tue of others be
preserved only by the destruction of her happiness, and by what
might be called her perpetual imprisonment? I hope the clergy who
believe in the sacredness of marriage--in the indissolubility of
the marriage tie--will give their opinions on this case. I believe
that marriage is the most important contract that human beings can
make. I always believe that a man will keep his contract; that a
woman, in the highest sense, will keep hers, But suppose the man
does not. Is the woman still bound?

Is there no mutuality? What is a contract? It is where one party
promises to do something in consideration that the other party will
do something. That is to say, there is a consideration on both
sides, moving from one to the other. A contract without consideration
is null and void; and a contract duly entered into, where the
consideration of one party is withheld, is voidable, and can be
voided by the party who has kept, or who is willing to keep, the
contract. A marriage without love is bad enough. But what can we
say of a marriage where the parties hate each other? Is there any
morality in this--any virtue? Will any decent person say that a
woman, true, good and loving, should be compelled to live with a
man she detests, compelled to be the mother of his children? Is
there a woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself?
And is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would
force another to bear what she would shudderingly avoid? Let us
bring these questions home. In other words, let us have some sense,
some feeling, some heart--and just a little brain. Marriages are
made by men and women. They are not made by the State, and they
are not made by the gods. By this time people should learn that
human happiness is the foundation of virtue--the foundation of
morality. Nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being
of sentient beings. Nothing is virtuous the result of which is
not a human good. The world has always been living for phantoms,
for ghosts, for monsters begotten by ignorance and fear. The world
should learn to live for itself. Man should, by this time, be
convinced that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons
for doing wrong, are right here in this world--all within the
horizon of this life. And besides, we should have imagination to
put ourselves in the place of another. Let a man suppose himself
a helpless wife, beaten by a brute who be