Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/287

light literature of all ages and of all peoples, and it is certainly the only one that has the power to fascinate permanently the mass of readers or hearers. The result of love, the union of the youth and the maiden into a fruitful pair, has always been surrounded by more ceremonies and festivities, preparations and formalities than any other act of man's life; in primitive times by customs and etiquette, and later, by written laws confirming these formalities. Even the formal presentation of manly weapons to the youths was a ceremony of but secondary rank, although in barbaric tribes, living in a condition of incessant attack and defence, this act was considered of the greatest importance. By these formalities, which make a marriage a matter of so much ceremony, the community has always kept control of the relations between the sexes, and the solemnity with which it treats the union of a loving couple, ought to arouse in them the consciousness that their embraces are no mere private affairs, like a dinner, a hunting expedition or an evening spent in singing and dancing, but matters of great public importance and significance, affecting the welfare of the whole community and aiding to determine its future. In order to prevent as much as possible the degradation of love into a mere pastime and to proclaim most emphatically its sublime purpose, the preservation of the race, society from its very beginnings, has only recognized as honorable and distinguished by its respect those relations between man and woman whose earnestness has stood the test of a public ceremony. It disapproves of those which have refused to submit to this formality and punishes them with avoidance or material penalties. In our civilization as well as in its state of primitive development, the impulse for procreation must summon society to be a witness to its gratification and place itself under its protection, or