s wife or daughter."[918] A very influential Socialist writer
asks: "Is chastity a virtue, and is there such a vice as unchastity?"
and he answers his question by quoting the above statement of
Bax.[919] "If it be asked, Is marriage a failure? the answer of any
impartial person must be--monogamic marriage is a failure--the rest is
silence. We know not what new form of the family the society of the
future, in which men and women will be alike economically free, may
evolve and which may be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile, we ought
to combat by every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of
the inherent sanctity of the monogamic principle. Economic development
on the one side and the free initiative of individuals on the other
will do the rest."[920]

Bebel thinks, "The satisfying of amatory desires is a law which every
individual must fulfil as a sacred duty towards himself, if his
development is to be healthy and normal, and he must refuse
gratification to no natural impulse. The so-called animal passions
occupy no lower rank than the so-called mental passions. A healthy
manner of life, healthy employment, and a healthy education in the
broadest sense of the word, combined with the natural gratification of
natural and healthy instincts, must be brought within the reach of
all."[921] Freedom of love is to be equal to men and women: "In the
choice of love woman is free just as man is free. She woos and is wooed
and has no other inducement to bind herself than her own free will.
The contract between the two lovers is of a private nature as in
primitive times. The gratification of the sexual impulse is as strictly
the personal affair of the individual as the gratification of every
other natural instinct. No one has to give an account of him or herself
and no third person has the slightest right of intervention."[922]

A prominent British Socialist shares Bebel's views: "For the
non-childbearing woman the sex-relationship, both as to form and
substance, ought to be a pure question of taste, a simple matter of
agreement between the man and her, in which neither the society nor
the State would have any need to interfere, a free sexual union, a
relation solely of mutual sympathy and affection, its form and
direction varying according to the feelings and wants of the
individuals."[923] The founders of British Socialism agree with the
foregoing opinion. "Under a Socialistic system contracts between
individuals would