But nothing can well be more
unwholesome for everybody than the exaggeration and glorification
of an instinctive function which clouds the reason and upsets the
judgment more than all the other instincts put together. The
process may be pleasant and romantic; but the consequences are
not. It would be far better for everyone, as well as far honester,
if young people were taught that what they call love is an
appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the
moment by its gratification; that no profession, promise, or
proposal made under its influence should bind anybody; and that
its great natural purpose so completely transcends the personal
interests of any individual or even of any ten generations of
individuals that it should be held to be an act of prostitution
and even a sort of blasphemy to attempt to turn it to account by
exacting a personal return for its gratification, whether by
process of law or not. By all means let it be the subject of
contracts with society as to its consequences; but to make
marriage an open trade in it as at present, with money, board and
lodging, personal slavery, vows of eternal exclusive personal
sentimentalities and the rest of it as the price, is neither
virtuous, dignified, nor decent.
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