But it is clear enough that the one-roomed end, though its
conditions enable the marriage vow to be carried out with the
utmost attainable exactitude, is far less endurable in practice,
and far more mischievous in its effect on the parties concerned,
and through them on the community, than the other end. Thus we see
that the revolt against marriage is by no means only a revolt
against its sordidness as a survival of sex slavery. It may even
plausibly be maintained that this is precisely the part of it that
works most smoothly in practice. The revolt is also against its
sentimentality, its romance, its Amorism, even against its
enervating happiness.
WANTED: AN IMMORAL STATESMAN
We now see that the statesman who undertakes to deal with marriage
will have to face an amazingly complicated public opinion. In
fact, he will have to leave opinion as far as possible out of the
question, and deal with human nature instead. For even if there
could be any real public opinion in a society like ours, which is
a mere mob of classes, each with its own habits and prejudices, it
would be at best a jumble of superstitions and interests, taboos
and hypocrisies, which could not be reconciled in any coherent
enactment.
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