of a profound trait in the feminine soul, and points to dangers springing from the domination of women in the intellectual life....  And in no other civilized land are ethical conceptions so worm-eaten by superstitions.”

We have seen that the modern tendency as regards marriage is towards its recognition as a voluntary union entered into by two free, equal, and morally responsible persons, and that that union is rather of the nature of an ethical sacrament than of a contract, so that in its essence as a physical and spiritual bond it is outside the sphere of the State’s action.  It has been necessary to labor that point before we approach what may seem to many not only a different but even a totally opposed aspect of marriage.  If the marriage union itself cannot be a matter for contract, it naturally leads to a fact which must necessarily be a matter for implicit or explicit contract, a matter, moreover, in which the community at large has a real and proper interest:  that is the fact of procreation.[366]

The ancient Egyptians—­among whom matrimonial institutions were so elastic and the position of woman so high—­recognized a provisional and slight marriage bond for the purpose of testing fecundity.[367] Among ourselves the law makes no such paternal provision, leaving to young couples themselves the responsibility of making any tests, a permission, we know, they largely avail themselves of, usually entering the legal bonds of marriage, however, before the birth of their child.  That legal bond is a recognition that the introduction of a new individual into the community is not, like sexual union, a mere personal fact, but a social fact, a fact in which the State cannot fail to be concerned.  And the more we investigate the tendency of the modern marriage movement the more we shall realize that its attitude of freedom, of individual moral responsibility, in the formation of sexual relationships, is compensated by an attitude of stringency, of strict social oversight, in the matter of procreation.  Two people who form an erotic relationship are bound, when they reach the conviction that their relationship is a real marriage, having its natural end in procreation, to subscribe to a contract which, though it may leave themselves personally free, must yet bind them both to their duties towards their children.[368]

The necessity for such an undertaking is double, even apart from the fact that it is in the highest interests of the parents themselves.  It is required in the interests of the child.  It is required in the interests of the State.  A child can be bred, and well-bred, by one effective parent.  But to equip a child adequately for its entrance into life both parents are usually needed.  The State on its side—­that is to say, the community of which parents and child alike form part—­is bound to know who these persons are who have become sponsors for a new individual now introduced into its midst.  The most Individualistic State, the most Socialistic State, are alike bound, if faithful to the interests, both biological and economic, of their constituent members generally, to insist on the full legal and recognized parentage of the father and mother of every child.  That is clearly demanded in the interests of the child; it is clearly demanded also in the interests of the State.