etc.--The United
States--Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for
Divorce--Divorce by Mutual Consent--Its Origin and Development--Impeded by
the Traditions of Canon Law--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Modern Pioneer
Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent--The Arguments Against Facility of
Divorce--The Interests of the Children--The Protection of Women--The
Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement--Marriage Not a Contract--The
Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years--Legal Disabilities and
Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife--Marriage Not a
Contract But a Fact--Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the
Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract--The Legal Recognition of
Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony--Contracts of the Person Opposed
to Modern Tendencies--The Factor of Moral Responsibility--Marriage as an
Ethical Sacrament--Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom--Freedom the
Best Guarantee of Stability--False Ideas of Individualism--Modern Tendency
of Marriage--With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private
Concern--Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother--How This Can be
Effected--The Firm Basis of Monogamy--The Question of Marriage
Variations--Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy--The Most Common
Variations--The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in
Check--Marriage Variations _versus_ Prostitution--Marriage on a Reasonable
and Humane Basis--Summary and Conclusion.

The discussion in the previous chapter of the nature of sexual morality,
with the brief sketch it involved of the direction in which that morality
is moving, has necessarily left many points vague. It may still be asked
what definite and precise forms sexual unions are tending to take among
us, and what relation these unions bear to the religious, social, and
legal traditions we have inherited. These are matters about which a very
considerable amount of uncertainty seems to prevail, for it is not unusual
to hear revolutionary or eccentric opinions concerning them.

Sexual union, involving the cohabitation, temporary or permanent, of two
or more persons, and having for one of its chief ends the production and
care of offspring, is commonly termed marriage. The group so constituted
forms a family. This is the sense in which the words "marriage" and the
"family" are most properly used, whether we speak of animals or of Man.
There is thus seen to be room for variation as regards both the time
du