But with our highly organized civilization, and with our demands for certain comforts which are now deemed essential, marriage is put off more and more remotely, so that many cannot wed at all. "At more advanced stages of civilization, money and inherited property often take the place of skill, strength, and working ability. Thus, wife-purchase and husband-purchase still persist in modem society, though in disguised forms."
It is not meant to be inferred that one is to marry for the mere sake of sexual gratification, though marriage properly is and should be firmly founded upon a deep sexual feeling, even though this desire plays an unrecognized part therein. This is a dynamical and leading fact in the sciences of anthropology and sociology, and can never be lost sight of in the evolution of the successive phases of social development. Marriage is desirable, and is the goal toward which every normal man, if circumstances permit, should strive. But even though a man remain unmarried, he can do more good to his tribe or community by setting the example of a glorious life than can others, who do not possess his sterling qualities, by the begetting of progeny.
What shall those do who cannot marry and who yet feel the natural gnawing of the sexual appetite? Here is the stumbling-block-what men call the "natural, imperious appetite." These are men who have imposed no oaths or obligations upon themselves; who see no very evil consequence to themselves if they follow after the night-walking daughters of Lilith; whom society does not severely condemn, and who do not recognize any very decisive prohibition. Fornication most certainly is not so wicked as adultery, and many a man persuades himself 1 Westermarck, "History of Human Marriage," p. 383. into the belief that he may properly indulge in it, and that he will in some way escape the responsibility of parentage.
How shall such a man act? To aid him in the decision this book is written, he being left to be the judge for himself. But this much must be demanded of him, that he act intelligently. To some, one argument appeals, while it disgusts others, and many may be offended at any allusion to religion. But in most men there is a religious element inseparably united with the physical; and some heed must therefore be paid to it physiologically. Christianity says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost and that we are to keep them pure and undefiled before God, and every reflective person of course knows that it is the part of wisdom to keep the body clean and to have good and honest purposes.
The truth of this is seemingly apparent only to a select few, while tens of thousands entirely reject it, sound as it is from a physiological standpoint. A deep impression, however, must be made on any man when the truth is presented in all its aspects, and when there are laid before him for his consideration the fearful responsibilities which he incurs by following a life of immorality and lust- responsibilities for being the father of an illegitimate child which may be and so often is killed by criminal abortion, or which, if it lives, will be a homeless or degraded outcast; responsibilities for ruining a girl, or, if she has already fallen, for helping to crush the womanhood out of her rather than to help her up; responsibilities for contracting venereal diseases which ruin his health and happiness, and which may be imparted to his wife-to-be and offspring for generations to come; responsibilities to society for promoting harlotry with all its complex evil consequences, and reponsibilities for defiling all the finer moral and emotional parts of his nature.
For all of this we absolutely know that the offender must personally suffer in this present life, as well as the woman and children who share the good and the bad with him; and no man can divorce himself from the strong belief that he will have to render an account to his Maker for overstepping the bounds of religion, which, after all, is nothing but an unrecognized branch of higher physiology. The responsibility of taking life has been recognized from the earliest times; the responsibility of giving birth to life is equally great.