"Love and Marriage" by Ellen Key (translated by Arthur G. Chater). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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Ellen Key. Love and Marriage
Love and Marriage
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL MORALITY
CHAPTER II. THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE
CHAPTER III. LOVE’S FREEDOM
CHAPTER IV. LOVE’S SELECTION
CHAPTER V. THE RIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD
CHAPTER VI. EXEMPTION FROM MOTHERHOOD
CHAPTER VII. COLLECTIVE MOTHERLINESS
CHAPTER VIII. FREE DIVORCE
CHAPTER IX. A NEW MARRIAGE LAW
Footnote
Отрывок из книги
Ellen Key
Published by Good Press, 2022
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Personal love, as now developed by civilisation, has become so complicated, comprehensive, and involved that not only does it constitute in itself (independently of its mission to the race) a great asset in life, but it also raises or lowers the value of all else. It has acquired a new significance besides its original one: that of bearing the flame of life from generation to generation. No one calls him immoral who—disappointed in his love—abstains from continuing the race in his marriage; nor would the couple be called immoral who continue in a marriage made happy by love, although it has shown itself to be childless. But in both these cases, the parties concerned follow their subjective feelings at the cost of the race and treat their love as an end in itself. The right already granted to the individuals in these cases at the cost of the race will in future be extended more and more in proportion as the significance of love grows. On the other hand, the new morality will demand of love an ever greater voluntary limitation of its rights, during the times that a new life claims it, as well as voluntary or compulsory renunciation of the right to produce new lives, under conditions which would render them of less value.
The marriage doctrine of neo-Protestantism, like that of Tolstoy, rests finally on the ascetic distrust of the sexual life. Neither doctrine supposes that the sensual side can be ennobled otherwise than by being placed exclusively at the service of the race. It is this point of view which is finally decisive in all Christian conceptions of morality. Christianity is sustained by the knowledge that the object of man’s life on earth is his development as an eternal being. Therefore none of his expressions of life can be an end in itself, but must serve a higher purpose than the earthly life and happiness of the individual—or even than that of the race.
