Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/70

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62
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE

denied than the right of a man to think honestly and to communicate his thoughts to his fellows. Persons who claimed that right have been at various times (and for the edification of other persons who might be tempted to go and do likewise) stoned, devoured by wild beasts, excommunicated, shut up in dungeons, burned at the stake and hanged, drawn, and quartered. In spite, however, of these drastic penalties—and other lesser ones too numerous to mention—there has always been a section of humanity which has stubbornly persisted, even at the risk of roasting or dismemberment, in thinking its own thoughts on some particular subject and saying what they were. To persons of this frame of mind it probably did not much matter how soon they had done with an existence which they had to look at through other people's eyes and talk about in suitable phrases arranged for them by other people. So they risked the penalty and said what they wanted to. The history of the world has been a succession of demands, more or less spasmodic, more or less insistent, on the part of subjected classes, nations and sects, to be allowed to see things In their own