At present it reduces the
difference between marriage and prostitution to the difference
between Trade Unionism and unorganized casual labor: a huge
difference, no doubt, as to order and comfort, but not a
difference in kind.
However, it is not by any reform of the marriage laws that this
can be dealt with. It is in the general movement for the
prevention of destitution that the means for making women
independent of the compulsory sale of their persons, in marriage
or otherwise, will be found; but meanwhile those who deal
specifically with the marriage laws should never allow themselves
for a moment to forget this abomination that "plucks the rose from
the fair forehead of an innocent love, and sets a blister there,"
and then calmly calls itself purity, home, motherhood,
respectability, honor, decency, and any other fine name that
happens to be convenient, not to mention the foul epithets it
hurls freely at those who are ashamed of it.
UNPOPULARITY OF IMPERSONAL VIEWS
Unfortunately it is very hard to make an average citizen take
impersonal views of any sort in matters affecting personal comfort
or conduct. We may be enthusiastic Liberals or Conservatives
without any hope of seats in Parliament, knighthoods, or posts in
the Government, because party politics do not make the slightest
difference in our daily lives and therefore cost us nothing.
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