A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 18 - Comparison of Our Sex Relations with Yours]
[T]he exercise of the sexual function is an expenditure of vital
energy; and, therefore, the person who has the sexual function so
adjusted that he exercises it only for the special purpose of
reproduction, is the most complete person sexually; while he who
exercises it most excessively, or who is most passionately prompted to
exercise it most excessively, either in a married state, as you have
it here, or under individual freedom, is the most incomplete or
licentious person sexually.
[Cooperative individualists] have removed the causes of unchastity
and are therefore living a comparatively pure life. Let us see now
whether we can find the causes producing the purity in the inferior
animals and the impurity in your human beings, as they now live.
[A]s we descend in the scale of animal life, from man downward, they
become more and more prolific. In the lower orders of life, millions
must die in order to give room and opportunity for a few to live. The
struggle for existence in the orders below man is so fierce that, with
their present prolificness, only a few of the fittest can survive.
Those individuals, who are most perfect at birth, and who direct their
vital energy most economically in harmony with the so-called laws of
life, survive; while the weakly born and the licentious ones must
perish in the fierce struggle for existence. Hence, the phenomena of
evolution forces the inferior animal to live a chaste life, or perish
from the effect of expending unnecessary energy.
[I]n a state of perfect sexual freedom the human being, like the
inferior animal, does live a comparatively chaste life. As evolution
gradually develops the higher intellectual faculties of man, a keener
sense of appreciating a faultless body and a highly cultivated mind is
continually produced, so that he feels more and more reluctant to
waste his animal forces in licentious acts which impair the physical
and mental capacities after which he is seeking, and with out which no
one can be really happy.
The inferior animal lives by virtue of comparatively few and simple
functions, while man lives by many and complex ones. The animal, then,
is harder pressed for room and opportunity, and lives by virtue of
fewer functions than man. If the brute animal violates one of its few
functions, it must perish in the hard struggle for existence; while
man, on the other hand, is enabled to live by his many complex
functions in a milder struggle, even if he does violate to a certain
degree the sexual function.
Your present human being, then, is on the one hand so complex that
the partial violation of one of his many complex functions does not
cause him to perish directly like the inferior animal, while on the
other hand, his higher faculties of keenly appreciating the highest
physical perfection and mental eminence are, as yet, not sufficiently
developed to turn his steps only on the path of virtue and purity. You
do not esteem life and health as highly as we do. But as intellectual
development continues, you will gradually feel that every act that
conduces to the fullness of life, individually and socially, produces
happiness as a whole, and is therefore right; while every act that
detracts from the fullness of life, individually and socially,
produces unhappiness as a whole, and is therefore wrong.
Now, in order to find the causes of unchastity, let us enumerate some
of the differences existing between our and your system of sex
relation.
1. You marry for life; we do not.
2. Your church and state interfere with your sexual affairs; we leave
it in the hands of the individual the same as in the case of the
inferior animal.
3. Our women are not financially dependent on the man; yours, as a
rule, are.
4. Our women have the privilege of soliciting the love of any man
whose sexual co-operation they desire; yours have not.
5. In a state of sexual freedom, the woman regulates her own sexual
affairs to suit herself; in a state of marriage, or, in other words,
interference of church and state, the man or husband largely runs the
sexual affairs to suit himself the same as he runs the financial and
political affairs.
6. We invariably room alone, both men and women; under your marriage
system your husband and wife invariably room and lodge together.
7. You make your women dependent creatures by not financially
compensating maternal labor the same as mining, farming, etc. ; we
make her independent because we pay her the same compensation for
maternal work as we do for any other labor.
8. You shift the burden of parental cares almost exclusively off unto
the mother; while we act on the supposition that we have all received
parental care during our infancy, and that we in turn should do the
same for some one else, whether we are parents or not; to neglect this
would make us shirks, for we would not be paying for what we received
during our infancy.
9. We teach the laws of sexuality to our children of all ages; you
try to hide all knowledge of it. Hence, we make intelligence the
safeguard of sexual purity, while you make ignorance the safeguard of
it.
You must remember that every age always had the best of everything,
perhaps better than any preceding age. [A]ll wrong arises from
ignorance. Hence, there can be but one line of advancement, and that
line is by the way of acquiring more and more intelligence, which, on
the one hand, tends to adjust and perfect voluntary co-operation on
the highest possible scale, while, on the other hand, it tends to give
more and more freedom to the individual. Any proposed improvement
which does not bear these marks is not in the line of progress. If our
sex relation is more nearly in harmony with these principles, it is
better than yours; if yours is more so, yours is the better. We must
continually strive to improve what we have. Only a faultless thing is
good enough. Improvement should cease only when perfection makes
further improvement impossible.
The way to test a system is to analyze it; to look at all its parts
and relations; to endeavor to find all the faults we can; to compare
it impartially with any system that may be offered in place of it. We
should never try to cover up the defects by a few merits which it may
contain. A truthful system contains not a single demerit. If it does
it is faulty, and the faults should be eliminated.
The question is not whether we are honest and sincere, but whether we
are right and just. Is our view correct or is it erroneous? Have we
thoroughly and impartially examined every side of our position, or
have we, too, been educated and raised in an atmosphere of
superstition, prejudice and jealousy, like the soldier, mother, widow,
etc.?
According to the doctrine of evolution, the only theory of the
genesis of man, which is supported by science, man slowly, through the
lapse of countless ages, evolved from lower organisms by the agency of
the survival of the fittest, etc. This implies, then, that all our
ancestors were at one time savages.
We all know that the savage in the lowest stages of barbarism, even
as he now exists, steals and forcibly takes his wife or wives from
other tribes, etc. He also often forces captives to become his wives.
Somewhat later in the stage of social development, the man generally
buys his wives without their consultation. At a still later period the
old folks, instead of the young folks who are to be married, make the
bargain. And still later on, the period in which you are now living,
young boys and girls give each other away for life; at an age, too,
you must remember, when they are young, inexperienced and blinded by
first love. No amount of after-knowledge on the sexual relations is of
any value to the contracting parties as far as the contract is
concerned, for, according to your doctrine, the parties are
indissolubly bound together for life as man and wife. According to
your marriage system, they are supposed to live together for life,
whether they love each other or not. Whether they afterward quarrel or
love some one else better cannot be taken into account. Nothing less
than the crudest abuse enables them to secure a divorce, and even then
the divorced parties are looked upon with scorn and contempt.
Your church and state interfere with the marriage as well as with the
dissolution of it. You can clearly see, then, that your system of
marriage is based upon force, which, it is true, has gradually
diminished from the lowest stages of barbarism, when the husband stole
his wife, to the present time, when the contracting parties give each
other away for life under a contract which they are not at liberty to
make or dissolve without the interference of church and state.
The evil consequences of binding promises can be easily seen when we
bear in mind that, in a progressive world, we know more to-morrow than
we know to-day.
Also, that harmony implies absence of external coercion; for, all
external coercion being social discord, a promise that appears just
and feels agreeable when measured with to-day s knowledge, may appear
unjust and become disagreeable when measured with the standard of
to-morrow's knowledge; and in so far as the fulfillment of a promise
becomes disagreeable or impossible, no matter what the promise may be,
it is an element of discord, and discord is the opposite of harmony.
Hence, before you can hope to enjoy uninterrupted harmony, your
institutions must be so molded that there is no place in them for a
binding promise. In regard to the sexual relations, nothing but mutual
inclination should be made the bonds of union. If you have closely
followed my narrative, you will have discovered long before this time,
we have no binding promises. In our just systems, we can not apply
them any place, and we know of them only as relics of past crudity.
CONTENTS
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