polygamy and polyandry. Others, such as
Bellamy[935] and Kautsky,[936] believe that the people will remain
attached to marriage as at present constituted. Others again find
consolation in the fact that "despite the marital customs of the East,
there is in the average human animal a strong monogamous
instinct."[937] Anton Menger compares free love with free competition,
and therefore objects to it[938] for the same reason for which
Aristophanes objected to it in his "Ecclesiazusae" 2200 years ago. He
thinks that free love would benefit the young, strong and
good-looking, and believes that the doctrine of free love owes its
rise to hatred of Christianity among Socialists,[939] monogamous
marriage being a Christian institution.

Socialists propose to break all the bonds which at present connect
woman with her husband and her children, and to put her into an
artificial and unnatural position calculated to unsex her. "For the
first time since the world began, woman will in every respect be the
equal of man. She will be the guardian of her own honour, and marriage
will assume an entirely novel character. All unions will be unions of
affection and esteem, and children, as of old, will primarily be the
children of the mother. Her right to select the father of her own
children is absolute. In such a society all children will be equally
'legitimate,' and the Seventh Commandment will become practically
obsolete, because the economic circumstances in which it was
formulated will have passed away. She will be the complete arbiter of
her own destiny. Her unsullied conscience will be the foundation of a
purer morality than is at present even conceivable."[940] The
principles expressed in the foregoing recall to one's mind the decree
of the French Convention, dated June 28, 1793, which runs as follows:
"La nation se charge de l'education physique et morale des enfants
abandonnes. Desormais ils seront designes sous le seul nom
d'orphelins. Aucune autre qualification ne sera permise"; and the
principle of the French Code, "La recherche de la paternite est
interdite," will become a principle of British law. The State will
have to become the protector of the husbandless mothers and the
fatherless children.

"Woman stands to gain much from the growth of a Socialist State. Among
the free communistic services the right of the wife to maintenance
during the period of maternity will quickly find a place."[941] "For
every child born, the Stat