marriage; in the same way as in the place of
priests who have so much compromised religion, I believe it is
religion which ought to be put. . . . That _love_ which I erect and
crown over the ruins of the infamous, is my Utopia, my dream, my
poetry. That love is grand, noble, beautiful, voluntary, eternal;
but that love is marriage such as Jesus made it, such as Saint Paul
explained it. This I ask of society as an innovation, as an
institution lost in the night of ages, which it would be opportune
to revive, to draw from the dust of aeons, and the shrine of habits,
if it wishes to see real conjugal fidelity, real repose, and the
real sanctity of the family, replace the species of shameful
contract and stupid despotism bred by the infamous decrepitude of
the world."

It must always be remembered that she wrote of French marriages, in
which there is no pretence of having love to start with; and if we
remember this, her language can scarcely be considered too strong. The
system is utterly vile, and her hatred of it an honor to her in every
sense. Had she done nothing worse than to protest against this form of
marriage few would condemn her; her condemnation comes rather from the
life she felt it consistent with her theories to live for many years.

What the world said was: "The welfare of the human family demands that a
marriage legally made shall never be questioned or undone. Marriage is
not a union depending on love, or congeniality, or any such condition.
It is just as sacred when made for money, or for ambition, or for lust
of the flesh, or for any other purpose, however ignoble or base, as when
contracted in the spirit of the purest mutual love." Against all this,
George Sand, both with pen and life, protested. She contended that it
was love alone which made marriage anything but a disgusting sin. We
have heard much of this in these latter days, even in our own country,
but it was George Sand who first struck the keynote; the doctrine is
essentially hers in all its parts. That she denounced the whole system
of marriages of convenience, is an honor to her; that she proclaimed
love as the only true foundation for marriage, is equally an honor; but
that she assailed the institution of legal marriage as a whole, and
overleaped its bounds and became a law to herself in the matter, is her
weakness and her shame. It is frequently denied that she did this. It is
sai