s of
Protestant countries are mostly philistines, this Protestant monogamy on
the average of the best cases confines itself to the community of a
leaden ennui, labeled wedded bliss. The best mirror of these two species
of marriage is the novel, the French novel for the Catholic, the German
novel for the Protestant brand. In both of these novels they "get one
another:" in the German novel the man gets the girl, in the French novel
the husband gets the horns. It does not always go without saying which
of the two deserves the most pity. For this reason the tediousness of
the German novels is abhorred as much by the French bourgeois as the
"immorality" of the French novels by the German philistine. Of late,
since Berlin became cosmopolitan, the German novel begins to treat
somewhat timidly of the hetaerism and adultery that a long time ago
became familiar features of that city.

In both cases the marriage is influenced by the class environment of the
participants, and in this respect it always remains conventional. This
conventionalism often enough results in the most pronounced
prostitution--sometimes of both parties, more commonly of the woman. She
is distinguished from a courtisane only in that she does not offer her
body for money by the hour like a commodity, but sells it into slavery
for once and all. Fourier's words hold good with respect to all
conventional marriages: "As in grammar two negatives make one
affirmative, so in matrimonial ethics, two prostitutions are considered
as one virtue." Sexual love in man's relation to woman becomes and can
become the rule among the oppressed classes alone, among the
proletarians of our day--no matter whether this relation is officially
sanctioned or not.

Here all the fundamental conditions of classic monogamy have been
abolished. Here all property is missing and it was precisely for the
protection and inheritance of this that monogamy and man rule were
established. Hence all incentive to make this rule felt is wanting here.
More still, the funds are missing. Civil law protecting male rule
applies only to the possessing classes and their intercourse with
proletarians. Law is expensive and therefore the poverty of the laborer
makes it meaningless for his relation to his wife. Entirely different
personal and social conditions decide in this case. And finally, since
the great industries have removed women from the home to the labor
market and to the factory, the last remnant of