in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.—­The United States—­Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for Divorce—­Divorce by Mutual Consent—­Its Origin and Development—­Impeded by the Traditions of Canon Law—­Wilhelm von Humboldt—­Modern Pioneer Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent—­The Arguments Against Facility of Divorce—­The Interests of the Children—­The Protection of Women—­The Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement—­Marriage Not a Contract—­The Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years—­Legal Disabilities and Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife—­Marriage Not a Contract But a Fact—­Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract—­The Legal Recognition of Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony—­Contracts of the Person Opposed to Modern Tendencies—­The Factor of Moral Responsibility—­Marriage as an Ethical Sacrament—­Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom—­Freedom the Best Guarantee of Stability—­False Ideas of Individualism—­Modern Tendency of Marriage—­With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private Concern—­Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother—­How This Can be Effected—­The Firm Basis of Monogamy—­The Question of Marriage Variations—­Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy—­The Most Common Variations—­The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in Check—­Marriage Variations versus Prostitution—­Marriage on a Reasonable and Humane Basis—­Summary and Conclusion.

The discussion in the previous chapter of the nature of sexual morality, with the brief sketch it involved of the direction in which that morality is moving, has necessarily left many points vague.  It may still be asked what definite and precise forms sexual unions are tending to take among us, and what relation these unions bear to the religious, social, and legal traditions we have inherited.  These are matters about which a very considerable amount of uncertainty seems to prevail, for it is not unusual to hear revolutionary or eccentric opinions concerning them.

Sexual union, involving the cohabitation, temporary or permanent, of two or more persons, and having for one of its chief ends the production and care of offspring, is commonly termed marriage.  The group so constituted forms a family.  This is the sense in which the words “marriage” and the “family” are most properly used, whether we speak of animals or of Man.  There is thus seen to be room for variation as regards both the time during which the union lasts, and the number of individuals who form it, the chief factor in the determination of these points being the interests of the offspring.  In actual practice, however, sexual unions, not only in Man but among the higher animals, tend to last beyond the needs of the offspring of a single season, while the fact that in most species the numbers of males and females are approximately equal makes it inevitable that both among animals and in Man the family is produced by a single sexual couple, that is to say that monogamy is, with however many exceptions, necessarily the fundamental rule.