But the instinctive doctrine that there is
something holy and mystic in sex, a doctrine which many of us now
easily dissociate from any priestly ceremony, but which in those
days seemed to all who felt it to need a ritual affirmation, could
not be thrown on the scrap-heap with the sale of Indulgences
and the like; and so the Reformation left marriage where it was: a
curious mixture of commercial sex slavery, early Christian sex
abhorrence, and later Christian sex sanctification.
OTHELLO AND DESDEMONA
How strong was the feeling that a husband or a wife is an article
of property, greatly depreciated in value at second-hand, and not
to be used or touched by any person but the proprietor, may be
learnt from Shakespear. His most infatuated and passionate lovers
are Antony and Othello; yet both of them betray the commercial and
proprietary instinct the moment they lose their tempers. "I found
you," says Antony, reproaching Cleopatra, "as a morsel cold upon
dead Caesar's trencher." Othello's worst agony is the thought of
"keeping a corner in the thing he loves for others' uses." But
this is not what a man feels about the thing he loves, but about
the thing he owns. I never understood the full significance of
Othello's outburst until I one day heard a lady, in the
course of a private discussion as to the feasibility of "group
marriage," say with cold disgust that she would as soon think of
lending her toothbrush to another woman as her husband.
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