a child in freedom by a carefully chosen father? It
is true that we have moralists who urge wives to breed for the good of
the country, but even they, while declaring that it is the duty of women
to have large families, roll their eyes in horror at the thought of a
woman exercising her plainest right, without first having some man,
whose only interest in the matter is his fee, say some magic words over
her and her master.

Oh, that marriage ceremony! And is it not pathetic to hear the women,
dimly conscious of their backbones, declaring that they will not promise
to obey? They will promise vehemently to love and honor, which they
absolutely cannot be sure of doing, but they refuse to obey--the only
thing they could safely promise to do, and which, in fact, most of them
do. For, writhe and twist as they may, defy never so bravely, the
conventions of the world are against them, and conform they must. Down,
down they sink until they are on their knees in the mire of tradition,
their heads bowed to the ugly little fetish. A woman may be a thousand
times the superior of her husband, and yet she must be his slave.

And what puerile fables, what transparent lies are told to reconcile the
poor slave to her lot! A man's rib! And she is the weaker vessel!
Nevertheless, she is the power behind the throne. And if the man
possess her, does she not equally possess him? Is not monogamy the
mainstay of our morals? Is not God to be thanked that he has given us
light to see the horrors of polygamy? Oh, that shocking thing, polygamy!
How the husbands of the land rise up to defend their firesides from it!
No Smoots shall get into our Senate. That virtuous Senate!

Why if every practising polygamist went home from the Congress there
would not be a quorum left to do business. Monogamy! Why it is the most
shocking phase of the hypocrisy due to marriage. There is no such
condition known in this country. Of course, there may be sporadic cases
of it, but that is all. If monogamy be the practice of the men of this
country, why the hundreds of thousands of prostitutes, why divorces for
adultery, why those secret establishments where unhappily married men
indemnify themselves for the appearance of monogamy by an association
which can be ended at will? Whence come the mulattoes and the
half-breeds of all sorts? Who so credulous as to believe the fable of
monogamy?

What has monogamy or polygamy or polyandry to do with this matter? I
assume that