variation, she
remarks, however (_Liebe und Ethik_, p. 12), has changed its form
under modern conditions; it is no longer a struggle between the
demand of society for a rigid marriage-order and the demand of
the individual for sexual satisfaction, but it has become the
problem of harmonizing the ennoblement of the race with
heightened requirements of erotic happiness. She also points out
that the existence of a partner who requires the other partner's
care as a nurse or as an intellectual companion by no means
deprives that other partner of the right to fatherhood or
motherhood, and that such rights must be safeguarded (Ellen Key,
_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, pp. 166-168).

A prominent and extreme advocate of polygyny, not as a simple
rare variation, but as a marriage order superior to monogamy, is
to be found at the present day in Professor Christian von
Ehrenfels of Prague (see, e.g., his _Sexualethik_, 1908; "Die
Postulate des Lebens," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1908; and letter
to Ellen Key in her _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 466). Ehrenfels
believes that the number of men inapt for satisfactory
reproduction is much larger than that of women, and that
therefore when these are left out of account, a polygynic
marriage order becomes necessary. He calls this
"reproduction-marriage" (Zeugungsehe), and considers that it will
entirely replace the present marriage order, to which it is
morally superior. It would be based on private contracts.
Ehrenfels holds that women would offer no objection, as a woman,
he believes, attaches less importance to a man as a wooer than as
the father of her child. Ehrenfels's doctrine has been seriously
attacked from many sides, and his proposals are not in the line
of our progress. Any radical modification of the existing
monogamic order is not to be expected, even if it were generally
recognized, which cannot be said to be the case, that it is
desirable. The question of sexual variations, it must be
remembered, is not a question of introducing an entirely new form
of marriage, but only of recognizing the rights of individuals,
in exceptional cases, to adopt such aberrant forms, and of
recognizing the corresponding duties of such individuals to
accept the responsibilities of any aberrant marriage forms they
may find it best to adopt. So far as the q