belong to each other, but to fulfill a sacrament. They would please God still more if they did not marry at all. The priest who is uniting a couple in matrimony before the altar, asks the woman whether she is ready to follow the man as her husband, and obey him as her lord and master. Whether she loves him, this question is not asked by the priest, for he does not recognize the validity of such a sentiment. According to his ideas the union which he has just sealed with his ceremonies, has its sole foundation in the solemn vows and covenants made before the altar, and not at all in any human, organic impulse which brings two beings together and unites them as one individual soul.
All the relations between society and the sexes are shaped by this Christian doctrinal opinion of the sinfulness of all carnal, that is, of all natural and normal love. Matrimony is sacred; its command of fidelity must not be transgressed, even when it starves the hearts of the wedded couple. The wife may have married without love, she may learn to know a man later who arouses her passionate love—society will not concede the possibility of such an occurrence. What, the wife loves another? That can not be! Such a thing as love is not recognized! The wife is married; that is all she can claim. She has her husband to whom she is bound by her vows of conjugal duty; outside of this duty the world has nothing for her. If she violates it, she becomes an adulteress and falls into the hands of the police, beneath the contempt of all right-minded persons. Society concedes to the husband the right to kill his faithless wife, and it commissions the judge to sentence her to imprisonment as a warning and an example, if the husband has been too forbearing. A girl has fallen in love with a man, she obeys nature's commands without waiting for the permission of the priest
