, and our efforts at reform not only
ineffective, but absurd. Without the assistance of the prostitution of
one class of women and the enforced celibacy of another class our
marriage in its present form could not stand. It is no use shirking
it; if marriage cannot be made more moral--and by this I mean more
able to meet the sex needs of all men and all women--then we must
accept prostitution. No sentimentalism can save us; we must give our
consent to this sacrifice of women as necessary to the welfare and
stability of society. But with this question I shall deal in a later
section of this chapter. There is, however, more than this to be
said. Marriage is itself in many cases a legalised form of
prostitution. From the standpoint of morals, the woman who sells
herself in marriage is on the same level as the one who sells herself
for a night, the only difference is in the price paid and the duration
of the contract. Nay, it is probably fair to say that at the lowest
such sale-marriage results in the greater evil, for the prostitute
does not bear children. If she has a child it has, as a rule, been
born first; such is our morality that motherhood often drives her on
to the streets!

Any woman who marries for money or position is departing from the
biological and moral ends of marriage. A child can be born gladly only
as the fruit of love. It is in this direction, rather than in
maintaining a barren virginity, that woman's chastity should be
guarded. We may excuse women on the grounds of possible ignorance,
but, none the less, have the conditions of marriage been unfavourable
to the development of a fine moral feeling in women or in men. No one
can have failed to feel surprised at the men many girls are content to
marry; it is one thing that must be set against the claim women make
as the morally superior sex. Mr. Wells, whom I have already quoted in
this matter, places in the mouth of one of his characte