This page has been validated.
HER POSSIBILITIES
27

St. Paul's discussion of the question of eating and drinking. "The young man who marries a wife whom he cannot decently support, who brings children into the world whom he cannot decently provide for and equip, is an immoral person. The woman who becomes the partner of such enfeebling poverty must share the blame as well as the suffering." Further, let it be recognized that in civilized and Christianized society, and especially where women are characterized by refinement and culture, there is in the relations of husbands and wives, probably, if not certainly, more real immorality, more disregard of human feelings and well-being and individual self-realization and the rights of others, than there is in any other mutual or social relationship.

Marriage is the result of children; children are not the result of marriage. Marriage instituted itself on account of the children's need of sustenance, protection, and training; but man has used it for his own selfish purposes. The institution exists for the benefit accruing to the race and for the happiness and well-being of the family. If it does otherwise it is immoral. No outside legislation can insist upon or enforce all those highest and most sacred feelings, practices, and observances that sum up conjugal and family life in its most sacred and ideal features. A writer says: "The instinct for parenthood in the basis of the family life. In the beginning, it may well have been a purely animal function. Potentially, however, it was an ideal basis, for in the intimacy of the family have grown up those sentiments and emotions which now glorify our human-life. … Along with this reproductive instinct, obscuring it, even supplanting it, go the more disinterested non-sexual love, the genuine comradeship, the community of