The To-day and To-morrow of Wedlock
MRS SANGER deals delicately with sacred things and is com- pletely candid on those physical facts which every married couple should know, yet she ave4ds that unctuous note prevalent in some similar publicatlbns. Her book can do nothing but good, although we need not take it all as gospel.
It is perhaps open to question whether one of the first lessons a girl should learn in the art of courtship is to be " playfully elusive." Such counsel to-day seems somewhat Victorian. " Many women have forgotten this," says Mrs. Sanger : we think this may be because the modern girl is more sincere and straightforward, less bound by convention than her predecessor. Love will always remain the most subtle relationship of which human beings are capable and pretence in such a communion of mind and body is desecration, as Shakespeare said in the Sonnets for all time. There is, however, this truth underlying the author's plea for elusiveness : that there must be reserve as well as candour between lovers, because of the ineluctable duality of creation as we know it on this plane. There must always be the knower as well as the thing known. Two hearts may beat as one, but they must be two hearts, not a single organ. Indi- vidualities should not merge or become the pale reflection of one another, but remain distinct and clear cut, in order to kindle the fire of friendship or the flame of passion.
Mrs. Sanger's exposition of the emotional nature of both woman and man is written with insight and reverence for what is and will always remain a mystery. Let none believe that physiological knowledge will cheapen or coarsen the marriage tie—it will, on the contrary, only increase our reverence for the designs of the Creator. We can recommend this book for those who need a book on such subjects, but there will always be those who will object to being told what to look for in love, or a sunset, or a rose. The glories of earth are not intellectually experienced in the last resort, nor are they capable of exposition in print.
Dr. Haire seems determined to emulate the Fat Boy, and we find many of his prognostications decidedly unpleasant reading. Yet it may be salutary to be set face-to-face with some of the sterner problems that confront the sex relationship of the future. Four out of five marriages are a failure, our author says (and we are not disposed to question that), so that really there is a good case for considering whether our moral code is founded on true morality, or on convention and the needs of races whose problems were very different from those of the civilization of to-day. Dr. Haire explains how the Jews had one code, to provide for as many children as possible, and the Greeks a very different standard, owing to their different population problem. To-day, we approximate more nearly to the conditions prevalent in Athens than we do tti those of Israel. The future, in the author's opinion, will see prohibition of parenthood in certain cases and the legaliza- tion of infanticide and suicide, to say nothing of the incubation of children in bodies other than that of the mother. Preposterous as these prophecies may appear, we admit that Dr. Haire writes dispassionately and that, however wrong his ethic may be, he does really look forward to an age when " the parent will be ambitious to leave his child, not a large store of worldly wealth, but a good heredity, physical and mental." There at any rate we agree with the author.
Many details of the changes to which he looks forward (!) may prove, he admits, less useful than he himself supposes, but " whether I am right or wrong in detail is of no particular importance. I have no desire to persuade others to accept my standards. I aim only to stimulate them to think for themselves."
Certainly he succeeds in enraging us with his hideous (and we hope fantastic) picture of a godless future.- A kick from a mule is stimulating in a sense, and so are some pages of Hymen, but it is not cheerful reading. If its prophecies same true, we should be tempted to embrace its predicted opportunity for State-aided euthanasia, and yet in spite of this we feel that the book repays perusal.
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