conjugal right, then, of course, there is a legitimate reason for a rupture, for the service for which the marriage is granted has not been carried out."[1]
Our civilisation having come to consider nearly all morality as consisting of values derived from those observed in the normally constituted family, two serious consequences have been produced: (1) it has been asked if, instead of considering the family as an application of moral theories, it would not be more exact to say that it is the base of these theories; (2) it seems that the Church, having become incompetent on matters connected with sexual union, must also be incompetent as regards morality. These are precisely the conclusions to which Proudhon came. "Sexual duality was created by Nature to be the instrument of Justice. … To produce Justice is the higher aim of the bisexual division; generation, and what follows from it, only figure here as accessory."[2] "Marriage, both in principle and in purpose, being the instrument of human right, and the living negation of the divine right, is thus in formal contradiction with theology and the Church."[3]
Love, by the enthusiasm it begets, can produce that sublimity without which there would be no effective morality. At the end of his book on Justice, Proudhon has written pages, which will never be surpassed, on the rôle of women.
C. Finally we have to examine the values which escape
- ↑ Proudhon is alluding sarcastically to the frequently very comic nullifications of marriage, pronounced by the Roman courts, for physiological reasons. Proudhon, op. cit. vol. vi. p. 39. We know that the theologians do not like curious people to consult ecclesiastical writings about conjugal duty and the legitimate method of fulfilling it.
- ↑ Proudhon, loc. cit. p. 212.
- ↑ Proudhon, Œuvres, vol. xx. p. 169. This is extracted from the memoir he wrote in his own defence, after he had been condemned to three years in prison for his book on Justice. It is worth while noting that Proudhon was accused of attacking marriage! This affair is one of the shameful acts which dishonoured the Church in the reign of Napoleon III.
