ition between
different standards lies in the fact that as yet we really have no
specific sexual morality at all.[266] That may seem surprising at first to
one who reflects on the immense weight which is usually attached to
"sexual morality." And it is undoubtedly true that we have a morality
which we apply to the sphere of sex. But that morality is one which
belongs mainly to the sphere of property and was very largely developed on
a property basis. All the historians of morals in general, and of marriage
in particular, have set forth this fact, and illustrated it with a wealth
of historical material. We have as yet no generally recognized sexual
morality which has been based on the specific sexual facts of life. That
becomes clear at once when we realize the central fact that the sexual
relationship is based on love, at the very least on sexual desire, and
that that basis is so deep as to be even physiological, for in the absence
of such sexual desire it is physiologically impossible for a man to effect
intercourse with a woman. Any specific sexual morality must be based on
that fact. But our so-called "sexual morality," so far from being based on
that fact, attempts to ignore it altogether. It makes contracts, it
arranges sexual relationships beforehand, it offers to guarantee
permanency of sexual inclinations. It introduces, that is, considerations
of a kind that is perfectly sound in the economic sphere to which such
considerations rightly belong, but ridiculously incongruous in the sphere
of sex to which they have solemnly been applied. The economic
relationships of life, in the large sense, are, as we shall see, extremely
important in the evolution of any sound sexual morality, but they belong
to the conditions of its development and do not constitute its basis.[267]

The fact that, from the legal point of view, marriage is
primarily an arrangement for securing the rights of property and
inheritance is well illustrated by the English divorce law
to-day. According to this law, if a woman has sexual intercourse
with any man beside her husband, he is entitled to divorce her;
if, however, the husband has intercourse with another woman
beside his wife, she is not entitled to a divorce; that is only
accorded if, in addition, he has also been cruel to her, or
deserted her, and from any standpoint of ideal morality such a
law is obviously unjust, and it has now been discarded in nea