ociety, customs and laws speak for the
family, in ways built up, sometimes blindly, sometimes consciously, to
preserve the species, and upon the old biological and economic
foundations.

It is generally granted that women with children are more conservative
than women without children. We believe this is true only when they and
their children are provided for. When a mother is left with no one to
support her children, she becomes more predatory than other women in the
pursuit of a new provider. Our jails and workhouses are full of
unsuccessful mothers of this class, convicted of crimes against
property.

Mothers are conservative when their children are secure; more predatory
when they are in want. Mothers often compete successfully in making
their wares attractive and in binding the male by habits and
associations that hold him and induce him to continue to pay.

Among men, the possession of, and ability to support a woman in
perpetuity, whom no other may touch, is honorific, a high sign of
display. It announces to the world that such a man is able to hold a
trophy in the struggle for existence. A monogamous wife is, in fact, an
emblem of well-off-ness, and greatly to be desired.

A man does not wish to be one among a corporation of men owning a woman
any more than he desires to be owner of a sixth part of an automobile.
Not because there is anything more intrinsically wrong in purchasing
one-sixth than six-sixths, but because, in a world where the ownership
of private property is the greatest of all good things, individual
ownership denotes respectability, comfort, ability to buy outright.
Hence we have monogamy for wives and mistresses in general, and polygamy
for men.

For if it is honorific to possess one woman, it is still more proof of
one's buying power to support half a dozen different establishments.
Besides, biologically, a man may require many women for the satisfaction
of his desires.

CHASTITY

Why do young girls remain chaste before the importunities of their
lovers and, perhaps, against their own desires, if not for the purpose
of forcing or inducing them to offer the sure and permanent price of
matrimony?

Do not all respectable and well-meaning parents (and others not so
respectable) seek gently to guide their daughters into safe matrimonial
harbors where they barter themselves for a respectable meal-ticket, or
an income, presumably, for life? They would be shocked beyond measure if
you to