FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  
ial type of all society, the separation of the two powers commences there. The spiritual, or moral and religious power, in a family, is the women of it. The positivist family is composed of the "fundamental couple," their children, and the parents of the man, if alive. The whole government of the household, except as regards the education of the children, resides in the man; and even over that he has complete power, but should forbear to exert it. The part assigned to the women is to improve the man through his affections, and to bring up the children, who, until the age of fourteen, at which scientific instruction begins, are to be educated wholly by their mother. That women may be better fitted for these functions, they are peremptorily excluded from all others. No woman is to work for her living. Every woman is to be supported by her husband or her male relations, and if she has none of these, by the State. She is to have no powers of government, even domestic, and no property. Her legal rights of inheritance are preserved to her, that her feelings of duty may make her voluntarily forego them. There are to be no marriage portions, that women may no longer be sought in marriage from interested motives. Marriages are to be rigidly indissoluble, except for a single cause. It is remarkable that the bitterest enemy of divorce among all philosophers, nevertheless allows it, in a case which the laws of England, and of other countries reproached by him with tolerating divorce, do not admit: namely, when one of the parties has been sentenced to an infamizing punishment, involving loss of civil rights. It is monstrous that condemnation, even for life, to a felon's punishment, should leave an unhappy victim bound to, and in the wife's case under the legal authority of, the culprit. M. Comte could feel for the injustice in this special case, because it chanced to be the unfortunate situation of his Clotilde. Minor degrees of unworthiness may entitle the innocent party to a legal separation, but without the power of re-marriage. Second marriages, indeed, are not permitted by the Positive Religion. There is to be no impediment to them by law, but morality is to condemn them, and every couple who are married religiously as well as civilly are to make a vow of eternal widowhood, "le veuvage eternel." This absolute monogamy is, in M. Comte's opinion, essential to the complete fusion between two beings, which is the essence of marriage
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  



Top keywords:

marriage

 

children

 
complete
 

punishment

 

rights

 

divorce

 

family

 

powers

 

separation

 
couple

government
 

victim

 

unhappy

 
culprit
 
authority
 

sentenced

 

tolerating

 
reproached
 

countries

 
England

involving

 
monstrous
 
infamizing
 

parties

 

condemnation

 

innocent

 
civilly
 

eternal

 

widowhood

 
religiously

morality
 

condemn

 

married

 

veuvage

 

fusion

 

beings

 

essence

 

essential

 

opinion

 
eternel

absolute
 
monogamy
 

impediment

 

unfortunate

 

situation

 
Clotilde
 

chanced

 

injustice

 

special

 

degrees