Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

MARRIAGEV. F. CALVERTON, The Bankruptcy of Marriage.MRS. HAVELOCK ELLIS, James Hinton: A Sketch.The Control of ProcreationKeyserling has remarked that those who are not ableto accept the relationship of marriage in its fundamentalsense would be well advised to avoid marriage and adoptsome other form of sexual relationship.Apart from that solution, however, there is one pointwhich must nowadays always be held in mind when weare considering marriage from the eugenic standpoint inrelation to the probable quality of the offspring. Formerlymarriage and procreation were one and in aimindivisible. To recommend marriage meant to permitprocreation; to advise against procreation meant to prohibitmarriage, and permanently to impair the happinessof the lives thus condemned to solitude, as well as indirectlyto encourage prostitution or other undesirablemethods of sexual relief. This necessity no longer existsamong the educated classes in any civilized country. Contraception,the use of a variety of methods to permitintercourse while avoiding conception whether or notit receives formal public approval has become so generalthat the discussion of its desirability no longer subservesany useful purpose. It exists on a large scale even in countrieswhere the law forbids its dissemination, and evenamong the adherents of creeds which disapprove of it.Thus we have nowadays to distinguish between thedesirability of marriage and the desirability of procreation,the latter question involving not only regard to theprobable interests of the couple themselves, especially thewife, but also to the probable interests of the offspring.It is an undoubted advantage to be able to deal separately[285]