The Book of Life Part 21

CHAPTER LI. RULING CLa.s.sES 119

Deals with authority in human society, how it is obtained, and what sanction it can claim.

CHAPTER LII. THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION 122

Discusses the series of changes through which human society has pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER LIII. INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 126

Examines the process of evolution in industry and the stage which it has so far reached.

CHAPTER LIV. THE CLa.s.s STRUGGLE 132

Discusses history as a battle-ground between ruling and subject cla.s.ses, and the method and outcome of this struggle.

CHAPTER LV. THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM 136

Shows how wealth is produced in modern society, and the effect of this system upon the minds of the workers.

CHAPTER LVI. THE CAPITALIST PROCESS 142

How profits are made under the present industrial system and what becomes of them.

CHAPTER LVII. HARD TIMES 145

Explains why capitalist prosperity is a spasmodic thing, and why abundant production brings distress instead of plenty.

CHAPTER LVIII. THE IRON RING 148 a.n.a.lyzes further the profit system, which strangles production, and makes true prosperity impossible.

CHAPTER LIX. FOREIGN MARKETS 151 Considers the efforts of capitalism to save itself by marketing its surplus products abroad, and what results from these efforts.

CHAPTER LX. CAPITALIST WAR 155 Shows how the compet.i.tion for foreign markets leads nations automatically into war.

CHAPTER LXI. THE POSSIBILITIES OF PRODUCTION 158 Shows how much wealth we could produce if we tried and how we proved it when we had to.

CHAPTER LXII. THE COST OF COMPEt.i.tION 162 Discusses the losses of friction in our productive machine, those which are obvious and those which are hidden.

CHAPTER LXIII. SOCIALISM AND SYNDICALISM 166 Discusses the idea of the management of industry by the state, and the idea of its management by the trade unions.

CHAPTER LXIV. COMMUNISM AND ANARCHISM 170 Considers the idea of goods owned in common, and the idea of a society without compulsion, and how these ideas have fared in Russia.

CHAPTER LXV. SOCIAL REVOLUTION 175 How the great change is coming in different industries, and how we may prepare to meet it.

CHAPTER LXVI. CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION 179 Shall the workers buy out the capitalists? Can they afford to do it, and what will be the price?

CHAPTER LXVII. EXPROPRIATING THE EXPROPRIATORS 183 Discusses the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat, and its chances for success in the United States.

CHAPTER LXVIII. THE PROBLEM OF THE LAND 188 Discusses the land values tax as a means of social readjustment, and compares it with other programs.

CHAPTER LXIX. THE CONTROL OF CREDIT 192 Deals with money, the part it plays in the restriction of industry, and may play in the freeing of industry.

CHAPTER LXX. THE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY 198 Discusses various programs for the change from industrial autocracy to industrial democracy.

CHAPTER LXXI. THE NEW WORLD 202 Describes the co-operative commonwealth, beginning with its money aspects; the standard wage and its variations.

CHAPTER LXXII. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 206 Discusses the land in the new world, and how we foster co-operative farming and co-operative homes.

CHAPTER LXXIII. INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION 210 Discusses scientific, artistic, and religious activities, as a superstructure built upon the foundation of the standard wage.

CHAPTER LXXIV. MANKIND REMADE 215 Discusses human nature and its weaknesses, and what happens to these in the new world.

PART THREE

THE BOOK OF LOVE

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE REALITY OF MARRIAGE

(Discusses the s.e.x-customs now existing in the world, and their relation to the ideal of monogamous love.)

Just as human beings through wrong religious beliefs torture one another, and wreck their lives and happiness; just as through wrong eating and other physical habits they make disease and misery for themselves; just so they suffer and perish for lack of the most elementary knowledge concerning the s.e.x relations.h.i.+p. The difference is that in the field of religious ideas it is now permissible to impart the truth one possesses. If I tell you there is no devil, and that believing this will not cause you to suffer in an eternity of sulphur and brimstone, no one will be able to burn me at the stake, even though he might like to do so. If I advise you that it is not harmful to eat beefsteak on Friday, or to eat thoroughly cooked pork any day of the week, neither the archbishops nor the rabbis nor the vegetarians will be able to lock me in a dungeon. But if I should impart to you the simplest and most necessary bit of knowledge concerning the facts of your s.e.x life--things which every man and woman must know if we are to stop breeding imbecility and degeneracy in the world--then I should be liable, under federal statutes, to pay a fine of $5,000, and to serve a term of five years in a federal penitentiary. Scarcely a week pa.s.ses that I do not receive a letter from someone asking for information about such matters; but I dare not answer the letters, because I know there are agencies, maintained and paid by religious superst.i.tion, employing spies to trap people into the breaking of this law.

I shall tell you here as much as I am permitted to tell, in the simplest language and the most honest spirit. I believe that human beings are meant to be happy on this earth, and to avoid misery and disease. I believe that they are given the powers of intelligence in order to seek the ways of happiness, and I believe that it is a worthy work to give them the knowledge they need in order to find happiness.

At the outset of this Book of Love we are going to examine the existing facts of the s.e.x relations.h.i.+ps of men and women in present-day society.

We shall discover that amid all the false and dishonest thinking of mankind, there is nowhere more falsity and dishonesty than here. The whole world is a gigantic conspiracy of "hush," and the orthodox and respectable of the world are like wors.h.i.+ppers of some G.o.d, who spend their day-time burning incense before the altar, and in the night-time steal the sacred jewels and devour the consecrated offerings. These wors.h.i.+ppers confront you with the question, do you believe in marriage; and they make the a.s.sumption that the inst.i.tution of marriage exists, or at some time has existed in the world. But if you wish to do any sound thinking about this subject, you must get one thing clear at the outset; the inst.i.tution of marriage is an ideal which has been preached and taught, but which has never anywhere, in any society, at any stage of human progress, actually existed as the general practice of mankind.

What has existed and still exists is a very different inst.i.tution, which I shall here describe as marriage-plus-prost.i.tution.

By this statement I do not mean to deny that there are many women, and a few men, who have been monogamous all their lives; nor that there are many couples living together happily in monogamous marriage. What I mean is that, considering society as a whole, wherever you find the inst.i.tution of marriage, you also find, co-existent therewith and complementary thereto, the inst.i.tution of prost.i.tution. Of this double arrangement one part is recognized, and written into the law; the other part is hidden, and prohibited by law; but those who have to do with enforcing the law all know that it exists, and practically all of them consider it inevitable, and a great many derive income from it. So I say: if you believe in marriage-plus-prost.i.tution, that is your right; but if marriage is what you believe in, then your task is to consider such questions as these: Is marriage a possible thing? Can it ever become the s.e.x arrangement of any society? What are the forces which have so far prevented it from prevailing, and how can these forces be counteracted?

It is my belief that monogamous love is the most desirable of human s.e.x relations.h.i.+ps, the most fruitful in happiness and spiritual development.

The laws and inst.i.tutions of civilized society pretend to defend this relations.h.i.+p, but the briefest study of the facts will convince anyone that these laws and inst.i.tutions are not really meant to protect monogamous love. What they are is a device of the property-holding male to secure his property rights to women, and more especially to secure himself as to the paternity of his heirs. In primitive society, where land and other sources of wealth were held in common, and s.e.x monogamy was unknown, there was no way to determine paternity, and no reason for doing so. But under the system of private property and cla.s.s privilege, it is necessary for some one man to support a child, if it is to be supported; and when a man has fought hard, and robbed hard, and traded hard, and acquired wealth, he does not want to spend it in maintaining another man's child. That he should let himself be fooled into doing so is one of the greatest humiliations his fellowmen can imagine. If you read Shakespeare's plays, and look up the meaning of old words, so as to understand old witticisms and allusions, you will discover that this was the stock jest of Shakespeare's time.

In order to protect himself from such ridicule, the man maintained in ancient times his right to kill the faithless woman with cruel tortures.

He maintains today the right to deprive her of her children, and of all share in his property, even though she may have helped to earn it. But until quite recent times, the beginning of the revolt of women, there was never any corresponding penalty for faithlessness in husbands. Under the English law today, the husband may divorce his wife for infidelity, but the wife must prove infidelity plus cruelty, and the courts have held that the cruelty must consist in knocking her down. While I was in England, the highest court rendered a decision that a man who brought his mistress to his home and compelled his wife to wait upon her was not committing "cruelty" in the meaning of the English law.

This is what is known as the "double standard," and the double standard prevails everywhere under the system of marriage-plus-prost.i.tution, and proves that capitalist "monogamy" is not a spiritual ideal, but a matter of cla.s.s privilege. It is a breach of honor for the ruling cla.s.s male to tamper with the wife of his friend; it is frequently dangerous for him to tamper with the young females of his own cla.s.s; but it is in general practice taken for granted that the young females of lower cla.s.ses are his legitimate prey. In England a man may have a marriage annulled, if he can prove that the woman he married had what is called a "past"; but everybody takes it for granted that the man has had a "past"; it is covered by the polite phrase, "sowing his wild oats." Wherever among the ruling cla.s.s you find men bold enough to discuss the facts of the s.e.x order they have set up, you find the idea, expressed or implied, that this "wild oats" is a necessary and inevitable part of this order, and that without it the order would break down. The English philosopher, Lecky, making an elaborate study of morals through the ages, speaks of the prost.i.tute in the following frank language:

"Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their untempted chast.i.ty, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and despair. On that one degraded and ign.o.ble form are concentrated the pa.s.sions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people."

I invite you to study these sentences and understand them fully.