I am now halfway through Marriage and Morals so I thought a short pause for what passes for reflection might be in order. My main reaction is how much of what Russell has to say is still pertinent, almost 80 years on. Let me start by mentioning what is less pertinent, however. The notion that a married couple, especially the woman, should be celibate until their wedding night has become much more marginalized. Yes, that particular morality has some traction within US policy, but within the public at large, it simply does not have much of a following that I can see. Meanwhile, of course, the social emancipation of women has come much further than what had been achieved by 1929.
But other viewpoints of the moralists still do have a large following, even if the law has tended to move away from them. (Some ways in which the law has moved: easier divorce; better access to birth control and information about birth control; liberalization of controls over obscenity; legalization of homosexual behavior.) The anti-sex, ascetic code remains a force, and children brought up in religious households imbibe a form of it almost as strong as in Russell’s day – with the same deleterious effects, I believe. A similar point applies to efforts to keep children ignorant about sexuality, and the sacrifice of public health on the altar of the old moral code.
Russell’s identification of workaholism (in Chapter 9) as the chief threat to love still seems relevant.
I think that Russell (so far) neglects the importance of marriage-like institutions that provide some forms of commitment, even in the absence of kids. (I am not sure I concur with Russell’s claim that kids are “the true purpose of marriage,” either.) Happy long-term partnerships require a lot of “investment” on both sides, and people will not be as willing to make those investments if it easy for their partner to just walk away. (This problem applies to marriages with kids, too, and in some sense, has become more acute as opportunities for women outside the home have increased. A woman who forgoes a career to raise kids – or just to keep house – for her husband has made a larger sacrifice than she did 100 years ago, when most careers were closed to her. If such sacrifices are to be encouraged, the woman’s investment has to be protected.) The trial marriages described in chapter 12 have largely come to pass, in the form of young unmarried couples living together.
In reading Marriage and Morals, I frequently am reminded of controls on “vices” other than sex, and in particular, the war on drugs. Russell notes how the position of traditional sexual moralists amounts to an endorsement of prostitution, though the moralists will not accept this characterization, and want to be judged upon their intentions, not upon the consequences of the adoption of their code. Likewise, to my mind, with US drug prohibitionists, who somehow fail to associate the 1.8 million arrests per year, the police corruption, the lethal violence, the eroding of the Fourth Amendment, and so on, with their well-intentioned policies. Finally, on prostitution, though Russell notes the important social function of the prostitute, he remains a strong opponent of prostitution, even in circumstances (such as the ones he identifies in Japan) where the immediate problems are not so severe. I think that his overall assessment underestimates the benefits of prostitution; in particular, I accept the claim that is not infrequently made by prostitutes, that they are engaged in a type of social work. [Nevertheless, I also suspect that Russell is right in his suggestion that male access to sex without going through even perfunctory courtship tends to coarsen social relations, and that he is also right that most of this "unwooed" sex probably takes place outside of a directly commercial context, within either marriages or long-term relationships.]
Russell’s Marriage and Morals shows him to be an acute observer and analyst of the social scene, and an entertaining expositor. Some of his pronouncements are a bit glib (though that characterization does not necessarily imply that there was not deep thought and evidence underlying them). To take two examples (in which I happen to agree with Russell): (1) his claim in Chapter 8 that “no rational argument” can be adduced for laws against homosexuality, and (2) his pronouncement in Chapter 10 that “every humane person” has to support a liberalization of England’s divorce laws. But these examples are drawn from what are basically asides, points that are not central to his theme, so the glibness is forgivable. I am just greedy, sometimes I want more from Russell. Oh, except at other times I find a little bit of needless repetition, especially in his multiple references to how traditional moralists are, in effect, making a case for prostitution.
On to the second half….
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 12
Chapter 12 (pages 156-167): “Trial Marriage”
Russell's chapter on trial marriage reaches us, appropriately enough, on a day in which a leading Bavarian politician is in the news -- and under attack -- for suggesting that marriages should last seven years, after which time the partners either agree to a renewal or a dissolution. According to Russell, if there are no kids in the equation, marriages should be easily dissolvable.
Continuing with Russell, in many parts of the world young people are discarding the emphasis upon (female) virtue. This change in morality is most pronounced in the US, thanks to Prohibition and widespread car ownership. “And even where complete relations do not occur, there is so much ‘petting’ and ‘necking’ that the absence of complete intercourse can only be viewed as a perversion [p. 158].” Later, on page 159, Russell says that the behavior of those timid folks who pet for hours but don’t go all the way is debilitating, and makes it impossible to eventually enjoy full sex. And it keeps young people up late (p. 160). On page 162, Russell claims that in England, the practice of heavy petting without full satisfaction is not as common as in the US.
The new morality has problems imposed upon it because it violates conventional morality. “Bootlegged sex is in fact as inferior to what it might be as bootlegged alcohol [p. 158].” They are complementary – violations of the alcohol rules make it easier to violate the sex rules, and the alcohol violations also serve as an aphrodisiac. Sex is “entered into not from affection but from bravado, and at times of intoxication [pp. 158-159].” Underground sex and liquor are consumed in concentrated, unpalatable forms. The moralists have won: while they have not eliminated fornication – indeed, they have unwittingly promoted it – they have made it take place in an unappealing way, “just as they have succeeded in making much of the alcohol consumed as poisonous as they assert all alcohol to be [p. 159].”
This common but underground youthful behavior occasionally comes to the attention of “some guardian of morality [p. 160],” and a public scandal ensues. [This reminds me of how the too-high US drinking age of 21 sometimes results in some kerfuffle, when, horrors, it is discovered that a nineteen year-old was drinking – RBR] The difficulty for the young in acquiring sex education results in many unwanted pregnancies, and dangerous, illegal abortions. Intimacy between parents and the young is undermined by the huge gulf in moral codes. Later, on page 162, Russell says that he thinks the scandalized moralizer is less prevalent in England than in America.
But at least the relative freedom of youth in America should make them less violent and more tolerant as they age, compared to their elders. [I am not sure that this hope of Russell’s was realized; certainly many older people preach to their own kids stricter codes than the ones that they chose to live by when young.]
Starting on page 162, Russell devotes a good deal of attention to a proposal for a new institution of “companionate marriage” made by a Denver judge who lost his job “when it became known that he used it [the proposal] rather to promote the happiness of the young than to give them a consciousness of sin…[p. 162]” Companionate marriage would be a supplement to, not a replacement for, traditional marriage. It would be available for young people who at the time they enter into it, are not intending to have kids. They would be provided with birth control information. Once a couple enters a companionate marriage, if they do not have kids and the wife is not pregnant, mutual consent would be enough to secure a divorce, and there would be no alimony. The idea is to make the relationships of young couples more stable. (Russell says, “Companionate marriage is the proposal of a wise conservative [p. 162],” and he believes (p. 163) it would be a morally beneficial reform.)
Of course, the judge’s proposal was shouted down, often for religious reasons, but no arguments were ever adduced showing that human happiness would be harmed by companionate marriage -- the opponents did not seem to think that happiness mattered.
Russell would go further than companionate marriage; he thinks that any partnership that does not involve kids “should be regarded as a purely private affair [p. 165].” He likes the idea of pre-marital living together, and is concerned about marriages (where children are intended) between people who have not already shared sexual relations. Since kids are the “true purpose of marriage,” perhaps no marriage should be binding until it produces a pregnancy.
People can unite for three purposes: for sex only (as with prostitution); for companionship and sex (as with companionate marriage); or for bringing up kids -- “and no morality can be adequate to modern circumstances which confounds them [these three purposes] in one indiscriminate whole [p. 167].”
Russell's chapter on trial marriage reaches us, appropriately enough, on a day in which a leading Bavarian politician is in the news -- and under attack -- for suggesting that marriages should last seven years, after which time the partners either agree to a renewal or a dissolution. According to Russell, if there are no kids in the equation, marriages should be easily dissolvable.
Continuing with Russell, in many parts of the world young people are discarding the emphasis upon (female) virtue. This change in morality is most pronounced in the US, thanks to Prohibition and widespread car ownership. “And even where complete relations do not occur, there is so much ‘petting’ and ‘necking’ that the absence of complete intercourse can only be viewed as a perversion [p. 158].” Later, on page 159, Russell says that the behavior of those timid folks who pet for hours but don’t go all the way is debilitating, and makes it impossible to eventually enjoy full sex. And it keeps young people up late (p. 160). On page 162, Russell claims that in England, the practice of heavy petting without full satisfaction is not as common as in the US.
The new morality has problems imposed upon it because it violates conventional morality. “Bootlegged sex is in fact as inferior to what it might be as bootlegged alcohol [p. 158].” They are complementary – violations of the alcohol rules make it easier to violate the sex rules, and the alcohol violations also serve as an aphrodisiac. Sex is “entered into not from affection but from bravado, and at times of intoxication [pp. 158-159].” Underground sex and liquor are consumed in concentrated, unpalatable forms. The moralists have won: while they have not eliminated fornication – indeed, they have unwittingly promoted it – they have made it take place in an unappealing way, “just as they have succeeded in making much of the alcohol consumed as poisonous as they assert all alcohol to be [p. 159].”
This common but underground youthful behavior occasionally comes to the attention of “some guardian of morality [p. 160],” and a public scandal ensues. [This reminds me of how the too-high US drinking age of 21 sometimes results in some kerfuffle, when, horrors, it is discovered that a nineteen year-old was drinking – RBR] The difficulty for the young in acquiring sex education results in many unwanted pregnancies, and dangerous, illegal abortions. Intimacy between parents and the young is undermined by the huge gulf in moral codes. Later, on page 162, Russell says that he thinks the scandalized moralizer is less prevalent in England than in America.
But at least the relative freedom of youth in America should make them less violent and more tolerant as they age, compared to their elders. [I am not sure that this hope of Russell’s was realized; certainly many older people preach to their own kids stricter codes than the ones that they chose to live by when young.]
Starting on page 162, Russell devotes a good deal of attention to a proposal for a new institution of “companionate marriage” made by a Denver judge who lost his job “when it became known that he used it [the proposal] rather to promote the happiness of the young than to give them a consciousness of sin…[p. 162]” Companionate marriage would be a supplement to, not a replacement for, traditional marriage. It would be available for young people who at the time they enter into it, are not intending to have kids. They would be provided with birth control information. Once a couple enters a companionate marriage, if they do not have kids and the wife is not pregnant, mutual consent would be enough to secure a divorce, and there would be no alimony. The idea is to make the relationships of young couples more stable. (Russell says, “Companionate marriage is the proposal of a wise conservative [p. 162],” and he believes (p. 163) it would be a morally beneficial reform.)
Of course, the judge’s proposal was shouted down, often for religious reasons, but no arguments were ever adduced showing that human happiness would be harmed by companionate marriage -- the opponents did not seem to think that happiness mattered.
Russell would go further than companionate marriage; he thinks that any partnership that does not involve kids “should be regarded as a purely private affair [p. 165].” He likes the idea of pre-marital living together, and is concerned about marriages (where children are intended) between people who have not already shared sexual relations. Since kids are the “true purpose of marriage,” perhaps no marriage should be binding until it produces a pregnancy.
People can unite for three purposes: for sex only (as with prostitution); for companionship and sex (as with companionate marriage); or for bringing up kids -- “and no morality can be adequate to modern circumstances which confounds them [these three purposes] in one indiscriminate whole [p. 167].”
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 11
Chapter 11 (pages 145-155); “Prostitution”
Russell places the prostitution chapter fast upon the heels of the marriage chapter, which in itself might be revealing. Indeed, he sees marriage and prostitution, under the traditional moral code, as being inextricably linked. If importance is placed upon the “virtue of respectable women,” Russell writes, then prostitution will supplement (or be a piece with) marriage. Moralists might like to believe that if men followed their advice, all would be well – but they know that men will ignore their advice, so it is irrelevant to speak of what would occur if men were to follow the moral guideposts.
Despite the extremely useful social service she provides, the prostitute (since Christian times) has been despised. “The real offence of the prostitute is that she shows up the hollowness of moralistic professions [pp. 146-147].” Sacred prostitutes used to be valued and respected. But with the Church came suppression and a commercialization undertaken to profit the keepers of prostitutes, not the women themselves.
Russell suggests that prostitution is declining (except in South America, citing a recent study) because women have more economic opportunities available and because non-prostitutes are more willing to have extra-marital sex. Russell thinks that prostitution cannot be extirpated, but that there are three good reasons for wishing to minimize it: (1) public health (the most important reason); (2) psychological harm to women; and (3) psychological harm to men.
Venereal disease is spread via prostitution, and attempts to control it via registration have been unsuccessful while occasioning poor treatment of prostitutes and other women by authorities. VD could be combatted better with more information about precautions, but the belief that such knowledge might encourage sin restricts the spread of the necessary guidance.
Prostitution under current circumstances presents “an undesirable kind of life [p. 150].” Besides the risk of disease, it is demoralizing, and promotes excessive alcohol use. Others find prostitution despicable, and it is contrary to instinct (like being a nun, Russell says). But in Japanese circumstances, prostitution is not an undesirable career. Given that prostitution will survive, it is better if it occurs in circumstances like those in Japan, and not those in Europe. The amount of degradation of prostitutes is inversely related to the moral strictness in a society.
Men who are habituated to hiring prostitutes come to think that they do not have to be pleasing to have sex, and at the same time, they are likely to adopt the usual contempt for prostitutes. There will be bad effects, whether a man makes his marital relations more like his relations with prostitutes, or tries to differentiate them further. In the latter case, the man might become incapable of having sex with someone he loves; in the former case, he will forget that his wife needs courting.
Sexual relations involving economic motives tend to be disastrous; they evince a lack of “that respect for the human being as such, out of which all true morality must lie [p. 153].” If a sensitive man engages in such sex (either with prostitutes or within marriage) to satisfy physical urges, he will be led to remorse, which in turn will disorder his “judgments of value [p. 153]”. There is probably, in total, more undesired sex undertaken by wives than by prostitutes.
“Morality in sexual relations… consists essentially of respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires [p. 153].” So even if we take away the degradation and unhealthiness from prostitution, it should still be minimized.
The old argument for prostitution as a form of harm reduction loses force with the new moral code, since non-prostitutes can satisfy male urges in freely formed relations. “The new freedom between young people is, to my mind, wholly a matter of rejoicing, and is producing a generation of men without brutality and women without finicky fastidiousness [p. 155].”
Russell places the prostitution chapter fast upon the heels of the marriage chapter, which in itself might be revealing. Indeed, he sees marriage and prostitution, under the traditional moral code, as being inextricably linked. If importance is placed upon the “virtue of respectable women,” Russell writes, then prostitution will supplement (or be a piece with) marriage. Moralists might like to believe that if men followed their advice, all would be well – but they know that men will ignore their advice, so it is irrelevant to speak of what would occur if men were to follow the moral guideposts.
Despite the extremely useful social service she provides, the prostitute (since Christian times) has been despised. “The real offence of the prostitute is that she shows up the hollowness of moralistic professions [pp. 146-147].” Sacred prostitutes used to be valued and respected. But with the Church came suppression and a commercialization undertaken to profit the keepers of prostitutes, not the women themselves.
Russell suggests that prostitution is declining (except in South America, citing a recent study) because women have more economic opportunities available and because non-prostitutes are more willing to have extra-marital sex. Russell thinks that prostitution cannot be extirpated, but that there are three good reasons for wishing to minimize it: (1) public health (the most important reason); (2) psychological harm to women; and (3) psychological harm to men.
Venereal disease is spread via prostitution, and attempts to control it via registration have been unsuccessful while occasioning poor treatment of prostitutes and other women by authorities. VD could be combatted better with more information about precautions, but the belief that such knowledge might encourage sin restricts the spread of the necessary guidance.
Prostitution under current circumstances presents “an undesirable kind of life [p. 150].” Besides the risk of disease, it is demoralizing, and promotes excessive alcohol use. Others find prostitution despicable, and it is contrary to instinct (like being a nun, Russell says). But in Japanese circumstances, prostitution is not an undesirable career. Given that prostitution will survive, it is better if it occurs in circumstances like those in Japan, and not those in Europe. The amount of degradation of prostitutes is inversely related to the moral strictness in a society.
Men who are habituated to hiring prostitutes come to think that they do not have to be pleasing to have sex, and at the same time, they are likely to adopt the usual contempt for prostitutes. There will be bad effects, whether a man makes his marital relations more like his relations with prostitutes, or tries to differentiate them further. In the latter case, the man might become incapable of having sex with someone he loves; in the former case, he will forget that his wife needs courting.
Sexual relations involving economic motives tend to be disastrous; they evince a lack of “that respect for the human being as such, out of which all true morality must lie [p. 153].” If a sensitive man engages in such sex (either with prostitutes or within marriage) to satisfy physical urges, he will be led to remorse, which in turn will disorder his “judgments of value [p. 153]”. There is probably, in total, more undesired sex undertaken by wives than by prostitutes.
“Morality in sexual relations… consists essentially of respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires [p. 153].” So even if we take away the degradation and unhealthiness from prostitution, it should still be minimized.
The old argument for prostitution as a form of harm reduction loses force with the new moral code, since non-prostitutes can satisfy male urges in freely formed relations. “The new freedom between young people is, to my mind, wholly a matter of rejoicing, and is producing a generation of men without brutality and women without finicky fastidiousness [p. 155].”
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 10
Chapter 10 (pages 130-144): “Marriage”
This chapter abstracts from children, looking at marriage as a relation between men and women. Marriage has legal and religious aspects, though the legal aspects mainly formalize relations that exist even among primitive peoples and some animals. Russell claims that some apes and savages practice monogamy, not out of religious conviction but because this is what is required for successful reproduction. “Even in civilized mankind faint traces of a monogamic instinct can sometimes be perceived [p. 131].” Modern science agrees, to a point.
Economic motives intrude upon monogamy, and are disastrous for sexual relations, by replacing instinctive behavior with market or slave behavior. Wives and kids become economic assets, so sex becomes subordinated to value maximization. Rules around divorce and adultery become complementary to the economic motive; establishing, for instance, the sexual double standard whereby men can divorce their wives but women cannot divorce their husbands. [Russell, incidentally, cites (pages 132-133) Margaret Mead’s 1928 Coming of Age in Samoa for the notion that in some less civilized societies adultery is tolerated.]
With Christianity, the role of religion in marriage intensified, and adultery became an offense against God, while divorce became impossible. But Christianity also viewed women as theological equals with men, not solely their husband’s property. A woman could even leave her husband “for a life of religion [p. 135].” So generally Christianity helped to promote the advance of women.
More civilized people have a harder time finding happiness in a lifelong marriage. In such societies, people are more heterogeneous, so you rightly might think that you would be markedly better off with someone else than your current partner. The Church thinks of marriage from the viewpoint of sex and not congeniality, so it is happy to forbid divorce, despite the human toll lifelong bad matches make.
Men and women who lack the opportunity for extramarital sexual relations will generally find marriage to work well – a sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ argument. (Even if the lack of opportunity is because of strict moral customs and not physical unavailability, this argument will apply.) And the lower the expectations there are for marriages, the more satisfactory marriages will be!
But in modern societies, these situations that tend to generate happy marriages do not exist, and “very few marriages after the first few years are happy [p. 137].” Some of the problems can be overcome by extending the depth of civilization. First, bad sexual education can be ended. Peasant children are better informed about sex, as their opportunities for first-hand observations (including of animals) are enhanced, saving them “from both ignorance and fastidiousness [p. 137].” Alternatively, “[t]he triumph of Christian teaching is when a man and woman marry without either having had previous sexual experience. In nine cases out of ten where this occurs, the results are unfortunate [pp. 137-138].”
Well-brought up women used to think themselves morally superior to men on the grounds that they took less pleasure in sex. Not only is this lack of pleasure not virtuous, it is a shortcoming, “like a failure to enjoy food, which also a hundred years ago was expected of elegant females [p. 139].”
Marital happiness is also compromised by the opportunities for extra-marital sex, which allow the satisfying of an instinct towards polygamy. Even if it is agreed that fidelity is not required within a marriage, jealousy can remain and undermine intimacy.
Marriage has a tendency to make love into a duty, which destroys it, especially as it makes one cut off love from other relationships. (Russell, p. 141, quotes an apposite Shelley poem.) “And like every kind of restrictive morality it tends to promote…a policeman’s outlook upon the whole of human life – the outlook…which is always looking for an opportunity to forbid something [p. 141].”
Easy divorce does not solve the problem, especially if children are involved, even though (p. 142) “every humane person must” agree that divorce has to be made easier in England.
What is the appropriate ethic if kids are involved? Russell promises more on this later (Chapters 13-15), but he gives a bottom line at this stage: “I think that where a marriage is fruitful and both parties to it are reasonable and decent the expectation ought to be that it will be lifelong, but not that it will exclude other sex relations [p. 142].”
So civilized society is not incompatible with marital happiness. It requires (page 143) four conditions: (1) complete equality; (2) “no interference with mutual freedom”; (3) “complete physical and mental intimacy”; and (4) similarity in values. With these conditions, marriage would be “the best and most important relation that can exist between two human beings [p. 143].” It generally falls short, because spouses tend to be cops towards each other.
This chapter abstracts from children, looking at marriage as a relation between men and women. Marriage has legal and religious aspects, though the legal aspects mainly formalize relations that exist even among primitive peoples and some animals. Russell claims that some apes and savages practice monogamy, not out of religious conviction but because this is what is required for successful reproduction. “Even in civilized mankind faint traces of a monogamic instinct can sometimes be perceived [p. 131].” Modern science agrees, to a point.
Economic motives intrude upon monogamy, and are disastrous for sexual relations, by replacing instinctive behavior with market or slave behavior. Wives and kids become economic assets, so sex becomes subordinated to value maximization. Rules around divorce and adultery become complementary to the economic motive; establishing, for instance, the sexual double standard whereby men can divorce their wives but women cannot divorce their husbands. [Russell, incidentally, cites (pages 132-133) Margaret Mead’s 1928 Coming of Age in Samoa for the notion that in some less civilized societies adultery is tolerated.]
With Christianity, the role of religion in marriage intensified, and adultery became an offense against God, while divorce became impossible. But Christianity also viewed women as theological equals with men, not solely their husband’s property. A woman could even leave her husband “for a life of religion [p. 135].” So generally Christianity helped to promote the advance of women.
More civilized people have a harder time finding happiness in a lifelong marriage. In such societies, people are more heterogeneous, so you rightly might think that you would be markedly better off with someone else than your current partner. The Church thinks of marriage from the viewpoint of sex and not congeniality, so it is happy to forbid divorce, despite the human toll lifelong bad matches make.
Men and women who lack the opportunity for extramarital sexual relations will generally find marriage to work well – a sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ argument. (Even if the lack of opportunity is because of strict moral customs and not physical unavailability, this argument will apply.) And the lower the expectations there are for marriages, the more satisfactory marriages will be!
But in modern societies, these situations that tend to generate happy marriages do not exist, and “very few marriages after the first few years are happy [p. 137].” Some of the problems can be overcome by extending the depth of civilization. First, bad sexual education can be ended. Peasant children are better informed about sex, as their opportunities for first-hand observations (including of animals) are enhanced, saving them “from both ignorance and fastidiousness [p. 137].” Alternatively, “[t]he triumph of Christian teaching is when a man and woman marry without either having had previous sexual experience. In nine cases out of ten where this occurs, the results are unfortunate [pp. 137-138].”
Well-brought up women used to think themselves morally superior to men on the grounds that they took less pleasure in sex. Not only is this lack of pleasure not virtuous, it is a shortcoming, “like a failure to enjoy food, which also a hundred years ago was expected of elegant females [p. 139].”
Marital happiness is also compromised by the opportunities for extra-marital sex, which allow the satisfying of an instinct towards polygamy. Even if it is agreed that fidelity is not required within a marriage, jealousy can remain and undermine intimacy.
Marriage has a tendency to make love into a duty, which destroys it, especially as it makes one cut off love from other relationships. (Russell, p. 141, quotes an apposite Shelley poem.) “And like every kind of restrictive morality it tends to promote…a policeman’s outlook upon the whole of human life – the outlook…which is always looking for an opportunity to forbid something [p. 141].”
Easy divorce does not solve the problem, especially if children are involved, even though (p. 142) “every humane person must” agree that divorce has to be made easier in England.
What is the appropriate ethic if kids are involved? Russell promises more on this later (Chapters 13-15), but he gives a bottom line at this stage: “I think that where a marriage is fruitful and both parties to it are reasonable and decent the expectation ought to be that it will be lifelong, but not that it will exclude other sex relations [p. 142].”
So civilized society is not incompatible with marital happiness. It requires (page 143) four conditions: (1) complete equality; (2) “no interference with mutual freedom”; (3) “complete physical and mental intimacy”; and (4) similarity in values. With these conditions, marriage would be “the best and most important relation that can exist between two human beings [p. 143].” It generally falls short, because spouses tend to be cops towards each other.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 9
Chapter 9 (pages 118-129): “The Place of Love in Human Life”
Love receives a lot of attention in literature but is wrongly neglected by social science and politics. Love is very important, and social systems should not interfere with its development. Love is deeply emotional, involving physical and psychological elements that can be intense. Love is more common in some societies than in others (p. 119), because of differing institutions.
“The three main extra-rational activities in modern life are religion, war and love… but love is not anti-rational,… a reasonable man may reasonably rejoice in its existence [p. 119].” Ascetic religions like Christianity result in an unnecessary tension between love and religion. But the greater enemy to love now (especially in America) is “the gospel of work and economic success [p. 120].” Neither work nor love should be completely sacrificed for the other, but men frequently let work overrun love. Russell paints a harrowing picture (pp. 120-121) of the life of a married workaholic and the associated negative social effects: “the lack of sexual satisfaction in both husband and wife turns to hatred of mankind disguised as public spirit and a high moral standard [pp. 121-122].”
“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives [p. 122].” Further, Russell says, “civilized people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love [p. 123].” Nothing like “[h]appy mutual love,” by golly; without it, you are likely to become envious and cruel.
It is hard to distinguish physical desire from love, especially for women who have been taught that they could only possibly want to kiss someone whom they loved. The push for virginity at marriage gets women into traps, because without experience they mistake physical desire for love. Likewise, the idea that love is sinful can undermine the full benefits of love. It makes men bad lovers, who don’t understand that a woman should enjoy sex. Even married couples are quite bottled up by subconscious notions that love is sinful.
Some people are afraid that love will destroy their individuality, but individuality is meant to interact and develop with the world. “Love, children, and work are the greatest sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world [p. 126].” Work undertaken solely for pecuniary gain, like love that is merely possessive, doesn’t produce this fruitful effect. Full mutual love requires a union of egos, so that the beloved’s feelings are felt as intensely as one’s own. This is hard in a competitive society, and in a society that has developed a “foolish cult of personality derived partly from Protestantism and partly from the romantic movement [p. 127].”
The separation of love from sex can lead to an ascetic hatred of sex. Sex without love “has little value, and is to be regarded primarily as experimentation with a view to love [p. 128].” [Russell is simultaneously attacking traditional sexual morality and indiscriminate sexual license.]
With children on the scene, love cannot have the field to itself; the necessary ethic might require that passionate love sometimes be sacrificed to the interests of kids. But generally it is best for kids if their parents are in a state of mutual love, so we should seek to minimize interference with such love.
Love receives a lot of attention in literature but is wrongly neglected by social science and politics. Love is very important, and social systems should not interfere with its development. Love is deeply emotional, involving physical and psychological elements that can be intense. Love is more common in some societies than in others (p. 119), because of differing institutions.
“The three main extra-rational activities in modern life are religion, war and love… but love is not anti-rational,… a reasonable man may reasonably rejoice in its existence [p. 119].” Ascetic religions like Christianity result in an unnecessary tension between love and religion. But the greater enemy to love now (especially in America) is “the gospel of work and economic success [p. 120].” Neither work nor love should be completely sacrificed for the other, but men frequently let work overrun love. Russell paints a harrowing picture (pp. 120-121) of the life of a married workaholic and the associated negative social effects: “the lack of sexual satisfaction in both husband and wife turns to hatred of mankind disguised as public spirit and a high moral standard [pp. 121-122].”
“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives [p. 122].” Further, Russell says, “civilized people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love [p. 123].” Nothing like “[h]appy mutual love,” by golly; without it, you are likely to become envious and cruel.
It is hard to distinguish physical desire from love, especially for women who have been taught that they could only possibly want to kiss someone whom they loved. The push for virginity at marriage gets women into traps, because without experience they mistake physical desire for love. Likewise, the idea that love is sinful can undermine the full benefits of love. It makes men bad lovers, who don’t understand that a woman should enjoy sex. Even married couples are quite bottled up by subconscious notions that love is sinful.
Some people are afraid that love will destroy their individuality, but individuality is meant to interact and develop with the world. “Love, children, and work are the greatest sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world [p. 126].” Work undertaken solely for pecuniary gain, like love that is merely possessive, doesn’t produce this fruitful effect. Full mutual love requires a union of egos, so that the beloved’s feelings are felt as intensely as one’s own. This is hard in a competitive society, and in a society that has developed a “foolish cult of personality derived partly from Protestantism and partly from the romantic movement [p. 127].”
The separation of love from sex can lead to an ascetic hatred of sex. Sex without love “has little value, and is to be regarded primarily as experimentation with a view to love [p. 128].” [Russell is simultaneously attacking traditional sexual morality and indiscriminate sexual license.]
With children on the scene, love cannot have the field to itself; the necessary ethic might require that passionate love sometimes be sacrificed to the interests of kids. But generally it is best for kids if their parents are in a state of mutual love, so we should seek to minimize interference with such love.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 8
Chapter 8 (pages 93-117): “The Taboo on Sex Knowledge”
Just as, in general, proper conduct is aided by knowledge and hindered by ignorance, “[s]exual morality…must be such as to commend itself to well-informed persons and not to depend upon ignorance for its appeal [p. 93].” Of course, one person might want to keep another ignorant so that the second person does not understand his or her own best interests.
Traditionally, sexual ignorance was imposed upon women in service of male domination, but eventually women themselves came to view ignorance as important in inculcating virtue, so kids of both genders were kept ignorant. Russell (quoting from the Guardian) cites the 1929 conviction of Mary Ware Dennett for sending obscene literature through the mails; her highly regarded pamphlet explaining the fundamentals of sex to schoolchildren motivated the prosecution. But is it desirable to keep children ignorant about sex?
The recent tradition is that kids don’t see their parents naked, nor their opposite sex siblings. They are told not to touch their sex organs and hushed when they talk about them. They get the facts, garbled, from other kids, and these facts are regarded as dirty. Kids then understand that their parents behaved in this dirty fashion, which must be shameful, too, given the efforts taken to conceal it. “They learnt also that they had been systematically deceived by those to whom they had looked for guidance and instruction. Their attitude towards their parents, towards marriage, and towards the opposite sex was thus irrevocably poisoned [p. 98].” Sex and marriage become cruel and unsatisfying.
Moralists hope to keep girls ignorant until marriage, and to convince boys “that masturbation invariably leads to insanity” and sex “with prostitutes invariably leads to venereal disease [p. 99].” The moralists continue: “Unfortunately, unless great pains are taken, the sexual act tends to be associated with pleasure, but by sufficient moral care this can be prevented, at any rate in the female [p. 100].”
Checking a child’s interest in sex stifles his entire scientific curiosity – what other matters that he is curious about will bring a reproof? Perhaps only those that are not very interesting. Women’s educational development is hurt more, since their sex curiosity is more forcefully repressed. Meanwhile, the sex lies about storks and such lead kids to question their parents’ reliability more generally. “The effects of the conventional treatment of sex in dealing with the young are therefore to make people stupid, deceitful and timorous, and to drive a not inconsiderable percentage over the border line into insanity or something like it [p. 103].”
The shielding of kids from sex knowledge makes them even more curious about it, and engenders the idea that some things are obscene. Tell them what they want to know and they will not obsess over sex.
Russell relates (pp. 105-106) his experience with his own young children and other children at his school [Russell and his wife founded a school in 1927 -- RBR], where sex and excrement are spoken of in the same manner as other topics. His children are interested in where babies come from, but they are more interested in trains. Children who come to the school at ages 6 or 7 already believe in indecency, and when first given license to speak about sex, use the privilege to excess. When they find that the topic does not draw rebuke, they tire of it.
Russell says that the biologically close connection between sex and excretion means that adults dealing with kids “shouldn’t be too fastidious as regards the excretory processes [p. 107]” – lest sex be tainted with some of the disgust engendered for excretion. When kids are old enough to understand, “it should be explained that the reason for these precautions [around excrement] is merely sanitary and not that there is anything inherently disgusting about the natural functions concerned [p. 107].”
Russell turns to obscenity law in the US and Britain, and notes that an obscene book is one that the magistrate finds objectionable. [To some extent this is still the case, except that Russell’s other point (pp. 108-109), that this determination is made without any regard to the potential useful purposes of the material, does not reflect the current US standard, where any publication with serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit could not be suppressed as obscene – RBR] Russell mentions the British action against Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex as an example of how serious scientific work is suppressed by obscenity law. Ellis’s case studies illustrated the poverty of existing approaches to sex education, but the law prevents us from having the data that would allow us to make better judgments.
Russell next (page 110) brings up the suppression of a novel with a homosexual theme. Homosexuality between men is illegal in England (that is, it was illegal in 1929) – how can it be possible to argue to change this law, if any attempt to do so will be suppressed as an obscene utterance? “And yet every person who has taken the trouble to study the subject knows that this law is the effect of a barbarous and ignorant superstition, in favour of which no rational argument of any sort or kind can be advanced [pp. 110-111].” Likewise, it is hard to discuss legally laws about incest.
The British law will allow the discussion of sex if it is couched in language that only the highly educated will understand: “Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet on birth control, which is addressed to working women, was declared obscene on the ground that working women could understand it [p. 111].” But the books of Marie Stopes are legal, because they are within the purview only of the educated. Birth control can only legally be taught to the well-to-do. “I commend this fact to the notice of the Eugenic Society, which is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people, while carefully abstaining from any attempt to change the state of the law which is the cause of this fact [p. 112].” [This reminds me that Russell’s godfather J. Stuart Mill had a run-in with the police as a teenager for disseminating birth control information to the working class -- RBR.]
Russell is against obscenity laws, on two grounds: (1) any such law will eliminate good material along with bad (and simultaneously let much of the bad get by); and (2) the harm from pornography would be minor “if sex education were rational [p. 112].” In providing evidence for the first point, Russell notes (p. 114) the “courageous campaign” waged by Russell’s Marriage and Morals publisher, Horace Liveright [great name] on behalf of a play dealing with female homosexuality. With respect to the second point, Russell notes again that the suppression of pornography will stoke interest in it. When young, most well-to-do men have come across pornography, and the conventional types suggest that these images did not harm themselves but would harm others. Russell goes on to argue that what is commonly seen by men stops being a prod to lust, so that if nakedness were the norm “women would be forced, as they are in certain savage tribes, to adopt clothing as a means of making themselves sexually attractive [p. 115].”
“The more prudes restrict the permissible degree of sexual appeal, the less is required to make such an appeal effective [p. 115].” Most interest in pornography is stoked by the notions of indecency foisted upon the young. The remaining part is physiological and will arise from one cause or another in any case.
Russell recognizes (page 116) that few will agree with him on the undesirability of any legal controls on obscene publications.
“It is good for children to see each other and their parents naked whenever it so happens naturally [p. 116].” To avoid nakedness is to cloak it with mystery, making it seem indecent. Russell also praises the healthful properties of nakedness in sunlight and water, both for kids and adults. If it were common, it would make our perceptions of beauty coincide more closely with health. “In this respect the practice of the Greeks was to be commended [p. 117].”
Just as, in general, proper conduct is aided by knowledge and hindered by ignorance, “[s]exual morality…must be such as to commend itself to well-informed persons and not to depend upon ignorance for its appeal [p. 93].” Of course, one person might want to keep another ignorant so that the second person does not understand his or her own best interests.
Traditionally, sexual ignorance was imposed upon women in service of male domination, but eventually women themselves came to view ignorance as important in inculcating virtue, so kids of both genders were kept ignorant. Russell (quoting from the Guardian) cites the 1929 conviction of Mary Ware Dennett for sending obscene literature through the mails; her highly regarded pamphlet explaining the fundamentals of sex to schoolchildren motivated the prosecution. But is it desirable to keep children ignorant about sex?
The recent tradition is that kids don’t see their parents naked, nor their opposite sex siblings. They are told not to touch their sex organs and hushed when they talk about them. They get the facts, garbled, from other kids, and these facts are regarded as dirty. Kids then understand that their parents behaved in this dirty fashion, which must be shameful, too, given the efforts taken to conceal it. “They learnt also that they had been systematically deceived by those to whom they had looked for guidance and instruction. Their attitude towards their parents, towards marriage, and towards the opposite sex was thus irrevocably poisoned [p. 98].” Sex and marriage become cruel and unsatisfying.
Moralists hope to keep girls ignorant until marriage, and to convince boys “that masturbation invariably leads to insanity” and sex “with prostitutes invariably leads to venereal disease [p. 99].” The moralists continue: “Unfortunately, unless great pains are taken, the sexual act tends to be associated with pleasure, but by sufficient moral care this can be prevented, at any rate in the female [p. 100].”
Checking a child’s interest in sex stifles his entire scientific curiosity – what other matters that he is curious about will bring a reproof? Perhaps only those that are not very interesting. Women’s educational development is hurt more, since their sex curiosity is more forcefully repressed. Meanwhile, the sex lies about storks and such lead kids to question their parents’ reliability more generally. “The effects of the conventional treatment of sex in dealing with the young are therefore to make people stupid, deceitful and timorous, and to drive a not inconsiderable percentage over the border line into insanity or something like it [p. 103].”
The shielding of kids from sex knowledge makes them even more curious about it, and engenders the idea that some things are obscene. Tell them what they want to know and they will not obsess over sex.
Russell relates (pp. 105-106) his experience with his own young children and other children at his school [Russell and his wife founded a school in 1927 -- RBR], where sex and excrement are spoken of in the same manner as other topics. His children are interested in where babies come from, but they are more interested in trains. Children who come to the school at ages 6 or 7 already believe in indecency, and when first given license to speak about sex, use the privilege to excess. When they find that the topic does not draw rebuke, they tire of it.
Russell says that the biologically close connection between sex and excretion means that adults dealing with kids “shouldn’t be too fastidious as regards the excretory processes [p. 107]” – lest sex be tainted with some of the disgust engendered for excretion. When kids are old enough to understand, “it should be explained that the reason for these precautions [around excrement] is merely sanitary and not that there is anything inherently disgusting about the natural functions concerned [p. 107].”
Russell turns to obscenity law in the US and Britain, and notes that an obscene book is one that the magistrate finds objectionable. [To some extent this is still the case, except that Russell’s other point (pp. 108-109), that this determination is made without any regard to the potential useful purposes of the material, does not reflect the current US standard, where any publication with serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit could not be suppressed as obscene – RBR] Russell mentions the British action against Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex as an example of how serious scientific work is suppressed by obscenity law. Ellis’s case studies illustrated the poverty of existing approaches to sex education, but the law prevents us from having the data that would allow us to make better judgments.
Russell next (page 110) brings up the suppression of a novel with a homosexual theme. Homosexuality between men is illegal in England (that is, it was illegal in 1929) – how can it be possible to argue to change this law, if any attempt to do so will be suppressed as an obscene utterance? “And yet every person who has taken the trouble to study the subject knows that this law is the effect of a barbarous and ignorant superstition, in favour of which no rational argument of any sort or kind can be advanced [pp. 110-111].” Likewise, it is hard to discuss legally laws about incest.
The British law will allow the discussion of sex if it is couched in language that only the highly educated will understand: “Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet on birth control, which is addressed to working women, was declared obscene on the ground that working women could understand it [p. 111].” But the books of Marie Stopes are legal, because they are within the purview only of the educated. Birth control can only legally be taught to the well-to-do. “I commend this fact to the notice of the Eugenic Society, which is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people, while carefully abstaining from any attempt to change the state of the law which is the cause of this fact [p. 112].” [This reminds me that Russell’s godfather J. Stuart Mill had a run-in with the police as a teenager for disseminating birth control information to the working class -- RBR.]
Russell is against obscenity laws, on two grounds: (1) any such law will eliminate good material along with bad (and simultaneously let much of the bad get by); and (2) the harm from pornography would be minor “if sex education were rational [p. 112].” In providing evidence for the first point, Russell notes (p. 114) the “courageous campaign” waged by Russell’s Marriage and Morals publisher, Horace Liveright [great name] on behalf of a play dealing with female homosexuality. With respect to the second point, Russell notes again that the suppression of pornography will stoke interest in it. When young, most well-to-do men have come across pornography, and the conventional types suggest that these images did not harm themselves but would harm others. Russell goes on to argue that what is commonly seen by men stops being a prod to lust, so that if nakedness were the norm “women would be forced, as they are in certain savage tribes, to adopt clothing as a means of making themselves sexually attractive [p. 115].”
“The more prudes restrict the permissible degree of sexual appeal, the less is required to make such an appeal effective [p. 115].” Most interest in pornography is stoked by the notions of indecency foisted upon the young. The remaining part is physiological and will arise from one cause or another in any case.
Russell recognizes (page 116) that few will agree with him on the undesirability of any legal controls on obscene publications.
“It is good for children to see each other and their parents naked whenever it so happens naturally [p. 116].” To avoid nakedness is to cloak it with mystery, making it seem indecent. Russell also praises the healthful properties of nakedness in sunlight and water, both for kids and adults. If it were common, it would make our perceptions of beauty coincide more closely with health. “In this respect the practice of the Greeks was to be commended [p. 117].”
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Marriage and Morals, Chapter 7
Chapter 7 (pages 78-92): “The Liberation of Women”
The ongoing transition in sexual mores primarily derives from the invention of contraceptives and the emancipation of women. Freedom for women is part of the movement towards democracy, and can be traced from the French Revolution through Mary Wollstonecraft to John Stuart Mill. [So Russell has gotten around to bringing up, here, Mill’s Subjection of Women.] Russell tells a personal anecdote: his parents were disciples of Mill and committed to the emancipation of women. Russell’s birth was overseen (through his mother’s choice) by “the first woman doctor [p. 79],” who was not allowed to be fully certified. The feminist movement of his parents’ generation did not get very far with the right to vote, but they succeeded in passing the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which allowed married women (and not their husbands) to control their own property. The rapid acquisition of political rights by women in advanced countries is unprecedented, though it is paralleled by the abolition of slavery: “but after all slavery did not exist in European countries in modern times, and did not concern anything so intimate as the relations of men and women [p. 80].”
The rapid advance of women can be traced to the near impossibility of reconciling democracy with their subjection, and to the increased numbers of women (particularly during the war [WWI -- RBR]) earning money outside the home. Prior to the war, an argument aimed at keeping women from voting was that they would tend to be pacifists, but their contributions to the war cause (“their share in the bloody work [p. 81]”) put the lie to this. Those who hoped that securing the right to vote for women would improve the moral tone of political life had their hopes dashed: “it seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals [p. 81].” But the real case for women’s right to vote had nothing to do with any “peculiar merits” of women in the first place.
But here, Russell says, he is concerned with the social emancipation of women, not their political emancipation. Previously (and still in the East), women’s virtue was secured via seclusion. In the West, alternatively, they have been propagandized from childhood to abhor non-marital sex. The mental barriers were thought to substitute for physical ones. “The women of the Victorian age were, and a great many women still are, in a mental prison [p. 83].” But recently there has been a “reappearance in consciousness of instinctive desires which had been buried beneath mountains of prudery [p. 83].” Most champions of women’s rights were themselves “rigid moralists,” who sought to impose upon men the controls heretofore placed only upon women.
Things have changed since about 1914. “The motives of female virtue in the past were chiefly the fear of hell-fire and the fear of pregnancy; the one was removed by the decay of theological orthodoxy, the other by contraceptives [p. 84].” Now feminists seek equality with men in moral freedom, not (by restraining male ‘vices’) in moral slavery.
The young have this new morality, and most of the old are unaware of it. This situation is unstable. In some places, the old will successfully suppress the changes, and in others, the young will get the upper hand as they succeed to the positions of power, thereby cementing the changed morality.
Men have always been allowed, as a practical matter, to engage in non-marital sex, and this cannot change, no matter what the moralists say. So the moralists must either permit young unmarried men to have sex with prostitutes, or with unmarried women of their own class. But the latter is anathema to moralists, who are (again, in practice) committed to the double standard whereby sex by males outside of marriage is no big deal but terribly bad for women. So moralists, in effect, support male sex with prostitutes. “Moralists, of course, do not think out the consequences of advocating a morality which they know will not be obeyed; they think that so long as they do not advocate prostitution they are not responsible for the fact that prostitution is the inevitable outcome of their teaching [p.87].” Russell goes on to say that this reasoning is more evidence that professional moralists are a bit dim.
Equality between the sexes therefore requires tolerance of non-marital sex, and indeed, in places with more adult women than men, it also is required to prevent some women from being “wholly debarred from sexual experience [p. 88].”
But without female chastity and wifely faithfulness, how to safeguard the family or perhaps, instead, to “acquiesce in the breakup of the family?” One solution is that procreative sex could be limited to being within marriages, with husbands tolerating their wives’ non-procreative affairs. “The difficulty of such a scheme as yet is that it requires us to place more reliance on the efficacy of contraceptives and the truthfulness of wives than seems rational; this difficulty may, however, be diminished before long [p. 89; Russell anticipates DNA testing and the pill! -- RBR].” Alternatively, the institution of fatherhood could decay, and the state could step partly into the role. All kids would be like illegitimate kids are now, but the government would see to their upbringing more attentively.
But what if the goal is to re-establish the old morality? Then girls must be kept uneducated, superstitious, and stupid, as occurs in schools controlled by churches, and sex information must be censored. But these alone will not suffice without secluding girls. For instance, they can’t be allowed to work outside the home or to own a car. Perhaps the virginity of unmarried women can be checked monthly by “police doctors [p. 91]”, and further heavy-handed measures, conducted for a century, might “do something to stem the rising tide of immorality [p. 91].” But probably even this won’t suffice, and the moralists should require that all non-clergy males be castrated. (Russell suggests in a footnote that he might remove the exception for the clergy now that he has read Elmer Gantry.)
Either restoring the old morality, or allowing the new morality to grow without restraint, poses severe problems. So “we shall need a genuinely new morality [p. 92],” and the remainder of the book hopes to contribute to pointing the way.
The ongoing transition in sexual mores primarily derives from the invention of contraceptives and the emancipation of women. Freedom for women is part of the movement towards democracy, and can be traced from the French Revolution through Mary Wollstonecraft to John Stuart Mill. [So Russell has gotten around to bringing up, here, Mill’s Subjection of Women.] Russell tells a personal anecdote: his parents were disciples of Mill and committed to the emancipation of women. Russell’s birth was overseen (through his mother’s choice) by “the first woman doctor [p. 79],” who was not allowed to be fully certified. The feminist movement of his parents’ generation did not get very far with the right to vote, but they succeeded in passing the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which allowed married women (and not their husbands) to control their own property. The rapid acquisition of political rights by women in advanced countries is unprecedented, though it is paralleled by the abolition of slavery: “but after all slavery did not exist in European countries in modern times, and did not concern anything so intimate as the relations of men and women [p. 80].”
The rapid advance of women can be traced to the near impossibility of reconciling democracy with their subjection, and to the increased numbers of women (particularly during the war [WWI -- RBR]) earning money outside the home. Prior to the war, an argument aimed at keeping women from voting was that they would tend to be pacifists, but their contributions to the war cause (“their share in the bloody work [p. 81]”) put the lie to this. Those who hoped that securing the right to vote for women would improve the moral tone of political life had their hopes dashed: “it seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals [p. 81].” But the real case for women’s right to vote had nothing to do with any “peculiar merits” of women in the first place.
But here, Russell says, he is concerned with the social emancipation of women, not their political emancipation. Previously (and still in the East), women’s virtue was secured via seclusion. In the West, alternatively, they have been propagandized from childhood to abhor non-marital sex. The mental barriers were thought to substitute for physical ones. “The women of the Victorian age were, and a great many women still are, in a mental prison [p. 83].” But recently there has been a “reappearance in consciousness of instinctive desires which had been buried beneath mountains of prudery [p. 83].” Most champions of women’s rights were themselves “rigid moralists,” who sought to impose upon men the controls heretofore placed only upon women.
Things have changed since about 1914. “The motives of female virtue in the past were chiefly the fear of hell-fire and the fear of pregnancy; the one was removed by the decay of theological orthodoxy, the other by contraceptives [p. 84].” Now feminists seek equality with men in moral freedom, not (by restraining male ‘vices’) in moral slavery.
The young have this new morality, and most of the old are unaware of it. This situation is unstable. In some places, the old will successfully suppress the changes, and in others, the young will get the upper hand as they succeed to the positions of power, thereby cementing the changed morality.
Men have always been allowed, as a practical matter, to engage in non-marital sex, and this cannot change, no matter what the moralists say. So the moralists must either permit young unmarried men to have sex with prostitutes, or with unmarried women of their own class. But the latter is anathema to moralists, who are (again, in practice) committed to the double standard whereby sex by males outside of marriage is no big deal but terribly bad for women. So moralists, in effect, support male sex with prostitutes. “Moralists, of course, do not think out the consequences of advocating a morality which they know will not be obeyed; they think that so long as they do not advocate prostitution they are not responsible for the fact that prostitution is the inevitable outcome of their teaching [p.87].” Russell goes on to say that this reasoning is more evidence that professional moralists are a bit dim.
Equality between the sexes therefore requires tolerance of non-marital sex, and indeed, in places with more adult women than men, it also is required to prevent some women from being “wholly debarred from sexual experience [p. 88].”
But without female chastity and wifely faithfulness, how to safeguard the family or perhaps, instead, to “acquiesce in the breakup of the family?” One solution is that procreative sex could be limited to being within marriages, with husbands tolerating their wives’ non-procreative affairs. “The difficulty of such a scheme as yet is that it requires us to place more reliance on the efficacy of contraceptives and the truthfulness of wives than seems rational; this difficulty may, however, be diminished before long [p. 89; Russell anticipates DNA testing and the pill! -- RBR].” Alternatively, the institution of fatherhood could decay, and the state could step partly into the role. All kids would be like illegitimate kids are now, but the government would see to their upbringing more attentively.
But what if the goal is to re-establish the old morality? Then girls must be kept uneducated, superstitious, and stupid, as occurs in schools controlled by churches, and sex information must be censored. But these alone will not suffice without secluding girls. For instance, they can’t be allowed to work outside the home or to own a car. Perhaps the virginity of unmarried women can be checked monthly by “police doctors [p. 91]”, and further heavy-handed measures, conducted for a century, might “do something to stem the rising tide of immorality [p. 91].” But probably even this won’t suffice, and the moralists should require that all non-clergy males be castrated. (Russell suggests in a footnote that he might remove the exception for the clergy now that he has read Elmer Gantry.)
Either restoring the old morality, or allowing the new morality to grow without restraint, poses severe problems. So “we shall need a genuinely new morality [p. 92],” and the remainder of the book hopes to contribute to pointing the way.
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