4. Make it impossible for marriage to be used as a punishment as
it is at present. Send the husband and wife to penal servitude if
you disapprove of their conduct and want to punish them; but do
not send them back to perpetual wedlock.
5. If, on the other hand, you think a couple perfectly innocent
and well conducted, do not condemn them also to perpetual wedlock
against their wills, thereby making the treatment of what you
consider innocence on both sides the same as the treatment of what
you consider guilt on both sides.
6. Place the work of a wife and mother on the same footing as
other work: that is, on the footing of labor worthy of its hire;
and provide for unemployment in it exactly as for unemployment in
shipbuilding or an other recognized bread-winning trade.
7. And take and deal with all the consequences of these acts of
justice instead of letting yourself be frightened out of reason
and good sense by fear of consequences. We must finally adapt our
institutions to human nature. In the long run our present plan of
trying to force human nature into a mould of existing abuses,
superstitions, and corrupt interests, produces the explosive
forces that wreck civilization.
8. Never forget that if you leave your law to judges and your
religion to bishops, you will presently find yourself without
either law or religion.
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