sex and marriage

Chapter 16 Trial Marriage
According to rational moral standards, a marriage without children is not valid, and a marriage without children is also easy to break down.Sexual relations between men and women can only win legal recognition through children, and can have significance for society.Of course, this is not the view of the Church.Under the influence of St. Paul, the Church considered marriage not a means of procreation, but a form of fornication.In recent years, however, even clergymen have realized that young people, men and women, do not wait until marriage to experience sexual intercourse.

When it comes to men, they are more easily forgiven for their indiscretions in soliciting prostitutes, as long as they are not known.But for those women who do not take prostitution as a profession, those traditional moralists find it difficult to forgive their so-called infidelity.But the situation has changed considerably in the United States, Britain, Germany and Scandinavia since the European war.Many women of good families no longer saw any point in maintaining their "virginity," and young men did not need to seek out prostitutes for their outlets, since they could have sex with the girls they wanted to marry (if they were wealthy).It's more common in America than in England, thanks, I suppose, to Prohibition and the popularity of cars.Due to Prohibition, it has become an essential social etiquette at all joyous gatherings for everyone to be slightly drunk or very drunk.Since the vast majority of girls own private cars, it is very easy for them to elope with their lovers, avoiding the eyes and ears of their parents and neighbors.The consequences of such things are described in Judge Lindsay's book.The elders accused him of exaggerating, but not the younger ones.As a casual tourist, I tried to ask young people how they felt about the veracity of Lindsay's words.I found that none of them denied what he said was true.In the United States, the vast majority of married women with high social status seem to have had sexual experience before marriage, and often have more than one lover.Even when there is no explicit relationship, there will be acts of caressing and kissing, and there will be no absolute sexual intercourse, which can only be regarded as an anomaly.

I dare not say that the present situation is satisfactory.It has certain undesirable characteristics that traditional moralists object to, and these characteristics will not be eliminated until traditional morality has not changed.In fact, illicit sex is just as despicable as illicit drinking.I don't think anyone can deny that, in America with rich assets.Alcoholism is much higher among young people, especially young women, than it was before Prohibition.For in defrauding the law there is always a certain interest, and a cunning and self-satisfaction.Just as one can cheat the law about drinking, one can also cheat traditional morality about sex.Moreover, such daring behavior was even considered sexually arousing.Thus, sexual relations among young people are taken in a very stupid way.They do this not out of love, but out of courage, and often in a drunken state.Sex, then, takes the form of alcoholism, usually short and tasteless, because it is the only way to escape the surveillance of the authorities.

In my opinion, that kind of noble, reasonable and sincere extramarital sex is rare in the United States.On this point the moralists have already won.Instead of stopping adultery, they made it an interesting and more common practice.But their triumph is that they have made fornication almost, as they say, an injunction, as they have made wine, as they say, poison.They instill in the youth that sex is a lonely affair, alien to everyday intercourse and work and all psychological intimacy.Although the more timid youth did not reach the point of purely sexual relations, they produced a persistent stimulation due to sexual dissatisfaction.finally.This stimulation leads to neurasthenia and makes full sexual enjoyment difficult or impossible.But the sexual stimulation which prevails among the youth of the United States has produced another evil, namely, the failure of work and the lack of sleep which necessarily consume so much time.

While traditional morality continues to prevail, a serious and often harmful problem arises.As soon as the conduct of young people reaches the ears of certain moral guardians, these young people lose their conscience, and henceforth indulge in fornication and vile secret deeds.Unintended pregnancies are common because young Americans do not have adequate access to contraceptive methods.The solution to this problem is usually abortion, but abortion is dangerous, painful, illegal, and extremely difficult to keep secret.in contemporary America.There is another unfortunate consequence, which arises from the very different morality of the young from that of the old.The so-called unfortunate result is the lack of real intimacy or friendship between parent and child, and the impossibility of parents to help children by counsel and sympathy.When young people are in trouble, they cannot tell their parents about it, because it would arouse their anger—if not sarcasm, it must be some kind of hysteria.After the child enters youth, the parents no longer give any guidance that is beneficial to the child.In comparison, the islanders of the Trobriand Islands appear to be more educated.There, a father would say to his daughter's lover: "It is good that you sleep with my child, please marry her!"

Although we are talking about America's ills, American youth have more opportunities for emancipation than their predecessors.They are better able to avoid secrecy, and more free from the shackles of authority that has no theoretical basis.And I also think that these young people are not as cruel, rude and unkind as their elders.In the olden days American life had been marked by violent acts of extinguishing those anarchic impulses.Because such impulses cannot be vented in sex.We hope that the present generation of young people, when they reach middle age, will completely forget the behavior of their youth and adopt a tolerant attitude towards sexual experimentation.However, this kind of sexual experimentation is unlikely to be widespread at present, so it must be carried out in secret.

The situation in England is much the same as in America, although, due to the lack of alcohol laws and the shortage of cars, it is not to the same extent as in America, but I think that in Britain, especially in continental Europe, the kind of behavior that is enforced for lack of maximum satisfaction The phenomenon of sexual stimulation is much less than in the United States.On the whole, in England the dignified people are far less disapproving than in the United States, although there are certain exceptions.The difference between the two countries, however, is only of degree.

Judge Ben B. Lindsay has long presided over the Denver juvenile courts and, as such, has an excellent opportunity to gain practice.He proposed a new system, which he called "trial marriage".Unfortunately, he lost his job because of this.Because when the Ku Klux Klan and the Catholics knew he was advocating the system to promote the happiness of the youth, not to make them realize that sex was a sin, they banded together to drive him out.In fact, trial marriage is a sensible conservative proposal aimed at consolidating youthful sexual relations and eradicating existing sexual promiscuity.He pointed out that one obvious fact that hinders youth marriage is lack of financial resources.Money is needed in a marriage partly because of the upbringing of the children and partly because the wife cannot support herself.He believed that youth should adopt a new form of marriage, which differed from ordinary marriage in three respects.First, they should not wish to have children for the time being, so young couples should obtain the most scientific contraceptive knowledge; second, as long as they have no children and the wife is not pregnant, they can divorce with mutual consent; third, when divorced, the wife No right to alimony.He was sure that, if such a system were recognized by law, the vast majority of youth would.For example, college students will enter into a more lasting partnership.Such a relationship would involve a common life and would avoid the Dionysian features of present sexual relations.I feel the same way.He presented evidence that young students who were married performed better than unmarried young students.Apparently, work and sex are more likely to come together in longer-lasting relationships than in messy and exciting infidelities and booze.The claim that two young people live together is more expensive than living alone is groundless.Therefore, the current economic reasons for delaying marriage cannot be established.I have no doubt that Judge Lindsay's proposals, if enacted into law, would have had such a highly salutary effect, that they would have been recognized as salutary even from a moral point of view.

However, Judge Lindsay's proposal caused panic among all middle-aged Americans and most newspapers.It was said that he was violating the sanctity of the family; that by condoning marriages which did not aim at the immediate birth of children, he was attempting to legally open the door to lust; others that he exaggerated the The pervasiveness of sexual relations, he is slandering pure American women, because most businessmen, according to them, are abstinent until they are thirty or thirty-five.I believe that some of those who commented thus were sincere.I have heard many things against Judge Lindsay, but I only get the impression that all these arguments can be reduced to two conclusions: first, that Judge Lindsay's advice would not be approved by the Messiah; The advice was not shared by decent priests.The second conclusion seems to be more important.Indeed, the first conclusion is only hypothetical and cannot be verified.I have never heard anyone, not even hypocritically, make the argument that Judge Lindsay's proposal would undermine human happiness.I am therefore compelled to conclude that those who preach conventional morality regard human happiness as irrelevant.

Personally, while fully convinced that trial marriages are a step in the right direction with enormous benefits, I don't think trial marriages have gone far enough.I believe that all sexual relationships that do not involve children should be considered private.If a man and a woman live together without children, it is entirely their business, not anyone else's.Regardless of men and women, if they have never had sexual experience, they want to enter into a solemn marriage for the purpose of having children, I don't agree with it.There is ample evidence that first-time sex should be with someone who is sexually experienced.Human sexuality is not instinctive, and it never has been since sex ceased to be a mindless act.Leaving this argument aside, it is ludicrous to ask people to jump into a lifelong relationship without knowing whether they are sexually compatible.It's as absurd as a person who wants to buy a house and can't be allowed to see it before closing.

If the biological function of marriage is to be fully recognized, then the proper procedure would be that the marriage should not be legally binding until the wife's first pregnancy.The current belief is that marriage is worthless if sexual intercourse cannot be achieved.However, the real purpose of marriage is not sexual intercourse but childbearing, so a marriage cannot be considered consummated until childbearing becomes a reality.This notion rests, at least in part, on the strict distinction between procreation and mere sex created by contraceptive laws.Contraceptive laws changed the entire face of sex and marriage, making a distinction between sex and marriage like never before.In short, the union of a man and a woman is either purely for sex like prostitution, or a sexual partnership like trial marriage, or to build a family.These are all different, however, and none of the morals can be adapted to the modern complex environment.

(End of this chapter)