The
domestic doctrinaires are also the dull people. The impersonal
relation of sex may be judicially reserved for one person; but any
such reservation of friendship, affection, admiration, sympathy
and so forth is only possible to a wretchedly narrow and jealous
nature; and neither history nor contemporary society shews us a
single amiable and respectable character capable of it. This has
always been recognized in cultivated society: that is why poor
people accuse cultivated society of profligacy, poor people being
often so ignorant and uncultivated that they have nothing to offer
each other but the sex relationship, and cannot conceive why men
and women should associate for any other purpose.
As to the children of the triple household, they were not only on
excellent terms with one another, and never thought of any
distinction between their full and their half brothers and
sisters; but they had the superior sociability which distinguishes
the people who live in communities from those who live in small
families.
The inference is that changes of partners are not in themselves
injurious or undesirable. People are not demoralized by them when
they are effected according to law. Therefore we need not hesitate
to alter the law merely because the alteration would make such
changes easier.
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