zur Heimat, pp. 543-552) that it is important to remember that women, as well as men, can love two persons at the same time.  Men flatter themselves, he remarks, with the prejudice that the female heart, or rather brain, can only hold one man at a time, and that if there is a second man it is by a kind of prostitution.  Nearly all erotic writers, poets, and novelists, even physicians and psychologists, belong to this class, he says; they look on a woman as property, and of course two men cannot “possess” a woman. (Regarding novelists, however, the remark may be interpolated that there are many exceptions, and Thomas Hardy, for instance, frequently represents a woman as more or less in love with two men at the same time.) As against this desire to depreciate women’s psychic capacity, Hirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue to one man because she has conceived a passion for another man.  “Today,” Hirth truly declares, “only love and justice can count as honorable motives in marriage.  The modern man accords to the beloved wife and life-companion the same freedom which he himself took before marriage, and perhaps still takes in marriage.  If she makes no use of it, as is to be hoped—­so much the better!  But let there be no lies, no deception; the indispensable foundation of modern marriage is boundless sincerity and friendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion, and consideration.  This is the best safeguard against adultery....  Let him, however, who is, nevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it console himself with the undoubted fact that of two real lovers the most noble-minded and deep-seeing friend will always have the preference.”  These wise words cannot be too deeply meditated.  The policy of jealousy is only successful—­when it is successful—­in the hands of the man who counts the external husk of love more precious than the kernel.

It seems to some that the recognition of variations in sexual relationships, of the tendency of the monogamic to overpass its self-imposed bounds, is at best a sad necessity, and a lamentable fall from a high ideal.  That, however, is the reverse of the truth.  The great evil of monogamy, and its most seriously weak point, is its tendency to self-concentration at the expense of the outer world.  The devil always comes to a man in the shape of his wife and children, said Hinton.  The family is a great social influence in so far as it is the best instrument for creating children who will make the future citizens; but in a certain sense the family is an anti-social influence, for it tends to absorb unduly the energy that is needed for the invigoration of society.  It is possible, indeed, that that fact led to the modification of the monogamic system in early developing periods of human history, when social expansion and cohesion were the primary necessities.  The family too often tends to resemble, as someone has said, the secluded collection of grubs sometimes revealed in their narrow home when