Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/113

socially and otherwise—a subject condition that ranged all the way from abject slavery to the status of the carefully shielded lady of the "pedestal" period, with all the mawkish sentimentality and hypocrisy that went with it. It is only in comparatively recent years, with a few notable exceptions in the past, that this dual morality has given way, and a new spirit of camaraderie, ethical partnership and intellectual community of interest has entered into the marriage relations. As a matter of fact, the tendency toward this ideal may be said to be just beginning, so great is the work to be accomplished. However, enough progress has already been made in this direction to be hopeful for the new outlook in the future of marriage.

From the injustice, inequalities and ignorance of the past there developed a situation that made love in marriage practically an impossibility, and when it existed, almost a miracle. So true was this that the older literature in all its branches is largely a monument dedicated to conjugal infelicity and extra-marital love.

With the gradual rise of woman to a position of economic, social and political importance, her relative independence and intellectual equality have given her a dignity which the real monogamic marriage must have to exist in fact.

True monogamy, in its essence, is based on the equality of its constituency—and the monogamic marriage has not been a conspicuous success, historically, because the parties to it have not been social equals. A sentimental palliative in the name of a largely fictitious tradition of masculine chivalry had grown up to offset the gross inequality of the sexes, which had been artificially cultivated by the dominant male.

True love can flourish only in the healthy air of freedom of choice and action. Coercion and force will kill it as