opinion its recognition would avoid
much complicated litigation:

_In nature, whenever the offspring of an animal have a protracted and
dependent infancy, it is the duty of the parents to nourish them and
bring them up. To allow human parents to dispense with this duty, on
the grounds of badly constructed and unnatural social theories, is to
encourage promiscuity, and consequently degeneration of society. It is
easy to change social customs which are only based on artificial
dogmas sanctioned by tradition, fashion and habit, whether they are of
a religious nature or otherwise. But a social organization can never
violate with impunity the true laws of human nature which are deeply
rooted in our phylogenetic instincts, without disastrous effects._

In Chapters VI and VII we have given irrefutable proof that family
life and the sentiments of sympathy between husband and wife, parents
and children, constitute the phylogenetic basis of the sexual
relations of humanity. Whatever may be the egoistic polygamous
instincts of man, we can affirm that a natural and true monogamy
constitutes the highest and best form of his sexual relations and of
his love. No doubt there are many exceptions which must be taken into
account. It is absurd to shut our eyes to the fact that our degenerate
social customs have created unnatural circumstances in which parents
behave shamefully toward their children, exploiting them, training
them systematically to mendacity, prostitution and crime, or else
ill-treating them. We even see unnatural parents, to save legal
consequences, get rid of children who inconvenience them by the aid of
slow and coldly calculated martyrdom, which leads them to certain
death. It is, therefore, necessary to establish special legal
provision for all these exceptional cases, to protect children against
the power of unworthy parents and all forms of abuse.

I must here draw attention to the impulse which has recently been
given to Austrian legislation on the protection of children, by Lydia
von Wolfring. The State brings up, in philanthropic institutions,
children who have been maltreated, neglected or abandoned, after
removal from their unworthy parents, but without relieving the latter
of their duty in providing nourishment. According to Miss Wolfring's
system, they are cared for by honest couples without children who wish
for them, under the supervision of the aforesaid institutions. In this
way the children enjoy fami