So it is hell behind us, and heaven
before us, and a necessity that we should _march_!"
2d. "Complex marriage" means, in their practice: that, within the limits
of the community membership, any man and woman may and do freely
cohabit, having first gained each other's consent, not by private
conversation or courtship, but through the intervention of some third
person or persons; that they strongly discourage, as an evidence of
sinful selfishness, what they call "exclusive and idolatrous attachment"
of two persons for each other, and aim to break up by "criticism" and
other means every thing of this kind in the community; that they teach
the advisability of pairing persons of different ages, the young of one
sex with the aged of the other, and as the matter is under the control
and management of the more aged members it is thus arranged; that
"persons are not obliged, under any circumstances, to receive the
attentions of those whom they do not like;" and that the propagation of
children is controlled by the society, which pretends to conduct this
matter on scientific principles: "Previous to about two and a half years
ago we refrained from the usual rate of childbearing, for several
reasons, financial and otherwise. Since that time we have made an
attempt to produce the usual number of offspring to which people in the
middle classes are able to afford judicious moral and spiritual care,
with the advantage of a liberal education.
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