riage and Sexual Relations in General.=--The coitus of two
individuals, performed with mutual deliberation and causing no harm to
a third person, should be considered as a private affair, and should
have no connection with either civil or penal law.

However great may be the necessary restrictions of this general axiom,
it must be recognized as valid in principle. Society has no right to
restrict the liberty of individuals so long as it, or one of its
members, is not injured by these individuals. So long as coitus is
freely performed by adult and responsible persons, has no indirect
consequences, and does not cause fecundation, neither society nor any
one is injured.

In the practice of law this axiom is not yet generally accepted. Many
laws, especially among the Germanic peoples, punish concubinage, or
extra-nuptial coitus. Even when concubinage is tolerated, it is
considered illegitimate, so that the woman who gives herself to it and
the children who result from it, have much to suffer. Although they
constitute simple religious precepts, the ordinances of Liguori and
others concerning coitus influence in a high degree sexual relations
in Catholic countries.

As a rule, coitus is only legally recognized as licit in marriage. But
we have seen in Chapter VI how elastic is the term marriage, which
varies from polygamy and monogamy to polyandry, and from marriage for
short periods to indissoluble marriage, to say nothing of the cases
where women are sacrificed on their husbands' tombs. We have seen that
religious traditions, arising themselves from barbarous customs, play
a great part in conjugal law. It is only by infinite trouble that the
principle of civil marriage has made its way in modern civilized
states. Even to-day, religious marriage is in some countries only form
of union which is legally recognized. These simple facts show to what
extent we are still hidebound by tradition.

The idea that marriage is a divine institution and that man has the
right to contract, but not to dissolve it, is still a widespread
belief, however bizarre it may be. We shall not enter here into the
detail of the religious forms of marriage, which is referred to in
Chapters VI and XII.

It is evident, from our modern and scientific point of view, which is
purely human and social, that civil law only can be recognized as
valid. Religious forms and ceremonies must be considered as belonging
to a private domain. For this reason they co