ge is, according to many Socialists, not only incompatible with
Socialistic progress, but is also immoral. The philosopher of British
Socialism, going a step further than did Marx in his Manifesto,
endeavours to prove that marriage and prostitution are equally immoral.
"Both legalised monogamic marriage and prostitution are based
essentially on commercial considerations. The one is purchase, the
other hire. The higher and only really moral form of the marriage
relation which transcends both is based neither on sale nor hire.
Prostitution is immoral as implying the taking advantage by the woman
of a monopoly which costs her no labour for the sake of extorting money
from the man. But the condition of legal marriage--maintenance--does
the same."[910] This opinion is shared by the leading American
Socialist writer, who says: "The one has sold her person for money
under cover of marriage, the other has done the same thing outside
marriage."[911] Other Socialists express similar opinions: "The present
marriage system cannot be claimed by anyone as a success. Complete
economic independence of women will, however, solve the question. Under
Communism will and affection will be supreme. Marriage will be
infinitely holier and more permanent than it is to-day."[912] "Mere
legal matrimony and familism could not survive the communalisation of
property, and it may be well so. Marriage as we know it is merely one
of the many unwholesome fungi that grow out of the reeking, rotting
corpus of private property, and it would not be difficult to conceive
of a sexual order infinitely more angelic."[913]

There is no reason why an "infinitely more angelic sexual order"
should not replace marriage as at present conceived and constituted,
for "Marriage is no more a Christian ethic than it is a Mohammedan
ethic, or a Japanese custom. We have already 'considered' the marriage
laws and altered them. Where, then, is the immorality in demanding a
further consideration? Our notions concerning the relations of men and
women have changed with the changing times, and at each stage we have
reached a more exalted plane of understanding. What right have we to
assume, therefore, that the future does not hold a nobler ideal than
our present one?"[914]

The direction in which inter-sexual relations should be changed in
order to attain a nobler ideal than the present one is obvious: "What
we need is freedom from the restraints of an artificial existence;
libe