s the lowest pension--and only requires them for
work. This system results in odious abuse, such as neglect, mendicity
and ill-treatment.

The fate of illegitimate children who are "farmed out" is still worse.
A tacit alliance is established between rapacity on the one hand and
social sexual hypocrisy on the other. A number of infanticides and
abortions result, either from poverty, or from sentiments of shame due
to our moral customs. Here, civil law and penal law should combine and
take energetic humanitarian measures to put a stop to this sad abuse.
An excellent institution is that of homes in the country established
for unmarried mothers and their children, and for abandoned mothers in
general.

=Free Love and Civil Marriage.=--When all the propositions we have
drawn up have been realized by social legislation, the difference
which now exists between marriage and free love will be little more
than a form. The consequences of these two kinds of union will become
the same, both for parents and children; the only distinction will
consist in the existence or non-existence of official control. True
monogamy will lose nothing, but will gain much.

We shall not then have obligatory monogamy as at present, absolute in
form, artificially maintained by the aid of prostitution, that is by
the most disgusting form of promiscuity which renders monogamy
illusory; but we shall have in its place a relative monogamy much more
solidly built on the natural rights of the two sexes, it is true more
free in form, but fundamentally much stronger in the natural and
instinctive duties dictated by a truly free and reasoned union, as
well as by the duties by which parents will be bound to their
children.

=Form and Duration of Civil Marriage.=--Although it may be true that
monogamy constitutes the most normal and natural form of family union,
and offers the best conditions for lasting happiness, both for parents
and children, we must be blindly prejudiced not to admit that it is
unnatural to consider it as the only sheet anchor in sexual
relationship, the only admissible form of marriage, and to make it a
straight-jacket. History and ethnography show us that polygamous races
are strongly developed and are still developing; on the other hand, it
is true that polyandrous races degenerate.

Again, impartial observation of our Christian monogamy shows us that
it depends to a great extent on appearances, that it is full of
trickery and hypoc