he sexual sphere. In England there is, for instance,
a tendency to make building laws which enjoin, in regard to
places of human habitation, all sorts of provisions that on the
whole are fairly beneficial, but which in practice act
injuriously, because they render many simple and excellent human
habitations absolutely illegal, merely because such habitations
fail to conform to regulations which, under some circumstances,
are not only unnecessary, but mischievous.

Variation is a fact that will exist whether we will or no; it can
only become healthful if we recognize and allow for it. We may
even have to recognize that it is a more marked tendency in
civilization than in more primitive social stages. Thus Gerson
argues (_Sexual-Probleme_, Sept., 1908, p. 538) that just as the
civilized man cannot be content with the coarse and monotonous
food which satisfies the peasant, so it is in sexual matters; the
peasant youth and girl in their sexual relationships are nearly
always monogamous, but civilized people, with their more
versatile and sensitive tastes, are apt to crave for variety.
Senancour (_De l'Amour_, vol. ii, "Du Partage," p. 127) seems to
admit the possibility of marriage variations, as of sharing a
wife, provided nothing is done to cause rivalry, or to impair the
soul's candor. Lecky, near the end of his _History of European
Morals_, declared his belief that, while the permanent union of
two persons is the normal and prevailing type of marriage, it by
no means follows that, in the interests of society, it should be
the only form. Remy de Gourmont similarly (_Physique de l'Amour_,
p. 186), while stating that the couple is the natural form of
marriage and its prolonged continuance a condition of human
superiority, adds that the permanence of the union can only be
achieved with difficulty. So, also, Professor W. Thomas (_Sex and
Society_, 1907, p. 193), while regarding monogamy as subserving
social needs, adds: "Speaking from the biological standpoint
monogamy does not, as a rule, answer to the conditions of highest
stimulation, since here the problematical and elusive elements
disappear to some extent, and the object of attention has grown
so familiar in consciousness that the emotional reactions are
qualified. This is the fundamental explanation of the fact that
marri