The present law is perfectly logical only if
you once admit (as no decent person ever does) its fundamental
assumption that there can be no companionship between men and
women because the woman has a "sphere" of her own, that of
housekeeping, in which the man must not meddle, whilst he has all
the rest of human activity for his sphere: the only point at which
the two spheres touch being that of replenishing the population.
On this assumption the man naturally asks for a guarantee that the
children shall be his because he has to find the money to support
them. The power of divorcing a woman for adultery is this
guarantee, a guarantee that she does not need to protect her
against a similar imposture on his part, because he cannot bear
children. No doubt he can spend the money that ought to be spent
on her children on another woman and her children; but this is
desertion, which is a separate matter. The fact for us to seize is
that in the eye of the law, adultery without consequences is
merely a sentimental grievance, whereas the planting on one man of
another man's offspring is a substantial one. And so, no doubt, it
is; but the day has gone by for basing laws on the assumption that
a woman is less to a man than his dog, and thereby encouraging and
accepting the standards of the husbands who buy meat for their
bull-pups and leave their wives and children hungry.
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