WOMEN IN A MODERN UTOPIA
the very origin of the human community. In Utopia, nevertheless, love-making is no concern of the State's beyond the province that the protection of children covers.[1] Change of function is one of the ruling facts in life; the sac that was in our remotest ancestors a swimming bladder is now a lung; and the State which was once, perhaps, no more than the jealous and tyrannous will of the strongest male in the herd, becomes the instrument of justice and equality. The State intervenes now only where there is want of harmony between individuals—individuals who exist or who may presently come into existence.
§ 6
It must be reiterated that our reasoning still leaves Utopian marriage an institution with wide possibilities of variation. We have tried to give effect to the ideal of a virtual equality, an equality of spirit between men and women, and in doing so we have overridden the accepted opinion of the great majority of mankind. Probably the first writer to do as much was Plato. His argument in support of this innovation upon natural human feeling was thin enough—a mere analogy to illustrate the spirit of his propositions; it was his creative instinct that determined
- ↑ It cannot be made too clear that though the control of morality is outside the law the State must maintain a general decorum, a systematic suppression of powerful and moving examples, and of incitations and temptations of the young and inexperienced; and to that extent it will, of course, in a sense exercise a control over morals. But this will be only part of a wider law to safeguard the tender mind. For example, lying advertisements and the like, when they lean towards adolescent interests, will encounter a specially disagreeable disposition in the law, over and above the treatment of their general dishonesty.
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