immoral. Such a
definition of sexual morality is accepted by church and state and the
chief citizens in every civilized country. It is the only practical
definition which is satisfactory to the vast majority of educated
American men and women, even to those who believe in freedom of divorce
and in forgiveness for youthful transgressions of the accepted moral
code. Sexual morality has had changeable standards, and in other times
and countries custom has made polygamy and promiscuity acceptable as
moral; but the monogamic ideal of morality now prevails in the world's
best life.

[Sidenote: Morality in America and Europe.]

Monogamic morality as a protection for family life means much more in
America than in Europe. It is true that there is an astounding amount
of prostitution in America, but we should be grateful that our ideals
of the monogamic family have not been seriously influenced and seem to
be slowly but surely improving among our best people. As illustrations
of our adherence to monogamic law, let me give some facts for
comparison of America and continental Europe. In America, illegitimate
births are not accurately reported but are probably less than five per
cent of the total number for the whole country. Locally the proportion
is often very much higher. Thus in Washington, D.C., where (1914) over
ten thousand, chiefly negroes, live in alleys between the streets and
under extremely unhygienic and immoral conditions, fifty per cent of
the children are illegitimate, while but twenty per cent of the colored
children born of mothers living outside the alleys, and less than
eleven per cent of the total born of all races in the city are
illegitimate. In various small American regions with a white population
the proportion of illegitimacy is astoundingly high, but the average
for the entire country is hopefully low. In many German towns
statistics show above twenty-five per cent, and in the whole empire,
more than half the legitimate first-born children are conceived before
marriage. All writers, the German ones included, seem to agree that the
majority of Teutonic men and women enter into free unions before
marriage and public opinion does not severely condemn.

In many rural districts of England, France, and Sweden, and even in
London and Paris, a large percentage of the marriages are simply
legalization of free unions. In short, in all these countries the
monogamic ideal is not followed by a large percentage of