The doctrine that love is the only motive for sex—that physical expression is pure only so far as it is the sacramental accidence of love—leads to important conclusions. There is, for instance, a class of moralist who teach that the sex-act in marriage must only be for the purpose of procreation. It would follow from this that it is immoral for sex intimacies to occur between a man and his wife once she has passed a certain age. In the ideal marriage, so this school of thought affirms, copulation is strictly regulated and occurs only when the moment is favourable for generation.

To this theory I cannot subscribe. It runs counter to the doctrine in which I believe. It Changes the sex-act from an incident or a result to a means or a cause. It is really immoral because it lays emphasis on the physical. This cold-blooded calculation of the times when sex is to be thus physically expressed is the exact opposite of the principle by which love directs and the act merely occurs, with no purpose but to express love physically.

This leads us to a consideration as to how far those practices between man and woman are moral in which procreation cannot result. It is interesting to note that the English law holds that “unnatural” acts between husband and wife are criminal. Although it is true that prosecution cannot occur unless there is an absence of consent, for otherwise there would be no evidence—these acts are apparently regarded as per se criminal in nature. And this indeed is a logical position, when we remember the standpoint which the State adopts towards all sex questions.

To this class of conduct artificial preventatives are closely allied. A chaos of opinion rages over this subject, from the neo-malthusian who advocates the practice as a necessity, to the purist who talks of “child-murder.” It seems clear that this latter designation is an unwarrantable exaggeration; to prevent the possibility of life coming into existence cannot by any strain of imagination be confused with destroying what is actually alive. On the other hand, the moral test which we are applying to all these problems hardly acquits the practice. It is difficult to think of preventatives without being conscious that premeditation of the physical act is being emphasized, and the ideal of a natural incident almost banished. To prepare for a thing is to insist on its importance. The minds of the two parties must almost necessarily be focussed—though not absolutely necessarily—on the physical sex-act.

There is no doubt however that, apart from ideals, preventatives are a means of averting more serious evils. This is not the place to enter into a detailed consideration of eugenics. We can only face the blatant fact that thousands of degenerate parents continue each year to breed degenerate children. The moral aspect with which alone I am dealing, is that this is a crime against the community; however irresponsible or ignorant the perpetrators, they are helping to burden the State with an altogether undesirable progeny. Now, whether they are allowed to marry or not, there is not the least likelihood that they will desist from sexual intercourse. Therefore, it seems to me an obviously lesser evil to remove all excuse for procreation by placing within reach the artificial means of prevention.

In this, just as in the divorce problem, we have to determine whether it is better to insist on an ideal, which we know the majority will not keep, or to legislate down to the majority. There is no doubt in my own mind that to legislate on an ideal is not only impracticable but dangerous. I may believe, for instance, that it would be a higher ideal to live on vegetables and fruit rather than to slaughter animals and drink their blood. But even so, I should vehemently oppose a law which attempted to impose vegetarianism.

I believe, too, that every moral influence should be brought to bear against marriages where the physical or mental degeneracy[12] of the parents renders the use of preventatives desirable. I wish to emphasize that the ideal towards which we should set our faces is that of fewer but healthier marriages. Both Church and State should, I feel, take pains to assure themselves that these undesirable elements are absent in all unions which they are respectively called upon to solemnize. And I emphasize this because I believe that we are suffering far too much from the popular fallacy and the smug Puritanic doctrine that the cure for all sexual proclivities is for men and women to marry, and that once they marry all things are sexually permissible. It is not only irritating, but it is a fallacy, for men who are comfortably married to declare that there is “really no sex-problem.” There is probably as much immorality within the married state as outside it; and far from it being the duty of every man to marry, there are many men whose duty it is not to do so.

Closely allied with eugenics is the problem of venereal disease, and out of this again, arises the problem of prostitution. How far is prostitution tolerable, so that a medical system of registration should be introduced into England? We have seen why prostitution is immoral; it is concerned with the physical side of sex, and with little else. But no thoughtful man could reasonably advocate the suppression of prostitution by law. The result of such a measure, at the present state of national development, would be deplorable, even if it were practicable. People do not become moral because they are frightened to do what they still want to do. It is always a confession of the weakness of religion or moral influences where you have to fall back on the police-force of the State for support. In moral questions, State prosecution seems only to be justifiable where the liberty of individuals, or the welfare of the community, is endangered.

Prostitution[13] as an evil can only be treated by the slow process of moral education. Of that I shall speak later. But it is worth while remembering in this connexion, that the feminist movement must have a beneficial effect, to some extent, on prostitution. Largely, it is an economic problem. If a woman were able to earn a decent wage, it is inconceivable that she should wish to submit herself to every voluptuous patron who happens to come along. Education and economic independence must tend largely to breed dissatisfaction with such a slavish occupation. It will not do so entirely, for a certain percentage of women are prostitutes because they hunger for promiscuous sex intercourse.

That some serious attempt must be made, not merely to alleviate, but to prevent venereal disease, is evident to all who are aware how widespread it has become. And it may therefore be pointed out that it would not be impossible to prosecute the prostitute, suffering from these diseases, without introducing the vexed question of registration and official recognition of prostitution. All unmarried men and women below a certain age could be compelled to submit to periodical medical examination, and if any person was found to have solicited, after having been certified as infected, prosecution would lie. Probably a storm of protest would be aroused against an alleged interference with individual privacy. But the danger of syphilis may necessitate such a law, and after all, no one is being asked to do more than that to which every soldier and sailor has to submit.

We have seen that love, and therefore marriage, naturally contains the sense of permanence. There is also a sense of distaste towards incest, and of the apparently natural evils arising therefrom. No-one will deny that the State and the Catholic Church are scientifically justified in insisting upon some table of prohibited degrees. How far this distaste is essentially natural I do not know. I imagine that a sister who had been separated from her brother since birth, and who did not know that he was her brother, might fall in love with him. But the scientific dangers of such marriages would remain.[14]

The Church of England some years ago found herself immersed in a storm of controversy over the Deceased Wife’s Sister Act. To most men her attitude seemed pedantic and unworthy of serious attention. The English Church is unfortunate: her apparently narrow ecclesiasticism was really the result of a liberal policy at the time of the Reformation. During the Middle Ages the Church had extended her prohibited degrees to such an extent that it must have been difficult to know whom one could marry without a dispensation.[15] Only a person more than four degrees removed from the other party was an eligible partner without dispensation, the degrees so being reckoned as to include even second cousins. The English Church swept away these anomalies and concentrated on an irreducible minimum of prohibition up to three degrees (reckoned in direct ascending and descending generation from the common ancestor)—thus sacrificing all regulation against marriage between first cousins, who are four degrees removed.

The real opposition to the ecclesiastical attitude was, however, that any affinity, as distinguished from consanguinity, should be a bar to marriage. The unhappy deceased wife’s sister was merely a convenient representative. But this is a controversy which is not sufficiently imminent to engage us in these pages.