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FUEE LO^E
OR, A PHILOSOPHICAL DEMONSTRATION OF
THE
NON-EXCLUSIVE NATUBI3
OF.'.
,',
CONNUBIAL LOVE,
A REVIEW OF THE EXCLUSIVE FEATURE OF THE FOWLERS, ADIN BALLOU, H. C. WRIGHT, AND ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS ON MARRIAGE.
BY AUSTIN KENT.
HOPKINTON.
N. T.
tA
Entered according
to
1?57,
by
AUSTIN KENT,
In the Clerk'a Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.
CORRECTION.
48th page, 15 lines from bottom insert
vharity and not.
is
l)et\^
70th page, 7
tionah
line.i
from top,
for practical
read/r
insert
icitli
Mn
1>.
Other
PREinA.OE.
We have
plain that
mistake
meant to make the title of our book so no thoroughly conservative mind could and so waste his money in purchasing it.
We
our
last twenty years of and time to the world, ** without money and without price ;" and if we should find it necessary,
life
it
work
own
publication,
it.
we
wish no one
to
be deceived in getting
We
;
have
BO thought
own
labors.
Reader, this
is
very radical
first to
and we
wake any
who, with
the past.
all
We
future
even
though we
know
these must sooner or later come. Some milder and more gradual dose might be better as a first
stimulant.
We
whom
iVTiM7iG
IV
PREFACE.
some ability to be such. These are more than welcome we invite them to read us critically The subject of Love and Marriage will ever be one
it
of vast
importance to
our
it
race
we can hardly
Between
conceive
possible to rate
too highly.
**
Battle Axe.'*
In these, he
in a state of heavenly holiness on earth, Every dish is free to every guest." The context put his meaning beyond question. All of this, then,
amounted
to but little
In 1849, Mr.
sition and defence of his principles in his *' Bible Argument." This was an able, but small, work on Free Love for all saved and redeemed humanity. Not far from this time we simply write the date
from memory
the
**
each a book on
Marriage.''
it
They taught
to dual order
that love
to pairs.
On
the whole,
their tendency
among
the
mass of minds
**
In 1850, Henry James wrote to good effect in his Moralism and Christianity.'*
In
the time,
was
**
'* Love vs. Marwas of the Fourier cast and, for written without gloves." It was a
;
PREFACE.
tative as
y
it.
It
must
the
published,
in
minds on
In 1854,
Henry
year,
C. Wright and
Dr. Nichols
each published a
fair sized
book on
*'
Marriage."
The present
on the same
of Fourier,
subject.
writings
Owen, and
all
We
None
consider
of
think
it
Mr.
Wright
can be
teaches
He
by
nature, as he
understands
Dr.
Nichols (his
wife
for
His book
very instructive
and
Love
doctrine.
Mr. Davis,
in the
love
is
monogamic
in
its
highest manifestations.
VI
liave
PREFACE.
seemed
to
multiplied the
which they
tively,
is
treat, tenfold
and yet
it
has, comparaIt
fire
now
The
IS
ment
On
the whole, I
am
did.
late
is
We are in an age of active thought, and truth more deeply planted in the understandings and hearts of men by this friendly opposition and
discussion.
Truth
is
So
far as
we hold
may and
article of
When we
get an
we
wonder how we could so long do without it. So I felt on reading most of these late works on marriage. Yet probably the world was not prepared I will add for them before. to my mind, they all seem to have come in about the right order.
We
repeat
none of these
to the
list,
are superfluous.
The
isubject is
We
and we
promise the
We
do
shall
be agreeable
to his
mental
PREFACE.
taste,
tI!
unless
we
his
taste
Las
been
harmoniously
in the past.
this,
adjusted to
We
We
do
because
we
find
it
in nature, in its
most
On
refer
'*
more
''
specially to reformers.
little
time ago,
Moses
marriages were
secondary.
love
and
Then obedience
was
virtuous.
Now
all this
has changed.
Among
all
nature
is
the standard.
;
Inspired Book
and
its
and
New
Testament.
Here,
radical,
the standard of
is
to
be
in,
found
none as
propriety
of,
or chastity
These writers do
of nature's
differ as to
proper
reading
laws.
Fourier,
Owen, the Fowlers, James, Lazarus, Nichols, Andrews, Wright, and Davis, agree that true love is marriage. The Fowlers, Wright, and Davis
contend that connubial love,
in
its
highest develop*
latter
ment,
is
exclusively dual.
Here the
agree,
riH
PREFACE.
in other respects, of
though
they
drews,
much
the
less importance,
differ
widely.
Nichols,
Fourier,
and
deny
more or
These
the
modern
doctrines
of Free Love.
differ
am happy
to
find
the
controversy so
much
shortened in space
in
extent of range.
We
;
all
and
this
In
we
all
We
agree
that healthy
must reign
tell
supreme.
that this
us
and must,
in its
I hear some,
on the
other hand,
**
Hands and
own
is
attractions.
Admit-
ting
and pure
all
do not
of
measure
all
!
men and
'*
women by your
Mr. Wright,
if
I say
to
mind
as such,
it
is
not
We
of mind, and
we know and see some of the unalterable laws we claim the right to so far expose
If others
differ
from us,
we
truth,
them free to live their views of but we respect them in it. All of us, it is
PREFACE.
probable, are as yet comparatively in but the
**
IX
abbs
*'
of mental Philosophy.
any law farther than I think I see are very near Mr. W.*s opposite.
though men
differ
Reader,
we
in
much
very
We
believe that
much,
in the
none,
entire freedom,
and uninfluenced
or
present,
past and
age
of
the
past
would
position,
all
ever
be
connubial
love.
if it
This
is
our
and our
extreme
be an extreme.
We
agree in the
positive nature
and
force of these
laws of mind.
Some
Mr. Wright
no power
**
a law of
Our
are
air,
and magnetism.
fully
The
same law of
with
this
all
Mr. Davis
the
harmonizes
all
am most
shorten
thankful for
labor
of
agreement
of
future
discussions.
The Book
of the
Law, and
the
is
equally settled.
my
gratitude to
to
all
much
elevate
who have done marriage over the power of myof those writers
They
X'
PREFACE.
to
moral
shall
own
understandings.
We
The
develall
will better
faults.
understand
will
of
all
They
do us
Witli
iustice.
For though,
will
**
truth
fullest
at
last
come uppermost.''
entire
and most
book
assurance,
commit
my
radical
to present
Austin Kent.
Hopkintoii,
St.
Lawrence Co. N. Y,
CONTENTS,
Preface
ill
CHAPTER
Introduction
I.
13
CHAPTER
Definition of Position
n.
of our
19
CHAPTER
The Argument Continued
III.
28
IV.
CHAPTER
The Fowlers
34
Part of his
VI.
Reply
in
my
41
CHAPTER
Mr. Ballou Continued
His Book
58
CHAPTER VII. Mr. Henry C. Wright A Review " What is Marriage ? "
CHAPTER
Review of Mr. Wright continued
VIII.
74
98
IX.
CHAPTER
Andrew Jackson Davis from his Book
Appendix
135
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION.
I.
As
free discussion,
partial reformers,
dispassionately,
we find a large class, even among who can hardly look at and read
or have any patience with an argufreedom in love, from a harrowing:
ment
in favor of
Some
faith,**
in love, and the would one day in the future of human progression be safe, and be the order of sexual harmony, is it wise to promulgate these sentiments now, when the race is yet so awfully perverted, and often make even truth a admitting These taay add, Saviour of death ?
"
hearted in these
If
it
Such minds
will say to us
modern
' '
'
'
'
entire
freedom, and a
'
variety
'
is
consistant with
men
yet Deed
some things which in themselves would be right ? Did not the learned and wise Paul Bee some things in the 'third heavens' of the
2
13
FREE LOVE.
which he did
not consider
utter ?
'
it
expedient/ or
lawful for
him
to
even from his well beloved disciples, that which he well knew they could not as yet bear ?" We may
furthur be reminded of the case of our
spired writer, A. J. Davis, in
still
modern Inreis
postponing his
God "
!
in
mind.
we
Nature and th
little,
little
by
and hold a
veil
Nothing can be
But, in reply,
we
will pre-
undeniable.
fore
and since their day, have taught truths in advance of their respective ages. Such truths have always more or less been used to promote bad ends.
We
much
This
utility,
it its
immediate pres-
is often
true of scientific
An
increase of suffering
the
first
effect of
ventions.
poor on the
machines.
introduction of factories
is
Society
its
complex in
parts,
and
it
is
INTRODUCTION.
to re-adjust
it
i'S
after a great
it.
change.
This
is
true of
every phase of
In
my
opinion,
man
can never be
an increase of
Yet man never can be saved All must learn more or less without such freedom.
immediate suffering.
by
experience,
and,
in this experience,
be *'made impos-
It is naturally
manhood or They must be womanhood, without freedom. trusted to go alone, and **at their own cost."
sible for a child to develop into entire
to
has
now
greatly
benefited
to
classes.
It also
removed a hinderence
in
the
development
of
mind
moral honesty.
is
a truth
of the
any Book.
in
is
Many
books
to
our Preface
marriage,
we we
ion
human
it.
but add
to
If
the
pass.
we only
state it as
our opin-
ours.
We
flatter
no man.
must
There
is
no
real or perfect
manhood,
this side of
it.
The most
The
disease of civilization
will be painful.
16
FREE LOVE.
will feel the shock.
it
whole body
But
will
it
must come
end
in greater
real purity
It will
promote
and chastity and so an increase of peace, and a Woman can never rise to more perfect harmony.
her entire
womanhood without
as to the time
is
it.
The question
shall
be published,
one of expediency.
first
importance.
to
Honest
it.
differ
in relation
The
Love have differed here. We should seek to be guided by a wise and holy But no mind is prepared to judge expediency. correctly upon it, till he is at least thoroughly awake
most true
friends of Free
to a
true
sense
of the
in
terrible
Whoever
change
some
radical
The
real conservative
would
look,
never change.
judge, and act.
The Reformer
I
alone
must
was born through a long line of orthodox ancestry of New England Congregational**
orthodox religion
ministry.
It
has taken
me
Long after
became estab-
my
these
principles spread
among
the
INTRODUCTION.
masses.
if
But since
have laid
faith in
off
many
of
my
con-
servative views,
increased.
My
my
We
add further
the
friends of Free
The
never
let
shows that our opponents would us alone. Mr. Noyes was not allowed to
own
So
it
private or
society.
has ever
But so far from regretting the influence which has been brought to bear upon us, we are, at least, most grateful to a kind and wise
been with myself. Providence
for
in this
way
lingering remains of
false conservatism.
what we now
was
is
come when
fairly
there
thoroughly discussed.
public mind.
up
before the
more or
is fully
less defended.
Mind cannot be
staid
till
it
canvassed.
Men do
They demand mental instruction, and they it. They ask for something more than They ask surface teachers, and human opinions. " The supfor philosophy, and they will have it. The true mind ply will be equal to the demand."
have
2*
18
FREE LOVE.
most cherished
positions.
When
these
fail
to
in,
or
However sure he may be that he has the truth, he is more sure of the real power of truthy and of its entire ability to sustain itself. Such a mind knows, too, that truth is advanced by repulsion as well as by attraction that every active mind puts it forward, whether in love with, or in
respect for them.
;
opposition to
to
it,
it.
he
is
is
a repelling power.
We
man
true.
hatred
work
As God
lives, this
must he
When
?
men more
generally
arrive at a
God
laid.
marriage
faith
is
thoroughly
handled on loth
man's
Every effort of a true mind will lay the truth more and more fully upon the eternal rock of ages
nature.
of
We always
fair
promise
We
never
fail
to
buy
such books.
in truth,
and
it,
we
as
do, that
advance
and thank us
we do them
for theirs.
little
time to parley
We
welcome the
19
coming war
the
we have
work
for,
We
and welcome the crisis, and glory that it will end in good.
in the assurance
CHAPTER
II.
DEFINITION OF WORDS AND PHRASES STATEMENT OF OUR POSITION THE ARGUMENT COMMENCED.
to
our argumenta-
we
we
shall
By
connubial love, I
mean a
exclu-
By
denying
its
deny
will
that, in
opment,
of
its
it
When we
write
absolutely exclusive
no
the
we mean not
more.
By
promiscioua,
the opposite of
context will
show when
absolute
means more.
or,
We
To
clusiveness,
what
the
same, an
promiscuity.
us, this is
$0
entire exclusiveness.
yREB LOVE.
Yarious shades of preference
Different
are natural
and so proper.
minds
is
differ as
its
to their leanings
opposite
less
absolute
This
more or
or connubial
love.
What we
No man
or
woman
is
or adhesive
exclusive.
Nor is any one absolutely dual and The reader will find the same law to
through
all
the
lower and
all
Benevolence, the
of our
crowning
Great
faculty,
and the
its
personification
shades of variation.
highest pattern
The
of
though the
had his "beloved disciple*' among the twelve of the more choice of these. His moral teachings are very emphatic, and often repeated, in enjoining this
special regard for our brethren.
Paul bade us
**
do
good
to all
to the household of
faith.**
In
But enough, I
all
am
accord-
is
we can
practically reach
to lay
Because
for ono
truth
may
require
me
down
my life
21
man,
it
may not
for another.
Of
course, in choosing
such a relation to
points, to
us.
on
some of these
make
clear
what
I consider
some of the
and so to prepare the way for my mental argument. I have been full, at the expense of some repetition, to
save the reader, if possible, from the misconceptions which experience has shown me too often pursue such an expose as this, on so radical a theme.
may
and
of
*'ideal
to absolute
its
and
entire
amative monopolies.
more
Further explanation
the
**
In the main,
and nature'* of what Swedenborg, the Fowlers, Wright, and others of their like, call connubial love but I deny that such disinterestedspirit
;
love, is exclusive, or
confined to one.
When
these
men
write directly of
pure and
and a predominance of
22
FREE LOVE.
When
it.
deny
When
effects, I
har-
But when they say that all towards a variety, is of such a nature, I
I think I
deny
it.
must be understood by
This, too,
I
all
who
very
is
a clear understanding.
positivly
deny
really
my opponents,
as to
what
attraction,
may lust
and
after
one or many.
I insist
he
may
first
many.
I write to prove
my
last position,
Our
tbree
will be presented in
letters,
in 1853,
and published
and winter of
We
we
shall
consider
me
I thankfully accept your hospitality in allowing a place in your paper, to express my dissent from
to record
my
Free Love and Marriage are fast becoming (he All classes will soon see tbia feet, whatever view they mav take of it in other
question of the age.
THE ARGUMENT.
respects.
%^
It has been about the last to ask, and will perhaps be the last to receive, a full and fair hearing. It will have it soon in the Press and in the Lecture room. Since I suggested, (last fall,) the propriety of a discussion with yourself, it has been brought
before the public, and called forth more attention I refer mainly to the two than for years previous. one by Mr. Wright, and the other books written which have been by Dr. Nichols and his wife
extensively advertised, and more generally read than anything before this. I might add, the introduction and agitation of it through some few spiritual medi-
Mr. Wright and Dr. Nichols harmonize on on others they are diametrically opposed. I am glad to find that some few letters which I wrote last fall (with the intention of sending them sooner to your paper) are confined entirely and as appropriate as I to this main difference, It will be remembered, those could now write. books were not then published. I am glad of the delay in my letters, as many more minds will be I will take the liberty especially prepared for them. to ask those who have read those books, to read my I have many years since taken my position, letters I and I really believe I can demonstrate its truth. wish to come to the vital question, and make my exposition and discussion as short as possible and do the subject justice. I have no health, ability, or desire to hold a long controversy, and yet I esteem it a great privilege to record what seems essential, and to commit myself to the age in defence of what and the most to me is the most absolute truth elevated. I have such confidence in the power of truth and such faith in the real good arising from free discussion, that I prefer to do this in the im-
ums.
many
points
24
frep: love,
mj
friend
The question which I propose to discuss is Does Sexual Chastity confine every man and every
to the ''pairing*' order, or to be exclusively dual in the ultimates of love ? Does normal and pure love require this ? Or, still more abridged, and just as well understood as now explained Should marriage ahoays he exclusive and dual?'* I take the negative of the last question as now Before proceeding to the argument, let me stated. remind the reader that I came first to my present views of the subject from a careful study of the great "fundamental doctrine '* of the Christ, as found in In his love the sum of all revealed commands. doctrines (See Matt. xxii. 37 Secondly, I 40.) found the same in studying the laws of the mind and My own the nature of love, as read in the mind. choice seems to incline me to make the last first, and the first last so I will first argue from the mind. In the argument, I intend to show, to a mental and moral demonstration, that normal and truthful love cannot be exclusive or dual. I shall then draw tlie inference as one self-evident, that the ultimates of love should harmonize with, and fairly represent That the outward manifestations of their source. love should truly represent its inward life and attrac-
woman
tions.
By normal and
is
truthful love, I
the
mind
perfectly balanced,
or
at
properly balanced by and harmonizes with the mental. I trust this carefulness in explanation will save much misunderstanding and much repetition in the future. I say, then, in reasoning from the laws of mind.
affeetional is
THE ARGUMENT.
25^^
I cannot find truth at the bottom of the common Marriage doctrine. For convenience, let me speak
sentiments and an attraction to and affinity for other persons. I find the nature and intensity of this love or affinity to depend upon two thing's two persons myself and I am, in the sense in which I am the object loved. speaking, comparatively a fixed fact in always loving and having an affinity for certain attributes of other human beings. I love mentality. Some minds more than others, because their mentality is more in harmony with the particular development of mine but I can love no one mind exclusively. For every other person shares in a degree in the same faculties. If I love mind, to love one mind exclusively from another is impossible. All mind is more or less alike. As minds vary, my love may
as
if
personal
as
I develop in
my
faculties, I find
'
vary. Absolute, exclusive love, in this case, if it were possible, would be a natural, more properly an unnatural, Msehood. Truth, or the nature of the mind requires me to love every like attribute of mind with like lovey and the intensity should be governed by the size of the attribute, and my ability to appreciate
it.
the
in
and religion here too same law prevails. I am bound to be impartial my love up to my ability. Truthfulness, as well
as the nature of the mind, forbids that I should concentrate entirely and exclusively upon any one Nature did not moralist, spiritualist, or religionist. make me sectarian. At least I cannot be when I am finished and perfected. Again I say here, I can-
nor can I pernot love all alike all are not alike fectly appreciate all. Yet 1 cannot love with a rational,
26
truthful love the
FREE LOVE.
same moral or religious
attrihule,
found in the same quantity, more in one than, in another. It would be unnatural and fiilse. I have adhesiveness, so I love all persons socially all, male and but here I cannot love all alike, and yet I female must from necessity love all like attributes alike.
Truth requires impartiality. I cannot be exclusive, all have like social attributes. I have araativeness, so I love woman possibly I may love her, in this sense, exclusively from man; she is possessed of something different from man mentally, spiritually and physically. But I cannot love any one woman exclusively from any other I love all women as such woman. not alike in mental, spiritual or physical sexuality far from it nor can 1 be exclusive and concentrate my affections, except I do violence, first to my reason, and then to my affections. My love may vary towards different women, as they vary in their mental, spiritual, religious, social and physical womanhood, and as I have more or less ability to appreciate them, or as they are more or less in harmony with either or all these points with my own particular taste but I cannot love one in the many exclusively from her
since
sisters.
My
ojpjponents
They
commend
this gen-
and universal state of the affections, and condemn partiality and exclusiveness. But when the whole man develops into harmony with itself, and with every other man and every other woman when the same universal law is allowed to prevail through all the affections, they are shocked with the impropriety and yet it is as unnatural to exclusively
it
is
that of
THE ARGUMENT.
any other part of the mind.
is
27
In this our attractions a natural impossibility to We must first annihilate or uncreate what God has created. In this sen.se man is attracted to woman as such, and the same of woman to man. This love for the physical of the
vary, but I insist, it make them exclusive.
opposite sex, and attraction to it, is alike universal in its nature with every other love. As all my previous arguments to sustain the necessary universality of love, apply equally here, I will not repeat them. There are laws to govern mind, as absolute as those to govern matter. The forest tree can be bent by some material cause so can the affections, by a power of mind or will but the crooked tree, or the contracted and warped affections, are excep;
;
tional
us.
nature, as the
harmonious. I find no marriage in law of marriage has ever been taught I dofind the marriage of man to woman. " They
less
and
twain make one flesh,*' says Nature, in all her teaching on this subject. The Good Book, in its higher meaning, responds to Nature's lessons. JSTo truth can be more clearly taught. Without this oneness, this union, either man or woman is but a fraction a most unnatural fraction. This must always be true in the next world as well as in this unless we are to be partially annihilated to fit us for an entrance there. This to us is the extreme of folly. So our reason in this harmonizes with the Revelations of Swedenborg and the Spirits. I agree with Mr. Ballou and others, that without marriage, the material union of the sexes is more or less adulterous; that conjugal, or, as Swedenborg would write it, **conjugial love," is essential to the I accept of the latter's purity of such relations. description of this love, of its nature, but I deny
FREE LOVE.
or necessarilj that such love is confined to the one I believe a well developed man may and exclusive. should love woman in general, so far as she is the woman of creation, and upright and lovely, (and he could not truthfully love the one without this,) more purely, more justly, more disinterestedly and more conjugally than the most devoted dual lover often
feels. I accept of the Love Doctrines of marriage from my inmost soul, having known, and knowing them, but I deny that they are exclusive.
CHAPTER
III.
Friend Ballou
I proceed in
reasoning from the nature of I may^and am required to love a man the mind. I may **as myself," with the same kind of love. love another man more or less than myself, in
If he is on tbo degree, according to what he is. not so good a man, I should not love him as much for I am not required to be partial Nature hioios no false humility or either way. If he is better than false modestyy hut only truth. myself, and I have the ability to know and appreciate goodness beyond my absolute goodness, then I may, and normal and well-developed mind requires and prompts me to, love and regard him better than Tliis is possible and natural myself. it is truth. Any state but this is so far falsehood. But if I
my
whole
29
have not the ability to know and measure his goodness, beyond my own goodness, then 1 can not love him better than myself. My standard of love, in either or any case, is never absolute truth for another, but simply obeying the command of nature Another should vary in accordance with his to me. ability, God does not require any two men to love Him alike in degree. Each is to love with his whole heart, and mind, etc. That is, up to this capacity. The same law prevails as to my love for woman; and more. I should not only love her as myself, but differently perhaps exclusively from myself and if I may not, as a general rule, love her better pr more than myself, I have a greater ability to be useful to her than to myself, and in this I promote my own greatest felicity. I may love some one man more than any other man, but I should not, I can not love him exclusively from every other man so of woman. I may love some one man religiously or socially more than any other man in the same sense so of woman. It is naturally possible, (but perhaps never a truth as a fact in Providence,) for me to love some one man more, mentally, religiously and socially, than any other man, hut never to love any of these parts exclusively from the same parts in other men : so of woman. We some times, as a fact, love some one woman mentally or socially, or amatively, more than any other woman in the same sense and were it ever a fact, as it can be conceived naturally possible to be, for us to love one woman in all these particulars more than any other, it would be unnatural and impossible to love such a person exclusively from her sisters, from others of her sex. We can not do it in either or all of these phases of love. Then where in nature is exclusive marriage ? Noy ;
:
:
3*
FREE LOVE.
!
10
where
I think I am understood here, and invite the closest scrutiny. All of these loves for man or
in man and woman, may be in a very perverted and impure state or they may all be the most pure and chaste. My religious love may be religious selfishness and sectarianism. My sexual love may be the greater love for sexual self, or what is the same thing, lust. My affinities, from the highest to the lowest, may be all adultery in some of its definitions, But the form or order of their manifestations does not necessarily indicate their purity or impurity. Normal love is pure and chaste in its origin, in its living action, and as much so in all its ultimates. And the ultimates of love should If love cannot be correctl}^ represent their cause. exclusive in the mind, it should not be held to be in
woman, and
its manifestations in its consummations. The outgoing or ultimates of love should image forth its
life. The reader will observe that in these thus far, I have aimed to prove 1 IMiat our lore for others cannot he exclusive on any one point towards any one person. 2. I draw the inference, as a self-evident proposition, and as one which I believe is universally that the manifestation of love should be admitted, a true image of itself. This will be the case, when
interior
letters,
is left entirely and absolutely free. Does the fact of experience or the consciousness of the mind sustain our position ? Many desire to receive this exclusive love, and the lowest of the race, who regard love in any proper way, are the most tenacious in this desire. Such persons are nearly equally jealous of all the love of a mate religious and mental as well as sexual. But these
nature
81
of these neither see the necessity nor propriety of confining their affections, except as they find it enjoined and enforced in the law of marriage, and in the public sentiment which marriage With these the demand is unjust, has created. and selfish, and proves them in a state of disease of the affections at least they are unbalanced and Many others the number is more inharmonious. than is generally supposed ask no exclusive love. They desire none. These, in the average, have a more elevated phrenological development than the first I leave room in this statement for the class named. many exceptions. Some of these last would suffer as much with a mate who should be disposed to bestow all her life on him, as the man of the opposite desire would with one w^ho withheld it. Let elevated humanity judge which is the more noble and truthful I add, man is conscious of the same state of mind. ability to be attracted to the opposite sex in general, as much in physical amativeness, as in the menUil and spiritual. He has the power in a great degree So he has the to concentrate all the affections. power, in nearly or quite the same degree, to confine If he be well balanced or well discior direct all.
feel the
;
Many
plined,
he
may
suspend, indefinitely,
all
his own any woman This is possible for some minds, wife not excepted. placed in almost any conceivable circumstances, and without all the safeguards of the Shakers. But all
amative
It is
not truthful or
in a normal state of the affections, we are conscious of their universality j and not of i\i^\x entire exclusivcness in any one particular.
commendable.
I repeat
Our
ability to control, confine or suspend their inward or outward action towards the many, or the
32
one, does not consciousness.
I
FREE LOVE.
stifle,
or
silence the
voice of this
most respectfully
marriage,
who
its
mind
is
God's Book,
his
and that
preceding
to
healthy attractions
are
laws,
to
main arguments in the two and to bear with what may seem
them, too
much
repitition.
all
My proposition stands
It is the
in the
gap between
contending parties.
am
The
back of
all disease,
progression and
final
manhood.
but of Love
detain
I
of normal
It is of vast importance,
and cannot be
the
longer evaded.
going too
even at
reader, by must be full here, the expense of some repetition. I must leave
I will not
much
no possible chance
I have suffered too
for misconception.
is
It will
only
;
sure to
come
and
We
so in amativeness ?
more so in amativeness than in adhesiveness ? or in any diflferent sense ? If our opponent says yes, and
^he
must
will
he give us
fiilly
and
THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED.
osophy
33
said no,
reply.
his
we
believe
and
no other.
aver that
truth.
We
to
we
but
any
place
We We
do not know
how
to argue with
;
man
it
we
help seeing
So,
we
believe,
We think
and
and
That
this
must be true of
mind
as mind,
(We
have
by the analogy,
was non-exclu.
that for a cominar
We
are
left
letter.)
minds
in one
more mind
or less alike,
is
same faculty
tire
exclusiveness:
and
every other
man and
negative;
Repul-
it
represents
is
the exception, as to
its
love,
non-exclusiA^eness.
34
FREE LOVE.
CHAPTER
THE FOWLERS
IV.
Should the Marriage of the sexes be exclusive and dual? So far as I know, the Fowlers, of New York, have done more, for the last fifteen years, to support exclusive and dual marria^ey than any or all writers in They profess to find it in the mind, the same time. That as they read the science of phrenology. science is now popular, and they are among its first There is no way that I can better expounders. communicate my own views, so far as I wish todoi^ connected with this science, than by giving their Let me views, and presenting my own in contrast. If phrenology teaches exclusive and premise. The friends of Free Love dual marriage, it is safe. Such will find themselves in an unequal warfare. of my readers as are any way solicitous for morals, and harmonize with the Fowlers, and the present laws of civilization, may rest in the most perfect
safety.
The
when he
By
this statement
phrenology he implies no
present doubt on the subject. The Fowlers divide the human mind into about forty faculties. They subdivide these into as many more. "Amativeness,*' or sexual love, they divide into the "upper and lower,'* or the "spiritual, They do and do not exclumental, and physical.'* pWely marry the spiritual and mental of amativeness.
Mr. 0.
S.
Fowler,
in
his
ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY.
Parentage/* very plainly, to
36
my
of amativeness.
In their delineations of character, they always speak of love for woman in general, and they never pass a with a sort of approbation great man, in whom this sentiment is prominent, without noticing it to his credit. So of all other Phrenological writers. In this, these men harmonize exactly with the oge, and with all good writers on man. They are most " orthodox/' Mr. Wright, in his late work on Marriage, leaves out so much of sexual He says, ** the atlove from the exclusive yoke. traction of men and women to each other, as such, has its privileges, and its fixed, just laws to govern This general regard for woman, as such, is it.'' sexual, and doubtless what Mr. 0. S. Fowler calls the This, then, I spiritual and mental of amativeness. think, civilization doQ3 not intend to marry in her The feelings of many husexclusive dual bonds. bands and wives among us are much disturbed by this general freedom in a partner, and with such, if liberty is taken, it causes jealousies and complainings, but public opinion, instead of condemning such freedom as licentious, where it is not carried too far, or beyond a common degree of spiritual and mental amativeness, takes the side of liberty, and condemns the complaining party. The lattfer are It^is plain, considered narrow minded and selfish. ^and society in general, then, that the Fowlers, even the Shakers, allow more or less freedom to a None of these attempt to portion of amativeness,
;
3^
FREE LOVE.
general plane and
higher manifestations. Even the Head Shaker must have his spiritual female mate. Now for the contrast. I do not separate the faculties, and free a part, and confine a part. I do not separate the sentiment amativeness and free a part and confine a part. Ifree the whole. The whole man and the whole woman. I demand more plain and philosophical reasons for such an inconsistency. I
actions of
its
deny that there are any rational and substantial reasons for this to govern a normal mind. Society does not exclusively marry the greater part of its sexual love. I would not so marry any part of it. Civilization has advanced one step from certain heathen nations who consider it a crime for their women to be exposed to the general gaze, and freed a portion of this part of the brain. I and my Free Love brethren, would free the remainder, and we are as sure that we shall be approved by the future, as we are that civilization
is justified
in her advances thus far. I repeat the contrast in various forms to get the consistency, or inconsistency, before the mind of the reader. To me this comparison is the strongest of arguments.
The Fowlers, and our dual marriage friends, do not marry in their exclusiveness any one of these forty faculties of the mind. They do marry in this manner, one-third of one of the forty, this general freedom to
der,
and no more. All and ]pure. I do not thus marry that fractional part of one. Rea-
them
is
chaste
We
is
mark the contrast,Cnd the astounding oflPense. are told that the effect of freedom, in all the
former,
is good and elevating, while in the latter it most injurious and debasing. What but depravity ever first taught such distinctions and such philosophy? '* To the pure all things are pure.'* The
37
freedom of the entire man is pure and elevating. To the impure all things are impure and debasing. To such all freedom is evil so far as they are impure. pure and holy emotion is pure and holy, whether it concentrates on one object, or many. An impure emotion, or passion, is impure, whether in confinement or freedom. Allfree ninety -nine ^^arU of the
human
hraln,
wiit.
I moke
I
it
man
am
and with
but that the very fact of this hundreth part so choosing, is proof positive, in the nature of the case, that it is impure and lustful. I deny this out and out, in the name of all consistency, and common sense. I admit that those who are attracted by lust to the one, may be the more so to the many -but those who have attained to connubial love to the one, may attain to and possess it to more. There is nothing in the nature of this, more than in all other loves, which is exclusive. But Mr. Fowler supposes he has found this very marriage in the brain. He calls it "love of one only." ''Duality in Marriage." I positively deny that there is any such faculty in the human brain. There may be a sentiment in the lower part of the brain, designed to concentrate and intensify all the lower sentiments, but not one anything like his readings, or deserving the name which he gives it nothing can be more unnatural and unphilosophical. Mr. Fowler locates this supposed sentiment by the side of amativeness, and appoints it to hold an entire and exclusive control over the lower part, or ** physical," of amativeness, and no more. He never gives it any other office. He could not do this consistently without
propriety,
;
changing
its
name, and
4
all
upon
it.
38
FREE LOVE.
in the strongest concentrated loves between persons of the same sex ^as between David and Jonathan, ** whose love passed thao of woman*' or between two females, he never refers to this sentiment, but places such concentrated loves, if their love is so strong that its rupture ends in death to one of the parties, under the head of adhesiveness. The bare statement of this sufficiently shows its
Even
absurdity.
down
to
Never was science more plainly brought meet the prejudices of a still undeveloped
age. If adhesiveness can be so concentrated without the aid of a particular sentiment for that end, ama-
tiveness can be
in its formation
more so, as there is one more faculty and concentration. Mr. Fowler never makes any allusion to his ex-
marrying sentiments, except connected with then it must be sexual, and a part of amativeness This he does not intend to teach. amativeness. Again, my objection to this exclusive marriage doctrine, whether it be found in Mr. Fowler's readings of Phrenology, or in the moral teachings of the Practical Christian, is, that it gives a lower law the lowest of this lower law, admitting the existence of such a law absolute and entire control over a higher law. All will tell us, Mr. F. and the P. C. not excepted, that the higher sentiments of the brain should be uppermost, control the entire man, and that all lower sentiments should harmonize with the higher. This doctrine makes the lower, on this point, govern, and requires the higher to harmonize with it. Here is one of our main objections to it. If there is an exclusive tendency (I do not admit it) in the lower sentiments, the higher all prompt to universality and the more, as they are more fully developed. I admit, there
clusive
3t
is strictly no lower law, when every lower sentiment of the brain really harmonizes with the higher. They are sanctified by them, and are most exalted. But this is just in proportion as they are submissive to, and governed by, the higher. When they assume to reign over the higher, they become debased. We and our opponents agree in one thmg that man in the past, either from his fall or "misdirection," or from his yet youthful and undeveloped state has been governed by his lower sentiments and propensities and we are agreed in general, that this should not, and will not, always be so. Exclusive dual marriage is a great improvement, from the entire absence of all real marriage. So it is, on the whole, from a state of polygamy. So is American slavery a better state of society, than a worse, which has existed in the past, when there was no motive not even a selfish one, as in slavery for the stronger to protect the weaker and so stronger tribes and nations, would destroy and completely exterminate other weaker tribes and nations. But none of these states of society are in harmony with man's higher may leave all unwept for a better sentiments. not for a worse. To go below exclusive marriage
We
go above such marriage is better. So where the people will not fall back to a worse state of society. The Jews had a sort of slavery, but I think their So we extermination of the Canaanites was worse. in a little more slow, and possibly on the whole, in a more mild way, exterminate the Indians, or original Americans. I expect to see the race rise above both Slavery and Marriao-e as it now exists.
is
worse
to
it is
Reader, you
analogy.
40
FREE LOVE.
I argue, that as every other faculty of the brain
and two-thirds of the one under discussion, is nonexclusive the presumpsion is that the other third is
;
non-exclusive
possible
for
also.
And
it
any mind
to reply
directly to this
by
Under
of
justly rests
this
of them.
Age
will
not
sentiact,
and every
harmony with
Are
Are
a valuable power
may
And
of
?
command
our
higher manhood
Justice
and Benevolence
My
understand
evil,
their import.
No
real or
imaginary fears of
which
full
it
may be
them.
The
slave-holder
is
his
system.
of exclusive
So
far
many
of
this
and
AN EPXLANATION.
ONLY
this.
41
In
this,
we hope
for
for a
reform
among
;
reformers.
We
hope
something better
for a
more
fair,
or none.
CHAPTER V.
MR. BALLOU
HIS REPLY
In
my
to rejoin,
and he was
and
close.
two on the
Bible
not here
inserted).
expected.
I rejoined at
Mr. B. replied to
closing letter.
I have
my
first
and then
in
like a full
But as
my rejoinder which
I will then
mind, against
my letters
" Christian
I
on the mind.
Socialism,''
Ballou,
would remark
He
4*
42
FREE LOVE.
my
first
two
letters,
reason from
"analogy,'' and
replied
I
accord-
ingly, to
did intend to
^adopted
my
the
analogy, and
as mine.
I shall insert
but a portion
of
my
letters in rejoinder.
Mr. Ballou's argument against mine, begins, Sexual love, as involving sexual coition, is radically an instinctive animal appetite. Man has it in com-* mon with the whole animal kingdom. It is not of the nature of Benevolence, or Friendship, or any other truly spiritual love. As an animal propensity, it craves mainly its own gratification, just like the propensity for food, sleep, etc. It does not go abroad seeking opportunities to confer blessings on friend or foe. This propensity, then, is primarily and Withessentially animal. It has its use and place. in its own proper limits it may be gratified innocently. Allowed to break bounds, it becomes criminal and pestilent. This is the truth of the case. Is it so with the spiritual loves ? with love to God, to virtue, and our neighbor ? Not at all. Away, then, with all false analogies arguments founded on such analogies are utterly flillacious and worthless." We agree with Mr. Ballou that when this propensity '-'breaks bounds,'' it is very evil but not more But let so than higher propensities and sentiments. us keep to the point. What are its hoimds? We have proved them non-exclusive, and we are now to answer Mr. Ballou's arofuments ao-ainst us. What are these arguments? This coitionary propensity, he tells us, is ''radically an animal appetite," the
*
AN EXPLANATION.
same as
in all animals, or " in
43
other
common with
mainly
its
animals."
As such
it
" craves
own
does not go abroad seeking to perform deeds of charity and kindness. Still it may be allowed a narrow sphere of action ** innocently,'* and safely, not so with the higher sentiments. The reader can judge whether I have done him justice in this abridgment. I may mistake his meaning. I hope, for the honor For if this, as I of humanity, that I do mistake it. read it, is considered "innocent" in dual marriage, we have fairly come to the main stone which too often paves the hell of misdirected minds in our Is it considered innocent exclusive marriages. for married pairs to acton this matter, '^ mainly^* from the cravings of, and to satisfy, mere animal and This may be proper for a fleshly gratification ? beast, for aught I know, but is it for a man ? Reader, but if he does I may not understand Mr. Ballou not mean just this what can be the force of this
It
excommunicate most wonHe "puts it away" "with a venderful manner. geance." If I understand him, I should call such
argument?
He
certainly seems to
from the
rest in a
not love. the sexual aflfections, lust Are not the higher sentiments so to control the whole, as to humanize them, and raise Is not the all parts practically above the beast? man to sanctify the animal, in every fibre of his naSo we read ture, and in every act of that nature ? humanity so we read the man. Nothing short of Is any part of the man to be set apart this is man. from so put away from, the real man, or whole
a state
of
What is man ?
man, and placed under laws inharmonious with his leading manhood ? So long as this is done, this
.44
FREE LOVE.
part will remain an enemy to, and often successfully reio'n over the best interests of that hio:her man-
hood.
in
There is one partially redeeming suggestion Mr. Baliou's argument. He compares the desire
with the desire for food, sleep, etc. Its comparison with that for food is in part truthful, and with that for sleep is, at least, very innocent. But
for coition
us attend to the consistency or inconsistency with himself and the good Book which he reverences, in this comparison, while he so degrades it.
let
to eat
God's glory. *' " Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.** This command is to the man, to control all his propensities and their uses, in harmony with But where is Mr. Charity and the Higher Law. If Mr. B. will Baliou's consistency with himself? admit the same non -exclusive action, as being the law of the mind, and so proper in this propensity that he allows in alimentiveness and every other lower propensity, I will at once lay down my pen That moment we are one. or seek an opponent. Mr. Ballou knows this. If he will allow Benevolence and Justice to control, and call to their aid the eMire use of this faculty, as he does allow them to control, and so call to their aid every other faculty of the man, every other sentiment and propensity of the man, I can write no more, we are one. This would be an entire surrender to the whole meaning of all my previous arguments. I would rejoice over his conversion. But no he does not mean this. Then what does he mean ? What Let him throw no random shot,s at this with a mere fowling piece but make himself consistent with himself, and it possible with any
;
!
AN EXPLANATION.
rational
46
of
the
and
pliilosophical
interpretation
mind.
But coitronary desire, when it "breaks bounds/* " criminal and pestilent, which is not the case So argues our friend, and with the spiritual loves." seems virtually to chailange a reply. It shall be
is
coming. It is more true of the spiritual love. There no faculty or part of a faculty in God's creation of jmind, that works evil in a strictly healthy stale, and within its own proper bounds. Sexual love does not, in or out of legal marriage. In an unhealthy state, and out of these bounds, all sentiments,
'
is
work more or less evil and are criminal and pestilent.'' The higher sentiments have power in man to be more so than the lower. So says nature. So says experience. So says the Good Book. My friend asks, "Is it so with the spiritual?" Most certainly. Nothing can be more true. All the human blood shed upon heathen altars, to appease the wrath of imaginary gods, has been controlled by these faculties in both a diseased All state, and widely out of their true bounds. religious wars have been largely supplied from this spiritual fountain of man's mind. This has been the foundation of the Inquisition and all kindred institutions. The Catholics believed it to be their business In this the religious to defend religion in this way.
and
all
propensities
less
**
more or
faculties
out of their proper bounds, even if they had been All in health. So in all Protestant persecutions. of these were often as truly acting from the spiritual or religious faculties of the mind, ia their professed zeal for morals and religion, as is the lustful husband acting from amativeness, when gratifying himself at the expense of another, under tho cloak of connu-
46
FREE LOVE.
These spiritual whoredoms, we say, are bial love. as truly the fruits of diseased spiritualism, as are the oft repeated sexual rapes, in or out of dual maramativeness. These believed they were acting from love to virtue and the neighbor, and they were doing so in about the same sense, and in no other, that these sexual "criminal and pestilent" acts are from real connubial love. I am understood an challenge a Because one sentiment of the mind is differreply. ent in its nature from, and perhaps vastly higher
riage, the results of diseased
religious
men
than another, it does not follow that such sentiments are not alike non-exclusive. I have ** shown that
coitionary sexual love
its nature,
'' is equally non-exclusive in as " piety, benevolence and friendship,"
and that all of these loves are pure and chaste in a healthy and normal state, and that in an abnormal and perverted state, all are " criminal and pestilent." Who will assume to pronounce God's works in nature, or the fruits of his cleansing grace, " common
and unclean ? " Mr. Ballou " contends that
love, out of true dual wedlock,
all
is,
coitionary
sexual,
per
se,
adulterous."
I believe he has not argued directly to prove this proposition. He has argued against analogies which he supposed were designed to disprove it. should like to read an argument upon the nature of directly/ to for the mind is God's Book the mind prove that all such acts were adultery. That an act that would be pure and chaste in dual order, and which act, out of that order, would be impure and unchaste. Can he not make plain the nature of the
We
change which such act would undergo in this change of circumstances ? Will Mr. Ballou give us a specimen of his mental logic, in an argument to
AN EXPLANATION.
47
prove tliat all deviation from the dual order is, per se, adulterous? We wait for it. If a man varies from one, or dual marriage, while his one mate lives to her exclusive pledge, bis act is, But if she commit adultery, then per se, adulterous. he may get a divorce from her and seek another. jHe may now innocently embrace another in purity. |If this one proves untrue, *' he may proceed as before all in chastity" and so on indefinitely. He jreally enjoys a variety through the infidelity of his But his motives are good, and irepeated selections. Iso his act, in its change, is not adultery, per se. This is civilization, and the extreme doctrine of dual imarriage. Mr. Greeley, and perhaps Mr. Ballou, would bolt from this to them apparent looseness in morals, were it not for their great reverence for the and many of these Christ. In civilization, death has and does often jare the slow murders of lust jfree men to a great amount of variety in amativeness Though it be jbut this, too, is not, per se, adultery. But if a man the tenth wife, it is dual wedlock still. but thrice in a lifetime idtimate his love, and does this in harmony with the Higher Law of Free Love, This is a monster of jhe is, per se, an adulterer. And we have a right to look for its inconsistency. retraction, or its overwhelming proof, if such a In such a case the proof thing were possible. should come from a source which cannot mislead or If Mr. be misunderstood, to command respect. Ballou does not admit that the motive sanctifies the act in this succession of wives, by what law does
j
he justify these as pure, and condemn a less variety under the head of Free Love ? We press this call. He has multiplied his statements that the coitionary act is only lawful and pure in dual marriage, but he
48
FREE LOVE.
has not attempted to give any proof of tliis except by separating amativeness from the man, and degrading it to the animal. This manner of handling it, if it were proper, proves nothing as to the order of its
manifestations, as to duality or promiscuity. In the following we come more fully to Mr. Ballou's
reply to ours, No. two. " Mr. Kent continues to confound things and terms which ought to be discriminated, as radically dissimilar. I cannot consent to it. He makes no distinction between veneration and benevolence. He talks of loving a person's mentality, spirituality, and morality just as if tiiis were loving the individual being.'* Really, reader, Mr. Ballou I did suppose that is too profound for me here. loving all the parts or attributes of a being was loving the individual being. But let us attend to him. " But, admiring, venerating and delighting in these is wholly different from loving the individual being, in the sense of the second commandment." The idea is good and truthful after all. It amounts to this, Benevolence or Charity not like any other
faculty in the
human
;
of
its
desire or love
refers
sentiment of the man. All good and truthful. We have not hinted one word to the contrary. There are no two sentiments of the brain that are alike iu They are every one unlike another. this sense. Again. "Other loves [than benevolence] are he names more or less limited and exclusive" *' Alimentiveness, Acquisitiveness," etc., etc. I deny the truth of this, in the sense in which I have argued for the non-exclusiveness of amativeness. Benevolence In that sense they are non-exclusive. is the feeling of mercy and goodness towards every
AN EXPLANATION.
49
>bject which is capable of receiving such goodness, and being benefited by it. It is exclusive to such :objects or to such being, So alimentiveness gives a taste for suitable food, no more. In a healthy state (suitable food is the object it desires and takes pleasure
lin.
It
may
vary
;
its
amount of
it
delight in
these
jvarious articles
rtaste
but
than
nor
of one article, in exclusion from, or more or less in another article, which is exactly like the fii-st
can the eater be benefited by the one and This is impossible. injured by the other. The rSame course of reasoning holds good towards every
jlother
faculty.
So
if
forbear.
I
it
pronounce
in
[statement untrue,
he means
the
his sense in
letters.
all
my
come now to the argument in Mr. Bailouts reply to our letter on the Fowlers. He states that
in man has two radical charactermanifestations, a sensual and a spiritual." That the *' sensual manifestation is rightful and jinnocent only in true dual marriage;'' *'but that its imental and spiritual manifestation, besides having one sacred connubial center, has various legitimate concentric spheres.'* To prove the above proposiThat sensual Amativeness is not " cotion, viz extensive with its spiritual," and that the former manifestation can be '* rightful and innocent only in dual marriage,'' he proceeds, as in a former letter, to divorce a fractional part of amativeness, and to put it on the plane with the animal. I give his
[**
We
Amativeness
listic
I
the
Man
SQi
FREE LOVE.
developments and manifestations, is proper to man The animals as a spiritual and moral intelligence.
The more are incapable of spiritual amativeness. animal-humans are capable of it only in a low degree, and many have scarcely a conception of it, much less a decent appreciation. It is plain, then, that sensual amativeness exists and ultimates itself
without spiritual amativeness, as in beasts and very Really, if these statements are sensual humans.'* true, some persons, who are in the form of men. are Either they were not, correctly speaking, men. never finished, or they have become so diseased Nothing but that their manhood is dead and gone. the beast-man remains to animate the material form. The breath of God, which was to stamp his image, But what has this essence of lust to do is gone. Must we come with the doctrines of Free Love ? Shall into this for our analogies and arguments ? humans and beasts be summoned upon the stand to settle the higher law of progressed and healthy humanity ? We are convinced that Mr. Ballou is serious in this kind of analogy, and we submit to Such reasoning as this has been so far his follow. We have replied to it first and main argument. We will e part, when found in a former letter. deavor to do it justice here. First, then, we consent, for the sake of the argument, to the putting awa}'' of sensual amativeness. (To do which we believe to be a natural impossibility and if it were possible, in man, it would be adultery, per se/) What does Mr. Ballou gain in this argument ? He separates the lower of amativeness from, the higher, and puts it under laws inharmonious with the higher, because If this were proper, it might the former is animal. in part destroy my argument from analogy, but it
;
'
AN EXPLANATION.
51
Iould
)e
iiothing
prove nothing against my doctrine, and in favor of his. Let us see where his malogy, in comparing man on this point with the )east, will carry him. However distasteful this may
to us,
it
or to the
more
refined
feelings
of the
be necessary, and so we hope it nay prove profitable. We consent then, Mr. BaUou, ;o go with you into the field of animal life. We are
*eader,
seems
to
and order of the love look into the laws of their ,toarriage. find here, if we take the whole ["ange, that variety is the rule of love, and at the baost a partial duality is the exception. God has so jbreated, and we will not arraign his wisdom. Realer, we are now in the presence of beasts and birds, life that walks, and life that flies. There is no iidultery here. If any man think evil, the evil is in
i^ound to look into the nature
relations
of animal
to
We
himself.
These, God's creatures, are right. imativeness an upper and leading faculty,
'or
50
We
all
find
right
beasts.
in
So
its
action
is
Not
In him it is behind and below in pie brain, and so should not lead and control. Then is the analogy we are pursuing truthul ? We think not. But we are pledged to bllow it to the bottom of our friend's argument. We 3ress the inquiry, then, upon our friend. Are the ove ultimations of animals generally exclusive and lual ? We expect a catagorical reply and its proo'*. 3ur opponent, we hope, will be consistent with his mimal analogies. Again, are these ultimations of ove or passion less elevated and less proper, when hej are in the order of variety, and so in harmony mth what seems to be the rule of their natures, ihan when they manifest themselves in a partially, md perhaps sometimes entirely in an exclusively
man.
62
FREE LOVE.
be
dual order, and so in harmony with what seems t at least the law of exception, even among animals Our friend has insisted on taking us to the animal t settle the laws for man and we now wish to hay full justice done to his arguments, so we urge thesj questions upon him. If we draw any inference from the animal analogy, it is that man will com pre hend all orders, or every variety of order, unless h has outgrown the exceptional law of animals. ^ a fact, man in his nature does comprehend the entii natures of all below him. So says science. Hi analogy, carried out, if it were truthful, would favc our views vastly more than his. But we have n( felt the need of such aid. It is the love relations q man which we wish to elevate and harmonize, an we think this should be settled solely by the laws o man's mind. Any truthful appeal to the analogy the law of animal creation, can never favor exclusiv We pledge ou dual marriage, but its opposite.
when
it is
furthe
now
to
this whole argument of two radical and diveri^ manifestations of amativeness in man, is unphilc sophical and absurd. If such a separation wei; possible, it would leave the man in a perverted an* abnormal state. But it is not true that any ma
ever ultimates love entirely disconnected with spiritual element. I will demonstrate this statemeni
ii
the race in h< If God had made this possible propagations might so retrograde as to become beasts, tsTi or something like them, and so on still lower. In this case there would be an absolute law of retrogression, instead of a law of progression in man. The offspring of such coition could not be* human ; as like will beget its like. Does the reader
AX EXPLANATION.
ask for more
?
53
hopes of humanity,
are most glad to know, for the that such a separation of a faculty, or of the faculties, is impossible, and so the proceed in our quotations idea is most absurd. '' Sexual coition is the natural, universal, uniform
We
We
ultimate of sensul amativeness." with spiritual amativeness ? It may descend into, blend with, and santify sensual Amativeness as in the case of the true dual marriage. But sexual coition is not its own proper and ineviWe wait almost impatiently for table ultimate." proof that this spiritual love may not sanctify the In non-exclusive manifestations of this sexual love. every reply Mr. Ballou assumes the only point to be proved on his part. We tell the reader that this higher lore will more fully sanctify the lower, when the lower acts behind and in harmony with the laws of the higher, and we argue directly to prove it. We let the lower strengthen the higher, and receive absolute submission to the laws its blessing by its of the higher, and not the higher come down to bless the flesh, by submissionn and conformity to the lower law, or to the supposed lower law. We now come to deny our brother's main proposition in the We contend that coition is a natural quotation. ultimate of spiritual love. That the leading attribute of conjugal love, in a healthy state, is spiritual
and
inevitable
**But
how
is it
non-exclusive, and that it is naturally Sensual love is someits ultimates. times and in some cases partially satisfied by various It often little love manifestations short of coition. is comparatively so, without any material manifestaSo spiritual love is often It is in youth. tions. comparatively satisfied without the act of coition.
that
it
is
coitionary in
in
any of
its
phases can be
full
64
FREE LOVE.
and complete without its coitionary ultimate. Witb out this it never attains to its hight, perfection ani entireness. Mr. Ballou represents the spiritual at descending to bless and sanctify the sensual in duall marriage. Will he deny that the spiritual love is atl home in, and is a leading attribute in the conjugal ?l Will he deny that spiritual love is its very essencol and inner hfe ? His language plainly conveys thisl This is a vital point. idea that it is not. j hope our friend and the reader will bear with the! closeness with which we pursue this subject, if \t\ does occupy some space. have meant to so write our proposition for this discussion that we and our opponent should be obliged to grapple with the very heart of the whole controversy, with the age, and with reformers, touching this subject of submarriage. must not pass it superficially. jects certainly understand our opponent to deny the vital and essential relations of spiritual amativeness, in constituting the leading substance of coitionI think he does not ary and so connubial love. harmonize on this with the Fowlers with Swedenborg he does not, and many others of his dual order, but much nearer with the Shakers. I^o matter. What is truth ? With us, connubiality is not synonymous with sensuality. promise thfe reader that when we are converted to this doctrine, we shall join the Shakers, at once, on this subject. But in the name of humanity, we protest against the whole of it. Coition, for its most material object should be, in its the procreation of offspring leading substance and features, spiritual. As man is a unit, and as he is more spiritual than animal or sensual, so in his act to beget his like, it should be more spiritual than sensual. I speak of the true
;
We
We
We
We
We
AN EXPLANATION.
man, and I
66
man
still insist on the analogy, that the lower should keep behind, and harmonize with, the If Mr. Ballou still insists that my human higher. analogy is false can he not give us a better substitute in disproving it than his analogy of man and animals in common ? We have read his replies with our utmost care, and read them asrain and ap-ain, and we affirm that there is not one word of direct argument to prove the impropriety of a variety in connubial love. He repeats the statements of his belief that coitionary love should only be in true dual marriage and tries to destroy my analogy by introducing another. But were I to admit the force of his animal analogy, and every word of real argument in his letters, even then he has not taken the first step to prove his proposition, and his exclusively dual order. Where is the proof of his *' adultery, Not a line ]per se,''' in a variety in love ultimates? can I find. In behalf of the friends of Free Love, whose doctrine and practice he has formerly declared
;
and adultery by
itself,
him
to
before this
prove his position in season for a reply discussion closes. In view of his past
and of his present position, as an opponent of Frfee Love, it is not enough that
relations to this subject,
he
ments.
simply replying to my arguwas proposed as a mutual ajQfair, between friends, to promote the cause of truth, each of us believing, as I trust, that truth would be elicited by it, whether our opinions were all saved or not. By proof I mean more especially direct argument from the laws of mind, not mere inferences from history. I have not ti'oubled the reader with the foul history of dual marriage, as a presumptive argument for the trial of Free Love.
satisfy himself in
The
discussion
56
FREE LOVE.
Because all of the higher and spiritual faculties are more or less non-exclusive, and in that sense universal in their nature, it does not follow as a practical fact that they should ultimate themselves
This is naturally impossible. I brotherhood, non-exclusively, as I have used this latter word in this discussion, yet I pass multitudes with a bare recognition. I carry out no particular acts of kindness, or *' special and kind It is not necessary or called for. attentions.'* So a man may love woman as such, with a true universal, or non-exclusive connubial love, and it be impossible and undesirable to so universally consummate this love while absolute exclusiveness would be unnatural in either case in any of the There are mental laws and circumstances loves. which should harmoniously settle each man*s actual and more intimate associates, in his acts of social enjoyment, or acts of charitable utility. And yet he is not absolutely exclusive in any or all of these faculties. The well-developed mind is never universal or absolutely exclusive as to his associates in relation to the human brotherhood or in any of the social or love relation. These remarks have had reference to some part of Mr. Bailouts reply, which I thought it not necessary to quote. By the better laws of civihzation, with woman in general, I may bow the knee before God in social prayer in freedom I may enjoy mental repasts with her in freedom. Benevolence may give to her the fruits of acquisitiveness in freedom; charity and justice may call to their aid all the power and utility in destructiveness and combativeness for the protection and defense of all women in freedom ; I may gratuitously supply the wants of inhabit! veness and
to the
same
the
extent.
love
all
human
AN EPXLANATION.
;
67
alimentiveness in her in freedom I may give tlie adhesive kiss to all in freedom I may supply any child from my paternal fount in freedom I may supply my own paternal desire by the caressing or adoption of any child in freedom. What may we not do and enjoy innocently in freedom, by the laws of the Fowlers, Mr. Ballou and civilization? Every thing except a fractional part of a sentiment called amativeness, all else is non-exclusive, or absolutely free in a healthy state, or under the control of the higher man. For every other freedom is allowed to be health, and health is allowed to be freedom. For every other absolute exclusiveness is considered a disease. For this fraction of the brain, anything but This fraction entire exclusiveness is disease, per se. is cut off from its other and higher half, and held in bonds as a criminal. *'It has been a criminal.** Well, why not put the whole man in bonds ? Every faculty, and every part of a faculty, has been woWhy not rush back to slavery and fully criminal. ** All men, the dark ages for our laws of safety ? except those who govern the rest, are, per se, dangerous in freedom !'* It requires strong proof to sustain such monstrous inconsistency. The past, with her pall of blackness still hanging over her, cannot prove it. The future will laugh at it with pity and
; :
astonishment.
58
TREK LOVB.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. BALLOU CONTINUED.
HIS BOOK.
" Mr. Ballou asks, in our discussion, what " need *' " will come what good ^and there is of Free Love,
of
it
Even admitting
my mind
argument, of the
is
always of
utility.
A
free
is
similar
-"need*'
exits,
.freeing of this,
which
results
from the
action
Such freedom
elevating.
always
strengthenings refining ^
and
It is so,
and
-will
be so on
this, in its
action.
bring untold
ilive
The diseased action of any faculty may evil. One man, or one woman, may
alone
a hermit.
live
So one
man and
from
is
one woall
man may
society
;
in
entire
isolation
other
It
not natural.
faculties.
more or
state
human
That
of
situation,
sickly
and contracted.
woman can
easily,
i
progress,
fully, in
and as
others.
MR. BALLOU.
69
Love
connubial love,
is refining
and elevating.
refines.
Of
course, a variety in
dom.
in
adhesiveness.
it
When, and
its
is
not,
its
dissipates
and debases.
Each
faculty has
absolute exclusiveness.
state, require
Some minds,
"
line
in a healthy
more
I will be
line
understood,
if
I have to write
upon
that,
We
insist
as our
is
in
harmony with
does not
itself,
and
is not,
it is
for those
who make
urge
the
exceptloriy to
prove
their exception.
And we
we
entreat the
less
friends of
exclusive
marriage, to
deal
with uncertain
consequences^
and more
We
here say
we do
once, and
we
mind.
One more
to
and we pass
We
cidence.
60
FREE LOVE.
that
because animals
were promiscuous,
to
prove his
own
dual order.
for
shall this
always be taken
there
granted ?)
steps in here,
and intimates,
animals,
"variety.''
favor us with
fair one,
writes,
"Remove
restraints of reason
and there
tion of
is
no reason
why
To us
an entire nega-
we
find
We
on
we have
occasion to
It will so
much
We
We
was
not improper.
We
We
controversy.
not
fair
hang on
to
MR. BALLOU.
Reader, in making the use wliich I have of
discussion,
^I
tlie
and
I
if,
in
do any thing, or in
to
am
incoorrect,
I ask
I'c-
him
to point
it
tract, as the
truth
may
I
require.
Though
I
"\ve
are
his
am
still
me.
to
We
Mr.
Ballou had
former, (I consider
him a law
reformer), to arraign
and condemn
I could
lation to
all
in part, in re-
some of the
evils
and perverted
exception.
state of the
to
race.
feel
But he made no
himJelf called in
it,
He seemed
all
as
parts.
I visited him.
We
and
full
to
with me.
When
he accepted
my
many
evils
now connected
a
with Free Love.
its
FREE LOVE.
Injustice
is
cloak.
But
learn wisrise to
dom by
riseii.
the things
a
so
So
far,
community
of property.
Perhaps some half a million has been expended, and some over twenty societies failed, during the last
twenty years.
And
yet
we
worth
all it
Community and Free Love, in some places. The real good in both will be saved, and rise. The chaff should be blown away by the winnowing of
or been more a failure.
are both aUve
and
in
good health
Providence.
So
let it
be.
We
but
it
was not
which he met.
But
to his book. in
We did
when speaking
marriage.
We
In most
an age, almost two thousand years ago, and seldom to the higher law and more spiritual truths of that.
Still farther
back, he
**
builds tabernacles to
*'
Moses
and
Ellas,'* as well as to
Christ."
This he does
to the
For Christ
MR. BALLOU.
6$
it,
and
He wore the veil/* as did Moses, to still hide from the many the higher glories of the comHe still preached law to the " lawless ing gospel.
and disobedient.**
real y
(I
will con-
And
it
But
we
shall
course.
He
talks
much
in
his
book
of going
real
back
of
to
"fundamental
principles.**
The
import
this, to us, is
in-
opinions, to
mind
of sim-
He
has been
the logician.**
He
is
comparativly logical
in discussing theology,
upon
and never
at
home,
in the latter.
was disappointed.
first
had forgotten
argument
that,
after
sentence of
If such is there,
it is,
them from the laws of mind. we have failed to see it. Such as
it
I will give
a passing notice.
book,
if it
And
yet, I
should not, in
my present
had emanated
64
Mr. Ballou,
in
**
FREE LOVE.
1,
him.
is
minded
loves.
It
unnatural.
It
despotism,
artificial
or
arbitrary custom.*'
By
*'
promiscuity,**
least deviation
More
and necessarily one word of truth in it. Lust ** revolting** always **toa pure minded Lover;
is
**
Love never. We give assertion for assertion. " 3, Sexual promiscuity inevitably tends to moral
and
social disorder.
It sophisticates,
perverts and
demoralizes
its practitioners.
It stimulates
and con-
We
nounce
are
between
him and the friends of Free Love for granted. Namely That the attraction for a variety is lust ** The lust of variety.'* Before this, he has taken
:
Here, in
the
presence
him or
his friends, to
show
the
first line
of his, of direct
;
argument of any
or to
where
it
is
He begs
the
MR. BALLOU.
entire question.
^
we
as a professed reformer,
He
friends,
may
consider argument.
In justice to him,
of men.
know
To
what we
developed, sicMy,
He becomes
pure.
it,'*
sponsor for
this,
**The
against
tell
He
asserts that
We
by God him
that a
lute "purity,** or
morbid sickly state of mind knows no absoan entirely normal development of "love.** We admit that the undeveloped "instincts"
our views.
We
find
men on
evil
this, as
;
he finds them
him, in
on
They
*'
of
man
when neces-
That this instinct of self-preservation, is "unselfish, and from God," and shows his will as to the true manner of keeping
an
intruding
enemy.
order."
is
more
often re-
6*
Q^
FREE LOVE.
him
in this case
any where
else.
We
congratula
I'
find-
But
True.
to his
book
the pas-
no inherent self-government."
''safety lies in subordinating
am-
ativeness strictly to
senti-
ments."
True,
it
always
in
a strictly healthy
mind Look
pares
in a perfect
at
He
the
truthfully
com-
amativeness
other
"passional
appetites."
non-
An
appeal to sickly
so irrational a
it
to justify
position.
all.
some length,
to give his
must follow the spread of Free Love. As to this, we know more about it than our friend. He excommunicates his sexual
slaves,
who
rebel
under
MR. BALLOU.
the
OT
marriage yoke.''*
Again
"
modern
4,
oppress woman.''
is
Having
settled
it
in his
own mind
promptings of
dis-
safe.
his book,
he can turn to
it.
(It is aside
first
intention of our
still
book
to
give
all
of
secondary, but
important
them
better than
we could
and we must
refer
We
We
containing a dis-
cussion
between
"Stephen
letters
P. Andrews, Henry
Andrews
nal.
and
to
since published
in
the
Nowhere
else
handled.
I ought
add
Mr.
Nichols' book on
we
find in
I
a
* I simply member.
refer to
IP
FREE LOVE.
me. But I am set against making my present work too long. I confess it to be a book of " one and But it is a central, a pivotal, idea idea.*' the one on which the main hinge of civilization
hangs.
first
Mr. Ballon does not diiSfer as much from us as at sight it would appear, in view of our contraHe, in every
:
dictions of him.
writinof of
line,
diseased amativeness
Davis
calls
"Extremeism.''
me
call
to
is in
truth,
entire health.
He
degrades amativeness.
We
Still
has degraded
itself.
we
write of a healthy
mind
of a healthy attraction.
We
is
write of love,
not lust.
of the
Love
is
healthy, and
wisdom of reason, and the moral sentiments ; and not under " carnality." The reign of sexual
selfishness,
we do
We deprecate
faculty.
rible for
the morbid
Such
fruits are
Too
ter-
human pen
all
to describe.
still
more or
He
leaves
no room, ex*
first
coming
health.
way
MR. BALLOU.
race,
little
9i
mix a
insists
He
And,
for
its
like the
Physician,
who
upon
should advise
to
a dispeptic stomach
he
insists
compliance
cravings
as a
lie
with
what
to
us
are
the
immoral
of
a worse
than
dispeptic
" instinct,"
means
Perhaps even
little
does not
mean
all
this.
;
He may have
to
further encroachments.
is
In one point of
view he
Though
resistant,
he believes
in confining criminals,
a non^dan-
gerous criminals.
a criminal.
He
So
it is
to the
little
it is
to
no
far as
criminal.
am
It
Not
shakers.
in favoring,
in
literal
speaking favorably of a man's making himself a " Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake,"
This, or the sake of purity, peace, and happiness. was truly an unnatural remedy, to meet a very bad and posand perhaps really an unnatural disease Perhaps sibly better than the entire reign of lust.
;
and be hung
for rape.
This
70
FREE LOVE.
literally
was
removing, an ''offending"
in
member.
I say then,
view of the
may seem
me
They could
not do as
we can
life,
do.
a practical
on the whole, he
to
so
do.
His
life
then do.
But perhaps it was the best he could So we judge not the past. My great
is,
room
sion
in his
and "restoration
for all
which
if
is
really his
Even
the exclusive
for
of
'*
this
we
that instinct is
not adapted
mony
Ballou
**
of the future.
still feels it
Mr.
to
Moses
make
man, I would room in his faith, and in his propositions, for me and my friends, to write in defence of freedom for the God-man. God bless the Moses of each a^e. But a double blessinor will ever attend the Christ and the Christs of each as-o.
fain
persuade
him
to leave
MR. BALLOF.
ff
even
nor should
on
marriage, writes as
servative
con-
safe to follow
"fundamental principles,"
all
consequences.
We
man
wish to
is
call
him back
to the original
of,
concerned
source
1st,
so far as
for,
and
to the
search
these laws.
We
:
say, then, if
he
to
will
all
once more
of the fol-
lowing things
ment
To reply
my mind
argu-
attraction
brain, (as I
that propofirst
have made
sition)
sition,
;
my
meaning understood on
my
propo-
show
which
over
its
normal attrac-
position
mind law which proves his is, '^per se, more or less
Mr. B.
will
to
adulterous.'*
do
either, or all
him
reply, or to sur-
him.
own
Though
72
FREE LOVE.
more or
In every past age, it has been repeated protests. As a friend of Free Love, less " in law."
we summon
mental philosophy.
The reader
civilization
will bear
with a
little illustration
of the
in
mind
It
comes
to
in
my
'^Liberator,'*
and
is
so short, and so
much
it.
and
revolution, stare the reader in the face on every page single season of want in Ireof universal liberty.
land and Scotland will exhibit more human suffering than a Mrs. Stowe could glean from the annals of slavery through all time and through all countries.
The South owes it to herself to throw free society on the defensive. Slave society is co-extensive with man It must be natural, or man must in time and space. be an unnatural being. It is recognized and authorized
Bible, and was ordained of God. Free a little experiment, a departure from nature, that claims no Divine authority, and very little of human authority.
by the
is
society
**
We
to all abolitionists
What
?
this little
experiment
yourselves not us. Human experience, and practice, and divine authorYou must make out a strong ity are on our side. case, in order to justify the injustice of such authorities. Instead of southern men beinof called out to
It
MR. BALLOU.
lecture in defence
73
men
it
should
the application
is
so plain, that
hardly
"south;'* love for "society;** the marriage institution for " slave society ;*' free loveites
civilization
for
for "abolitionists,**
etc.
we promise
will
make a
perfect
fit
for
But we are among the impertinent and meddlesome "abolitionists'* free loveites and deny all We have returned, in our exclusive titles to sex. book, the demand upon civilization, and called upon her to defend herself against the coming light and Her age is admitted, but her rights of Free Love. character for peace and purity has not been the best, and she must and will make room for a larger " ex;
74
FREE LOVE.
CHAPTER
MR.
VII.
"
HKNRY
C.
WHAT
IS
It is
not necessary.
I repeat,
my my
to
book
is
I take
it
for
granted that
Those
who have
my reference
they will not
urge
if
them of
as
much
interest.
Still,
be lost to such.
my
they
have not.
There
sort
is
too
None can afford to do without them. much real value in them and of that
;
which is generally most needed. Mr. Wright's book was written to elevate love and marriage, and o to elevate the offspring of marriage. It was written for, and suited to, diseased and undeveloped humanity and nothing is more needed. Comparatively, it was nobly executed. Mr. Wright does seem to reach, to some extent, the true
;
He
This
is
much
;
for
whom
With
he wrote
and perhaps
* See part
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
TS
its
But
in
most every
he seems
to
He
enlarged
bursts
its
exclusive
shell,
and so be
all
He
says, virtually,
con-
will
do
more
wife.
than any
Perhaps we ought
latter is
also to except
Mr. Davis,
though the
marriage.
alike
The reader
will
men
They, Mr. Wright and Mr. Davis, have certainly done what they could to confine marriage to pairs. But they elevate love and free it from law. Their
exceptional doctrines will prove weak.
We know
something of the
But,
eflfect
of such free
and elevating
"What
is
marriage
"
"the incarnation of God to her husband. The great Invisible and Intangible made visible and tangible in the deepest and most intense and potent living relation. I speak calmly, knowing
nition of wife,*'
is,
the
full
No
phrase so
76
fully expresses
FREE LOVE.
what thou
art to
me
as this
Th
incarnation of God."
that Mr.
Wright conrepresenting
letters,
man and
his wife
com*
is
quotation
very
believe to be
meaning.
a necessity of
" Worship
my
being.
must
every
man and
woman.
and
them.
My
places, stations
and
titles.
I see
no God in
They are
all
But
my
God
will accept
embodiment of
my
highest con-
All this
is
very strong
it
from
one.
its
it
knows and
I should not
have supposed so large a soul as Mr. Wright's could have penned so narrow and confined a sphere of
worship.
However, it is only carrying the worship which nearly all christians have concentrated upon the head of Jesus, into exclusive and dual marriagfe,
" In thee,
God
is
manifest in the
flesh.'*
Brother
MR.
HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
77
Wright, we worship
men
**
many
all
^all
Saviours and
all real
dispute that
women
are Saviours,
and are
men.
that has
Gods
So are
real
Then do not
fiiveness, to
one
all
outgrown the shackels of sectarianism and excluworship one individual object, and upon
altar, to the
one individual
exclusion of
others.
for
Man, in a low and undeveloped state, has always held low views of woman, and of the objects
made for the gr^ification of his The change is refreshing. Man has held woman below himself. Even the wise Paul wise for his day, tells us ** the woman was made
of her creation, as
lower nature.
for the
man, not
the
man for
the woman.'*
Nothing
can be more
false to
We almost wonder mind could not sooner break from such debasing traditions. But such views are passing away. Woman is becoming man's equal verily
which we have emphasized.
that such a
is
offended with
my
friend
and myself on
this,
can he
or less
it
The man has always been worshiped more by the woman, and he has loved to have
I differ
so.
in
that.
would
woman
And
I confess to finding
agreeable
to
receive
7*
78 worship
to
? from
FREK LOVB.
Nor do
The
I desire
clusion from
men.
expansion of
woman
of
my
preference
to
love
men,
I'or
my
brethren,
and "
all flesh is
one
flesh.''
My
benevolence and
and baptise
I
in their fount
my
entire
con-
nubial love.
sentiments to be absorbed
lowest of the lower.
human
brother-
and worship is insipid and childish. In connubial manhood, truth, even in a mate, is both desirable and lovely and
hood.
this exclusive spirit
;
To me,
truth
is just.
clusive.
**
A masculine soul
absorbed each
in marriage, are
The essence
fills
other
permeates,
and
thrills
leaving to neito
ther a separate
existence.
will,
Thought responds
* * *
thought, will to
heart to heart.
The
as
entrance of two souls, each into the other, thus making of two one perfect being this is marriage,
my heart
defines
it.
I cannot feel
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
7^
Without
In thee I
in thee
in
am
I
nothing.
my
being.
To dwell
God.
no aspirations, no
a
life,
Really,
woman
is
friend's theology
for a
man
and
mr
the
a
:
man
is
whole saviour for a woman. More She is thi* whole of society, to her husband, which he can possibly desire or receive. Each is entirely *' absorbed
'*
by the
other.
of love, and
we do not
wings of
connubial affection.
We
it.
We
if
We
oh how glorious
all
it
would be
in the progress of
all
when
men
feel to
women, and all women feel to all men, This would be heaven, verily. Methinks
to live
like this.
I should
like
in
such a day.
No,
am
and expanded
love
in soul enough for that. would then " work no evil to his
But, surely,
neighbor,'' or
quot?
to his neighbor's
wife.
promised not to
it
much from
was not directly conBut its real meaning nected with our difference. was too rich. I could not pass it. Yet I tell th reader the book is full of more like it, and as good.
this chapter, as
I rejoice to
know
that
when men
attain
to
such
CO
FREE LOVE
When man
for the one,
many
will
he will go on till he reaches it to the and the harmony and consequent happiness be just so much greater. Then, "every old man
;
every old woman, my I meet will be my father, mother every young man I meet will be my broif ther, and every young woman will be my sister need be, my wife. All children will love me, and I
;
will love
They
will
be mine."
for
How
by
will
all
the pious
of earth.
riiige.
But we
real
!
and higher
let
it
angels.
We
it
day come
in a
come
though
and
all
sanctify,
purify
Let
all
sift
and burn,
common grave
and hate go to its own place All this will do no harm, but untold good. We confess to some little dread (for others, not for ourselves,
it)
of the coming
we know our
for
Wright,
will be
the
prayer
is like
ours,
it
answered.
We
will
do not
which
succeed
Then
will the
will
of
God be
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
in
t%
it is
done
heaven/*
We
the
shall
We
to
marriage prevails
spheres.
some
extent,
in
lower
But we do not call these angels of heaven. " The husband is the ideal actualized. No other
is like
man
He
is
stronger,
nobler, truer,
more
tender,
more
perfectly adapted to
all
other
men.'*
fool of
**
Nobler, truer.'*
?
woman
?
what may be
prevalent.
a falsehood
This
is
a disease, which
now
But
if
it
true,
There is no evidence of the absolute most of it. This entire monopoly of sexual love over all other loves, is untruthful and
marriage.
of
trutli
sickly.
where seems to give this lower monopolize and control all above
at the expense of
all
faculty
it.
power
exalts
to
it
He
above
it.
In a truthful bar-
mony,
it
he attempts,
on the
To us
but
this is abnormal,
and we never
call
such a
state of
It is
mind
82
fractionally so.
"
PRKK LOVE.
Mr. Wright,
mind, though
in this
way, lowers
Still,
it
as he marries th
bo unnatural marit is
much
better,
and
in
We
**
Wright in th we go further,
and would
any way, hint that it was possible make any change with it. Perhaps we do not differ much with him in his exception, that an unequal development after marriage might end,
for death to
at least, in a
(partial) divorce.
We
believe
this
on some of the
husband as saying
to his
if
Thou
me
able."
This
is
good philosophy.
all
which
is to it lovable.
Mr. Wright.
to the direct issue between us and In the question which he puts **IS EXCLUSIVENKSS A FIXED LaW OF MaRRIAGE ?
:
We
come now
See Letter
(the
is
spondent,) "it
MR. HENRY
will
C.
WRIGHT.
69
be eternal,
if
;
that the perpetuity of our oneness depends on our knowledge of and fidelity to the natural laws by which marriage is desio-ned to
truly answered
be regulated.
The question
?
arises
I
"
Is exclusive-
marry
This loosnesa
is
whole defence of exclusive marriage. By his philosophy, any such marriage could be nothing but
adultery.
It is
one's mate
naturally
both contend
is
eternal,
cannot be sundered
by
death.
numberless inconsistencies is every man who engages in the defence of error. *^But can woman be the wife of more than one man ? and can the relation of husband be truly susto
But
driven,
more than one woman, at the same time ? heart and my head give a negative ansvrer. Keason and affection assure me that polygamy is unnatural, and therefore wrong." We shall make no entire defence of polygamy. On the whole, it is more unnatural than exclusive dual marriage. It is all one sided and unjust. Extained to
To
this
my
heart of one.
one
of
perhaps many.
exclusive
the
84
FREE LOVB
there are
When
fur ae
concerned,
it
is
better than
our present
civilization.
W.
has done,
is
very
and improper.
We
it
believe Mr.
Wright knows
this,
but
leave
with
of the motives
which prompted
*'What says the heart? Is there a husband whose love is concentrated on one woman as a wife,
who
all
wife w^hat he
others,
He
loves her
man
to
be to his
return his
Really,
he concentrates his love on her alone, at but just that she should do the same
it
her
call, it is
by him.
is
same by him.
We
When
no longer,
if
let
them
relax their
demand
**
first.
**Be just
fall.
The very
fact that
make
marriage
lover's
peace.
It is equally
true of w^oman.
jealousy."
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
86
Mr.
W.
We
have
(lis*
W.
exclusive feeling
ing in a mate,
we admit
is
But we
is
still
deny that
in its
*'true
love'*
and abnormal; and its action causes the "jealousies'* to which Mr. VV. is
fractional
disposed to be merciful.
He should
be.
But a
normal
and
healthy minds.
The
Mr,
me
he introduces.
I speak
it
to
his credit.
He
has
seldom found men's feelings and instincts with his own, and with what he considered to be the truth.
This has been true in his position on war and
opposite
its
non-resistance,
slavery,
woman's
rights,
exclusive marriage, in
and woman's sphere, sectarianism, etc. Here, on which the race are as corrupt
first
and
last,
and his
men
in general.
than elsewhere.
rected" feeling
8
Such appeals are not better here We should go back of "misdito the laws of mind, to right up an
86
FREE LOVE.
Is this
all
that Mr.
?
W.
can
it
Is
We
it.
We have
men
and mean
to follow
find.
On
every other
he pronounces
is
selfish
and perverted.
Here he
defend
morbid claim.
are true to ourselves
"Ifwe
and
I
to
each other,
lives
must be
to perfect the
little
savoring of law.
But
good instruction
whom
With
he wrote.
will
True love will live by its own inherent nature. " In every step of my course, the wife of my soul
must stand by
station,
my
side.
I can desire
no honor, no
If
thou art
are one
it
We
Be
ours to
We
will
stand,
go back, or
forvard, together.*'
MR. IIENRT
C.
WRIGHT.
evils.
0f*
will
be
when
the race
every man
all
What a
spirit
shall be
deluged in such a
to
as
himself,
**
in thee,
is
how
can
There
no room
all
it
my
nature
it
finds in
thee
receive from
any woman
in
marriage, and
repels
The
ex-
one
it
lives,
proves that
It
ever existed.
is,
seems to
me
the
that marriage-love
in
its
very
essence, exclusive."
"While
first
one
lives.'*
This looseness
is
unpardonable.
much
**
of his
previous argument.
He
true love
"
;
was
monogamic
sense
that death
it.
He and we
believe
which
Mr.
W.
and by some accident he falls first, will he feel it any more right for her to be joined to " another as a husband ? " Will it appear any more " pure and chaste" to him ? It is impossible for her to love
the
last,
W.
He
is
no
less
88
"loveable,**
FREE LOVE.
offense.
Mr.
come up
to
the
courage
to
be more
consistent,
When
the
them out
consistently.
I will
first
The
last
is
mere statement of
is
his opinion.
to the
argument.
quote him,
a "fullness of satisfaction"
**no
room
for another.'*
We
farther
'*
together, as such.
But in marriage,
all
The glory
of marriage is
its
exclusiveness
The
soul, conscious
than one.'*
frees
which
And
yet,
with
all
the importance
which he attaches
MR. HENRY
to
tliis
C.
WRIGHT.
In
89
a
subject, he
is
perfectly indefinite.
general
manner, he
no
way
No
all
Connubial love
it
''
therefore
excludes
Wright to
**
define this
But the
fulness,'* or
"no
for
**
more.
Eeally,
we do not
glory
in
is
none
it
is all
mere testimony
mere
it
opinion.
He
and dignity
of this
*'
of this exclusiveness.
We will
is
accept
that
in
harmony
then be
with
self-evident.
But
let
us attend
to
for another.**
When
it
no more.
fills
any thing,
This
is
not
bad philosophy. We believe in a law of mind, with more or less power to control the action of mind
that
is,
in a degree of
agency.*'
what we shall call " free That a man has some power to "keep *'
or give
his bosom.'*
We
;
in
on any thing
and that
if
it
would be
false.
8*
90
That
she
if
PRBE LOVE.
love another
man was in love with one woman, he would woman who was like her, or so far ae was like the first. But we also said, a well
a
life,
confining, concen-
We
know
of no
man who
main
to
plainly.
in
Perhaps
mind
he
way
We
some thhik he
In
our
last extract
all
of them, h
on
one woman, and of having exclusively monopolized her entire connubial soul.
satisfaction
in'' her.
So he has a
is
*'
fulness of
for
So there
all
"no room
another.**
So he
is
spending
ing
all
he can contain.
Should we admit
entirely possible
'
there is no shadow of proof here that this is the most healthy, normal, refined, purified and elevated
state of connubial love.
is
own
soul.
We
believe
its
him honest
id do not dispute
correctness, only as
we deny
MR. HENRY
\he entire distinction
C.
WRIGHT.
91
which he makes between that all men and all women, and that which he confines to the one.
sexual love which he allows between
Sexual love
is
one.
It has, like
all
of manifestations, but
law.
are governed
by the same
In
its
W.
but parit.
tially confines
Adhesiveness
may
be concentrated.
Jonathan."
It
was so
lov
between
ter
"David
and
Their
The
wri-
own
An inequality of subsequent
development
think, in an
We
improved
be more adhe-
concentration.
love.
It is
There
s'mply
harmony with
or
all
So
it
concen-
partial
diffusion.
If adhesiveness
be, sometimes,
stronger
love,
when
is
added
exes.
to the cord, as
it is
Added to this, the entire power of the tremenduous and despotic institution of civilized marriage, goes to concentrate
92
the sexes.
FREE LOVE.
In
civilization, all are
shut up to this
of caste
and character.
Law
it.
is
If
any of the
fair sex,
who
means
to provide
even
for their
own acknowledged
them
and
so
fail
without freeing
victim.
and cruelty
reader
will
is
passing away.
all
this.
He
in
part,
by our further quotaHe slanderously condemns all love out of tions. exclusive dual order, but does not hold any to the forms of outward law. The day is not far distant when the race will look back upon our law, in the place of love, to marry and to keep together married pairs, with as much wonder and contempt, as we now look upon the past hanging of witches. The
as
see
woman
then appear alike ridiculous and inhuman. They will exclaim, " What keep men and women in love, in
!
married
relations,
by law ?
*'
that this
>
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
93
They
nence, ask
how
with a further
illustration of
our
last.
fruit.
Some
mentiveness to a
continues to do
ness," and has
so.
to
time
**
He
continues to feel a
ful-
"no
He
casts a
fruit.
In this
state,
his
a
the
for
stomach "repels'' the thought of eating from them. Very likely But does this prove that he has a taste
!
And who
more than
all, still, to
his equally
normal
"Much
is
It is said
man
needs a fuller
;
satis-
that
some
men must suffer unless they live with more than one woman as a wife. But the history of polygamy under whatever name, and by whatever and by whom-
"94
FREE LOVB.
it
is
unnatural,
evil.
consequences are
evil,
and only
soul,
It
Tenders
men
imbecile, in
body and
and tendi
can never
Woman
attain
amy.
itself to
exclusive,
and
.and woman.'*
It is plain to
still
This
is
gross
lies
women.
Polygamy
to
is
ed from one
many.
We
write
Mr. Wright
benefit of
must
see this.
We
more
for the
woman
than
for
^units, or
more than man, whether she be bound to the man in by tens or by hundreds, as in the case of Polygamy is not 'David and Solomon, and others. better than dual marriage, but worse, only wher
there is a redundance of females.
So
a
is
At
the best
it
n unjust remedy
"Such
is
for diseased
But as
see
4}ad as
we
we do not
how
it.
^civilized
MR. HENRY
C.
WRIGHT.
it
9f
stands in opposition
It
may not be
unprofitable.
What
then
is
the
there are not less than thirty thousand females sacrificed annually in the
altar
(No
enlight-
ened physician
will dispute
the entire
truthfulness
any should, we covet the privilege of discussing it with him, in any place which can be opened to us.) Added to the above,
of this statement.
If
way
who go
in the
same
if
in spite of law-
While
on one
side,
on the other
number
annually of sexual starvation, from necessary amative fasting, and from the " solitary vice " which
life
Many
prove
knowing there
no reprieve
no
mercy,
if
should
unfortunate,
short of death, or
loss of charac-
adultery
ter.
so called
and consequent
often delay long,
fractional
life,
Such, at
least,
and so there
are
many
in single
females.
"solitary vice."
lished
physician who has just puba book on the " Physiology of Marriage,"
it
worse
96
FREE LOVE.
Civilization has never yet
dreamed
least
aloud,
at
of
any thing
if
like a successful
remedy
is
for all,
in convul-
any man proposes a radical change, she should be plunged into something worse.
is
Our
So
friend Ballou
is
Mr. Greeley.
We
do not wonder
at this.
We
have
We
available
our mother.
her children,
who may
we cannot consult it. We have sounded the thing till we are sure there is no saviour
in
civilization
for civilization.
She has
it still.
tried
law
shall
and bonds.
We
We
We
Love.
who
oppose Free
who make
from an unwillingness
gods.
to give
up
their household
afraid to
freedom of woman.
children
These are
**
wiser than
the
and
know
of
Wo-
MR. IIEKRY
C.
WRIGHT.
JT
man
the
will not
demand
as she
now
is.
We
to all the
fears of the
We
think
we say enough
his fears.
suffice,
We
give
him the
we must
again refer
him
Messrs. Noys,
de-
much
it.
less in its
We
will towards
We
have
felt
the
power of
it.
its
persecuting arm,
its iron
sway, and
for his
thoroughly forgiven
connubial order.
riage rights, nor will
We judge
co
man
We
we
at
trespass
stand or
We
go
our
low
all
We
feel
respect every
light,
man
and highest
but
be
that light
more or
less.
We
sex.
little
more
many
monsters of amative
harm
Wc
wish them no
We
choose
and
to
and for those who weaken the despotic power and per-
9Z
FREE LOVE.
CAAPTER
YIII.
We
may
there
"
The
ideal of
young
Adam
created.*'
Whether
first
nubial love
portance.
to
one,
is
comparatively of no im-
The mind,
in
developing to any
new
on some person in
whom
to create,
Besides,
marriage love,
is
made
to
However
may
in
be,
normal desires
his
and
and
calls of
fractional state, or
free loves,
more or
he certainly
lays, all
may
and Concentrate them on one. And as well do this, for if he long deone
after
corresponding loves,
another,
will be leaving
him from a
like necessity
on the part
99
and so leaves
all
who from
neces-
in a state
of
double
to
starvation.
power
compel compliance
it is
and order.
In our day,
what to But who, from all of these causes, knows the power of mind over mind, in the dualizing and concentrations of love or the power of habit in leading to it ? Mr. Wright would appreciate
to submit, or choose
of two evils.
all
these influences
if
brought to
Mr. Wright
is
the last
story
little
of
Adam
it
while ago,
We
ar-
gument
just
in the
sticklers
draw from
going
as
back
to
thousand years
men
marriage.
reformer think of a
Mr.
W.
would pro-
very nounce such a well what he would think, if I were to cite him back to feudalism, back to savagism, for arguments Mr. W. so we think to defend any moral question
beside himself.
!
He knows
100
of you in this case
!
FREE LOYE.
Even
this
would be
pair.
less
than
is
halfway back
to his
supposed dual
Truth
literal
But admitting every word of Genesis to be a and truthful revelation from God, it does not help the friends of exclusive marriage. Every argument which Mr. Wright could bring from it, would be equally good in favor of an entire dual hermitage. Adam was as fully shut up by that
dual Providence of his creation, to one
cially,
woman
so-
was connubially. So of Eve to Adam. Each were shut up to one person. How long will real reformers for in some respects make it necessary for us to waste Mr. W. is one ink, pen, and time, in reply to such shallow and soadhesively, as he
Can not
to its
tell
so a^ed an
gray hairs
command our
We
Mr. Wright will never allude, in this manner, to **Adam and Eve,*' in a public discussion with an opponent of good common sense. He is too wise
and too shrewd to risk himself in such a position. * * * "Is the marriage tie capable of extension ?
If a
man
women
equally
if
each exercises
an equally deep,
life
;
on his
if
to bless
were
all
if all
equally desire
it,
to
be the
>
101-
The
case
is
**l3
V*
it
But
his reply to
here
is
superficial,
and
it
to us
seems evasive.
own
question,
mind.
Let those
who
covet a state of
mind which
would be
it.
We
respect-
an experience.
We
who
is
capable of being so
We
tity
by and absorbed in us. leave with Mr. Wright the entire glory, chasOur oppoand purity of such marriages.
We
feel
have no
man may
not
an equally
It is
not
uncommon
The
spiritually devel-
oped minds,
or more.
to find
diflScult to select
between two
But the mandates of society must be obeyed One may be received selection must be made.
other
the
;
the
must be
cast
oflf.
Mr. Wright,
to
do justice
9*
102
ical
FREE LOVE.
leasonsfcr confiRii7g amativeness and not ad-
hesiveness, as both
preferences.
may and do
The
passional element,
may
Whea
men
The man
in
whom
the need
by the desire
level in creation
satisfaction
them
all.
Men who
advocate a "variety,"
felt
know
more
other-
to
than one
find, in
their various
attractions to
woman,
a sanction for
what were
thought
it
expedient.
I have extolled
Mr. Wright's book as a whole. In a few words, I will do justice to this phase of it. On coming to a close, on this subject, Mr. Wright attempts to fill
up what has been wanting in sound, direct, and pertinent argument, by open-mouthed and foul slander
of his opponents.
In the unlimited and universal manner in which he has penned and left the above, it becomes aggravated falsehood. He, at least, ought to have ** known " this. If any reader, who knovrs
103
him even
us to do
something of the amount of falsehood in it, can give the apology of ignorance, he is bound in
charity to do so.
this.
We
confess to finding
it
difficult for
Again I say, I covet not that part of the head or heart which can so ''descend to the level '* of a lower manhood. His putting such slander into the mouth of his ideal lady, is not very tasteful
(so it stands in his book.) We will not give what would be a just retort, lest we seem to follow his example. The reader of his book will find some more like our last quotation, but we pass it. Had it emanated from a lower mind, and been disconnected
with so
really good, I
it.
should not
will
Such slander
it
indirectly aims to
it
so
we can
afford to let
pass back to
its
own
and chastity
mate, as Mr.
is
W.
is
necessarily in
naturally impossible
any
man
or any
woman
far
to
knowing
son can
that one,
till
advanced
No
per-
know their mate till, or any farther than, they know themselves. A man cannot know his own nature and power faster than it develops in or him. This, at the best, is only little by little gradually. Towards woman, he first develops to an
;
This
may be
to
104
FREE LOVE.
some particular woman, in whom ihe feminine element manifests itself most in accordance with his Perhaps his own spiritual and inideal of woman. tellectual powers are yet comparatively in embryo 80 these are secondary in their influence upon him.
He
his
He
for
feels
cup comparatively
forth in the
full,
more."
In a
come
more important
religious character.
We
so,
will
suppose this to be
thirty.
no
fault of theirs.
One
conservative, the
other reformatory.
One
other forward.
We
say, this is
forty,
no fault of
theirs.
know
go
apart.
theirs.
One has less, the other more no fault of They still love and perhaps have no less
;
love,
is
not
now
full,
Perhaps one
is
now
far
from
Each may
suffer
more or
than once
other.
We write
here what
fact,
we have more
seen as an actual
perienced in
the
first
marriage.
we
106
not
false,
it
or against nature.
goes, in
a marriage
nature,
is,
so far as
chaste,
and
is
on
its
own
plane.
relation,
Nature leaves room for, as well as works her changes in such cases of unequal
growth.
not always absolute and entire.
She gives various degrees of divorce, but She also has her
degrees in marriage.
in
And
varied promptings,
will be,
is well.
no
collisions.
and her
fairly
like changes. We are sure Mr. W. cannot do away with the force of these suggestions. Mr. Davis agrees with us, in the main, as to the
past.
Wright encourages sudden and veheby the power which he gives ment it over the entire mental and moral manhood. He
I think Mr.
love attractions,
represents
leaves
its
real power of our free agency. But whatever maybe the amount of truth iti his statements, I must caution the inexperienced mind against an unnatural and sudden flow of abnormal
for the
room
attraction.
We
in its reactions
deplore
it.
not strange,
106
nate.
FREE LOVE.
Some very
fail
to
Let
emi-
me
illustrate.
first
nence, related to
me
"A
society,
suddenly found
The lady
over-pow-
common
in
this
ering love.*'
Wright's
certainly justify
extreme power.)
The man
had a
latest
But she was a real believer in the doctrine of Move over law,' and in 'obeying the
wife.
connubial
affinity.'
to
hinder
the thing
unharmed by
It
them.
love
began
to
relax.
reacted to
indiflferenco,
coldness,
sides.
All
Of
new
thorn
awkward dilemma.
*'
here."
What do you
"
I think It
it
affections.
10*7
It
begins,
comes
*'
to its crisis,
and ends
in
When
its
equilibrium,
when
the
to head,
wo
all
consider
more or
less disease.
It is a real
So when nearly
social,
equilibrium
is
is
The mind
is
unbalanced, and
incapable of
This
is
abnormal.
Re-
same
religious
We fully
in connubial love, is
better
than stagnation
than
sometimes
moral
and sexual
death.
either.
But
life
love, as I
for
some years
come.
love
sufficiently
dom
without
liberty will
work
a
But
in the
assurance of
health.
larger
amount of returning
W8
alternate chills
FREE LOVE.
and
fever.
falling
is
in
It
better,
rise in love.
A leading feature
is
in
of, to
us,
sickly
entire
exclusive bonds
we have none
belittleing feeling
This
is
good
whom
he wrote.
Such
protect
itself.
So much
same
**
feeling towards
and
eties.
Each
and through^
ANDREW JACKSON
as
DAVIS.
f/^
person
him
or herself.
Yet in many,
is
individuality.
No
one
owned by
;
or
owns another.
to
Each
live
is
his
his individuality, so as
Dear
There
is
Perhaps not
real adults.
but possible
marriages.
So does each
this
lose
much
to
in individuality.
But more of
when we come
Mr. Davis.
CHAPTER
ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS
IX.
QUO-
GENERAL REMARKS
A.
justly
J.
is
the
We
"head," as a
We
say, as
a teacher,
for,
him
the laiter.
The mass
with
with
its
since flooded us
sings,
intellectual
and
also
its
Va
some
FREE LOVE.
parts of his works.
Wli'A
Many
own
Perhaps
this is
true, in
a degree, of
all
reformers.
occupies a
and of overwhelming
importance.
voice to
to,
Through him, wisdom is uttering her He now writes directly the sons of men.
a large class of minds.
and
for,
Many
of these
If there
was a
to the
for
when
giving the
Law
Jews,
and
a like
wisdom,
like reasons,
may
some of the higher freedom of the more glorious Mr. Davis, evidently to future, by its spiritual veil. us, does "not see to the end** of some of the law" phases, which still linger in the infancy of his harmonial philosophy. As a believer in a wise and holy expediency, we cannot complain of Mr. D.*s spirits
i
alike untaught,
We
in
no way find
Even
all
disci-
much
less to the
world
They
^
the disciples,
could
*^not bear
Moses, Jesus,
to
since,
were likely
be the best'
We
only
ANDREW JACKSON
wish
to see all
DAVIS.
Ill
with
it.
But we wave
this desire or
seeming objection.
We
line
mental love.
structed us as
much
We reverence A. J. Davis as a teacher. We now approach no written testimony with more reverence than we do his. We love and respect his
guiding angels.
in all
of us
He will never respeak reverently. Nor should we ever call it I yield the first iota of it to any being below Him. When Mr. Davis writes to my understanding, new
our
separate individuality.
;
own
and
important
truths,
them.
oppose
When
it.
he, or
But when he opposes what I know to be truth, I have no fear to review and criticise him. The reader will bear with my confidence. Such an assurance is not necessarily dogmatism. Every man knows some things. I, too, am a medium of over twenty year's steady growth and not only write in harmony with a legion of angels, but I write what I am identified with, by having traveled
;
all tlie
way
to
it.
am
112
FRKE LOVE.
book
;
my
my guiding
angels to
to
invite
a full
men
of earth, and
the
men
add,
of
the spheres.
1,
to the
And we
of,
if
no notice
without
we
opponents of
We
take
our position in
this,
gePs duty or
privilege.
instructed us.
He goes deeper into the philosophy of much more liberal, on the whole, than
It
mind, and
is
Mr. Wrio-ht.
no
more from
part of
it.
his head,
wisdom
less
in
little
amount or volume of the magnetism of love, and vastly more in wisdom in higher truth. Mr. Davis
has his
the
''
naturalness of these
various forms
on
is
bigamy,
mind
and so he
theme,
is
Such a spirit in a writer on so sensitive a most lovely, and entirely beyond this age,
testifies
Mr.
Davis
plane,
the only
ANDREW JACKSON
possible marriage.
DAVIS,
ll^
He
Mr. Wright
the exclusive
feature of his
book
and modern polygamy with modern Free Love. He and elevating principles of the latter, and associates it, sometimes with partly
entirely ignores the true
monopoly of
polygamy, which
the
is
back
to
a rude age.
Whether
kettle
of the past cannot successfully slan" of the same past, in relation to its
We
successfully
fasten the
latter
most inglorious. I The most chardid not expect it from Mr. Davis. itable conclnsion possible to put upon all this is, We have felt no that it is the fruit of ignorance. disposition to summon up the dead past to directly help our cause, or to wound our opponents though we might have just as truthfully done so. All forms
Love, as such.
effort is
;
The
ism
in the past.
Mr. Davis
tells
10*
114
FREE LOVE.
"^^^^
of the race.
six
So I believe,
(I do not say
am
We
shall
be to
soon.
We
Wright; and we have no need to go back for our support. Mind is with us, and we can read it, but if Free Love has so great an antiquity as Mr. D. gives
it,
we
who have
is
a peculiar re-
spect
to let this
have
fair.
its.
entirely
We
is
when such
men
ual freedom,
and
freedom,
or
more
as
and confess the vast distance between their exclusive marriage, and the general marriage of the
see
we
present,
entire
past.
We
do them
justice, as
The reader
of
our
first
extract on page
297
Mr.
Davis'
book.
We
appropriate,
our subject
in the book.
ANDREW JACKSON
life-principles,
DAVIS.
^^
attraction
each having
its
own independent
mode
of
its
Each has an
From
Each atmosphere
manifestations.
less,
composed of
differently
shaped
But the
into
one atmosphere,
air sur-
what
sensitive
realising an
being
is
affected
pleas iirably
or
otherwise,
without
perceiving
palpable
cause.
This atmosphere
a what a dog
Each
this
fact in connection
with the
diflferent
shaped
"
cles
feel
And each
The
parti-
composing
the nettles of
selfishness.
Parental love is
;
composed of more spherical atoms hence children and horses, cats and dogs, feel the presence of its Animals are readily domesticated atmosphere. under the influence of this love.
"Strangers can
its
feel
atmosphere
is finer
and
its particles
more smooth
and
penetrative.
116
FREE LOVE.
can
feel, in
"And you
ter
of the
conjugal love
whether
it
be on the
and
color
is,
growth.
Self-love
in
everything, a bigamist ;
pieces, a
it
common
expression of selfishness.
a.
is
polygarnist ;
it
of pets or productions.
towards
many
by
children
more
not desired
omnigamic
They
love a countless
In their rapturous
at once.
and ever-widening sympathies, they encircle millions It will be a glorious era, and exceedingly
peaceful,
when
development.
**
But conjugal
when
the
preceeding forms
omnigamistj and
it
is
a bigamist, a polygamist, an
;
is
unsteady
and with
civility of
the
each
to
be Mr. Davis*
clair-
ANDREW JACKSON
voyant testimony.
DAVIS.
117
To
us,
it
we
some which we The entire think complex, uncertain and erroneous. distinctness and individuality of each faculty, and also their union and harmony, the various shaped
have ever seen
in
print; and
also
all
commends
is
itself to
our
It is
All of this
very beautiful.
a real jewel.
are
in their individuality^
one a
'*
one a
growth,
"polygamist,** and
sexual,
three "omnigamist,**
passes through, in
its
of these phases,
up
to,
or
down
to
the monogamist,
is
more doubtful.
could he not
We
do not
room
it.
to
objections to
some part of
Why
have informed us whether any other faculty changes This is left entirely in the its form in progression ?
dark for so important a subject.
is,
what
highest state of
one, as well as
many.
of
this
Now
this is a
tremenduous proposition.
It
This
is
should not
slightly
no
argument
no
We
an
have
testified that
love
ability
to love mcrre
118
FREE LOVE.
it.
But we
its free
Davis.
It
seems that
nature.
Children should
is
But we
it
and
extent of power, as
advances.
How
remarkable
and never gives a substantial reason for so doing. They seldom give us any reason. Mr. Davis, do other loves change their form by progression ? If
so, in
what
direction ?
Do
tralise, or
We
:
are
As Mr. D.
said nothing of
change,
we
in
will
we
its
mean, of course,
form of manifestation.
We
have
no evidence of
this
change
in
amativeness, in
separate individuality.
We
change between
so
its
action
may
how
to
the
change.
Does Mr. D.
is
mean
to teach
so concenit
has no
power
to get a release,
and
so stray elsewhere.
We
ANDREW
JACKSOil DAVIS.
119
release or suspension.
is
We
bial.
No more
all
do we the connuof
the
it
Mr. Davis,
like
marry, exclusively
atmosphere.
marry,
connubial
to act in
He
harmony with
with
As
call
a comparatively high
to this subject.
mental philosopher,
we
him back
His work
tlie
is
hardly begun.
He
is
bound, on every
this faculty,
and confines a
his friends,
Show
why some
the
As
distinction
his,
he has
failed to
give us
any clue
we go in search of proof, but we If we take the outer man as an index fail to find it. of the inner, we are not relieved. We see nothing
to this,
more incompatible
higher.
this.
omnigamic
other,
any
any
We
first,
we have
a right to call
for proof.
At
that
always
vari-
"more
or less adulterous.*'
Long
many
120
TREE LOVE,
HAHX
in
the
past,
and possibly
to
present.
that "
any
how, they know the exclusively dual is the highest^ and the final of connubial love/' On the whole,,
this is a real gain in the right
direction.
We
took
and we are sanguine of final success. Here is their last breast- w:ork, and here will come the death-struggle of exclusiveness.
We
to
liope
and believe he
defend
it.
We
question.
What
is
love
to
the
possible.
to
We
is
There
a duality in marriage
atmospheres.
this duality.
harmony in the woman. We see a still greater harmony in th marriage of many. Even much of the higher harmony of marriage, which he does teach, or foretell, he carries to tha>
Joining
ojf
He
the two
man and
ANDREW JACKSON
other sphere for
it,
DAVIS.
Hi
Yet
all
its practical
realization.
of
and more
will
Like Paul in his "third heavens," and earth. Swede nborg in his ** celestial spheres,*' he sees things there, which are but clairvoyant views of things to
come, and
to
be enjoyed here.
He
sets untruthful
bounds
to the present,
our earth.
"Repulsion," I believe,
At
least,
our view.
And
on a widely
all
different plane
may
is
still
true
same plane, and of " like temperment," may. Such cannot in freedom, be entirely That which joins them to one, will join exclusive.
that those on the
to all
on the same
plain,
ment."
of the
The
same temperament.
is, if
possible,
the
spiritual plane,"
Then
any
by
effort,
all
others, or
can be brought into submission, and perhaps at last into love, and so render
122
.>IVy
FREE LOVE.
(aVik
and normal,
from individuality,
If these
we
between
any
case, or for
any reason,
to
suppress or oppress a
healthy repulsion.
unabridged the
most
perfect spontaniety
and individuality.
The
all
Yet we
insist
in
harmony with
its
harming them, so the same is some extent, on this subject. There are various good motives which may wisely lead to the ultimates of love. A degree of need, mutual and
normal enjoyment, and the creation of
offspring, are
among them.
if
In the
first
and second
done.
cases, at least,
farther than
is
This
sometimes
Not always.
it
As
room
leave
as
seems
to
ANDREW JACKSON
I
DAVIS.
tell
123
us that
am
ever
entire
and no repulsion.
Then nature
then
why
not
let
Why
try to
works ?
Why
Why
more
iota
Why marry
harmony, in a perfect spontaniety? any man, real man, harmonial man, one
?
Why
than
differ
difi'er.
more
to
natural ?
from
me
were made
all.
in
any one woman, but I have such a right in the race in woman. So I give myself to woman. If I find much more **rest" in some one woman, than in any other and this is natural I may and should
take
and enjoy
it.
On
But he does
this
unnecessary for
it.
me
to
in reviewinor
-fiM
First, I see
-^
'
FREE LOVE.
him
in a later edition of
work on marriage.
the question of a variety in love, into the question of the "fickleness, unsteadiness," or otherwise, of
love.
On
this, I certainly
Mr. Davis.
all
We
some
love
admit that
fickle.
an undeveloped
it
state, is
times
am
I
sure
will not
be so in true
harmony.
Mark,
one.
we may
more than
I think
much
as Mr. Davis
do not
a
like
"putting
away."
It often partakes of
much
greater degree
Nature does
me
to
do
this.
On
we may
be wise.
Sometimes
?
is
it
may
is
What
harmony
harmony,
that
the centralization
ANDREW JACKSON
is
DAVIS.
125
mind.
He
adds
Connubial love "centralises** on woman. " Every love, as I have hitherto affirmed, is
;
:
monogamio
speak
now
of the
regulated
soul.
its
When
which meets
attractions,
word "monogamic.*'
I said that
In
my
reply
Mr. Ballou,
one
object.
But man,
one
it
object,
met
in
many persons.
it
still
material
for its
grat-
*^
it
it.
**
a fatigue, a thought of monotony, a longing for novelty,'* in exclusive monogamic marriage. " Well,
have true lovers no other resources ? Let me think. * Society is accessible friends are to * * *
be visited and entertained, the imperative demands
of the remaining five affections are to be considered,
and
may
be added an endless
programme of pleasurable
Mr. Davis has here 11*
efforts
and
realizable
126
argument,
FREE LOVB.
if he meant it as an argument, from the monogamic nature of all the loves. Because, if that monogamic law confines connubial love to one
person,
it
to
one person.
*'
So
all
many
friends,'*
are licentious.
all, like
the mythological
Adam
hermitage.
somewhat
freedom
freely,
in error ?
free.'' is
but we pass it. *' Can there be " No, never. " The truth shall
Yes, always.
truth
?
make you
this
opponent, what
subject ?
Where
slight argument,
(we
meant
it
as an argument,)
by
inviting
him back
to
the subject.
marriages of heaven
and
relates a
and comparative
testified
loveliness.
Probably no testimony
this.
Jesus
beyond it, but from what evidence, we do not know. In the nuptial pair which Swedenborg
describes,
much
was from
of
tlw)
their beautiful
He
writes
much
(I quote from
ANDREW JACKSON
memory.)
DAVIS.
]Wt
marAll
exclusiveness, and
all
taken away,
Nature
is
too pure
to need, or be
But we should have supposed that even if they were naked, they might have appeared in clothing to his sight. It would have been
marred, by covering.
wise. Still we have no doubt but exclusive marriaore o and clothing may be common in Paradise, Purgatory and the Hells. I presume Swedenborg saw that
or'
The
not ex-
pedient then to
But there is another interesting view of this case, which may be suggested, as it is so appropriate a Mr. Davis tells us in his book, reply to Mr. Davis. that it was "visions of the vulvar female extremist" which " supplied Swedenborg with material for his
infernal spheres."
We
celestial angels*'
truthful view
It
And we
was only
then thought
relating "visions
128
FREE LOVE.
With
this view,
of
the
glorious nuptials
tribute
of heaven
of prophesy
that
what
a coming war
:
**
and yet
one of the
first, if
not the
champions
in this war,
men
their
When
is
the
man
less
the
has more or
giving
strengthened
way we
in
modern
times.
Man,
claims.
him
to
consent to a
change of possession.
he will oppose.
But we
full
when
the
demand comes
forever yield
home
to
him
to
unconditionally and
ANDREW JACKSON
and every womaa
;
DAVIS.
129
resting each
coming
future,
upon
his
own
mind
to
wants.
is
This
is
far
from coveting
but
is
avoid.
entire
**
Our
non-exclusive principle,
added
is
to
our
will
what
If the
past
it is
and
we
think
it
does
man
with
has progressed,
its
this
man-power over
woman,
has become
less
MonoIts
gamy
more
just,
is
an improvement
less,
;
in the
it
right direction.
monopolies are
and
it
is
more
far
just to
man and
The many to
years,
reciprocal
yet
is
even on
its
own
principles,
woman.
from
one
so far as
old in
and strong in power. She seems to sit in comparative ease, and in her slumbers, as did slavery a few years since. But she sits upon a volcano of smothered and crushed affections, which will in a
coming
The
fires
13<X
FREE LOVE.
Everything will forward and hasten The more narrow minded and seiually selfish
felt
it
have always
were not
:them not
hope
minds
speak
jprophesy in
;
this. But when these lower what I know see that another the same book is to hare a fulfilment
for
it
is
done in heaven
will
as the
higher angels do
it
they
and
howl
in their misery.
Such minds do
not,
We
would be entirely
fear persmially.
*'
bloodless.''
Still
we have no
ISTor
see
the
full
i
consummation of
slow at the best
;
of
which we speak*
it is
Progress
that
and doubtless
well
it is 'SO,
on the whole.
is
We
to
tell the,
as yet, un-
be a mighty change,
N^ow selfishness
lence
this.
is
is
Benevoall
the
exception.
AND
'.
Benevolence will one day be the rule, SELFISHNESS THE EXCEPTION. When man
fairly
has
grown
to
his
this.
will
be
of
Mr.
Wright 'and Mr. Davis are glorious, compared to the really and truly elevate love to the lower phases, or to the germ of spiritual and harmo*
mial connubiality.
But we prophesy
ANDREW JACKSON
DAVIS.
131
'*
by reason of the glory which will then so far exceed The fruition of a ripe, manly and womanly love will then comprehend and absorb all of the
them.
good
in all
below
it
exception.
I glory
;
in the
such a day
tion of
and in living
to
The
formait
of this, and
lies.
will
not
will
lie.
Progression
redeem
sure.
We
come back
"bloodless war."
that
ship,
it is
We
We,
coming.
and
friend-
the
question
when
that
war fairly comes, in all its intensity, and aims its most deadly blows against our n on -exclusive principles, where will Mr. Wright and Mr. Davis be found ? That hour will try the souls of reformers.
We, in the commencement of this mental, and more than mental, stir, stand in defence of all, or nearly all, in which these opponents have parted from
the principles of the past.
the
crisis
more
fully
reaaches our
repeat
my
interrogatory
for,
be
I
when
must
on the whole,
or against us ?
We
aver that
we
which we identify, as to the practical answer which the future may give to these questions. Each in his
132
FREE LOVE.
Will these
folly to
!
men
Double
the
real cause
speak for
which they seek to promote I will not Mr. Wright, but I think Mr. Davis, if he
and moral non-resistant towards it, and treat it We hope not to be disappointMore, we hope he will yet
rejoice,
and
feel
fi-
Har-
monial philosophy.
We
solute freedom of
is right that
woman.
This
**
is
well.
Then
it
she should be
We
their
our oppo-
nants
in
if
do
this,
strict
harmony with
dual doctrines, we
it.
will
Are
any
extent, act in
We
have a
right,
of them.
We
and do demand as much as this ask Mr. Wright in the name of ev-
and keep
off his
hands from
the
all
man
also.
I honor
man
or
an honest
pledge.
to his
I have no heart in
me
reproach or
slander such.
We
ask,
ANDREW JACKSON
nents,
DAVIS.
133
act
who
talk freedom,
to feel
and
freedom
allow freedom.
If
we
philosophy,
to let
make them understand our mental will then meet, and appeal to them tooman h^free; and we covenant with them to
fail to
we
judgments and
practical
reproaches off
decision.
and
can
we
will abide
by her
This
We
test.
iom of woman.
shall write
a good and
fair
We
Woman will have her freedom. Truth will ^ow and prosper, and that shall be our final arbiter.
ture.
12
APPENDIX.
While we have been
city
New York
has been
not that
:
all astir
No
was a volcano of exclusive marby a free love match. (See city papers about the 20th of October.) The Tribune reissued its bulls and pledged itself anew to the deIt
riage,
touched
off
Other editors
towns
care
renewed
their
vows
Seriously
what
has
happened
tution ?
to cause this
insti-
Has
free love
and established
enticed
rights ?
Has
she
clandestinely
and
is
away
his
body slave-mate
No
There
no evidence of
regulate her
that.
the liberty to
own
own taste,
incidental effect
We think
recommended
free love
136
marriage institution.
APPENDIX.
It will not
do.
Something
in-
must be done. The power of the law must be She must send the noble Brisbane to voked city dungeon for a night, as a token of what
can and will do,
in Protestantism
if
hei
shei
When
i _
ii
so easily an&
It
must be rotten
at heart,
it
and without a
foundation.
Like slavery,
!
Mr. Greeley, Mr. BalL Yea, when even looked at and others, would know how to appreciate such rJi flections as these, if connected with any subject noo
in
harmony with
their faith.
Our opponents
see thu
full force
of them,
when they
is
relate to slavery.
Gen
tlemen, consistency
a jewel.
If I were to fine
such a sensation on
my
from com
whol
when
relates
to
thi
h*
of his remote
neighbors,
but does
APPENDIX.
really dare to trust
it
137
?
Has he
Still,
no
From
his course
has.
we think he
it.
may have
Perhaps
thank
We
for
we do
him
what he has ventured in this hne. I have not done with Mr. Greeley, I wish to record my sincere gratitude to him for the good he has done to the cause which I advocate, as also to every other radical reform, in preparing the way for it and
them by his general efforts on the side of free discussion. Whatever may be his future course, I promise
never to forget his past services.
He
all this
to
advance free
and as
it.
this
gladly slay
always pursue
suppose the
and
if possible
exterminate
(I
late
At
least
To
the cause
name has
now it is Herod. Christ no more needed. We think Herod is but we have np fear that he can do his successor any real harm. We most sincerly pray that he may not do by what has been the John
been John (the
baptist,)
is
in
himself,
as
the
12*
138
baptist.'*
APPENDIX.
As one who
still
loves
liim
we have
feared this.
Mr. Greeley is still really devoted to the spread and advancement of free love never before half as much so as now. He has taken his position behind,
;
it, and by his opposition he will bringrj power of his tremenduous battery to drive^j it forward. The cause has able leaders enough, J and Mr. Greeley has taken the best possible position which he could take, and the only one which he is^ now prepared to occupy. Here he will act with zeal. Header, these were our reflections on reading the
in the rear of
the whole
late
in the Tribune.
As
paper
for relaxation, I
do not beheve
will
But
from
was ready
;; :
ETERNAL JUSTICE.
The man is thought Or bigot, plotting
BY CHARLES MACKAY. a knave or
fool.
crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time. For him the hemlock shall distill For him the axe be bared ; For him the gibbet shall be built For him the stake prepared Him shall the scorn and wrath of men
Puraue with deadly aim malice, envy, spite, and lies, Shall desecrate his name. But truth shall conquer at the last For round and round we run, And ever the right comes uppermost,
;
And
And
ever
is justice
done.
the lamp of clay That holds the light divine, But tliey cannot quench tlie fire of thought By any such deadly wine They cannot blot thy spoken words From the memory of man, By all the poison ever was bruised Since Time his course began. To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored. So round and round we run,
;
And ever the truth comes uppermost. And ever is justice done.
Plot in thy cave, gray anchorite. Be wiser than thy peers ; Augment the range of human power.
And
And
trust to
coming
years.
They may
;;
KO
ETERNAL JtSTICB.
five hundred years too so For the comfort of thy days. But not too soon for human kind Time hatli reward in store And the demons of our stories become
The saints that we adore. The blind can see, the slave is lord So round and round we run. And ever the wrong is proved to be wrocg,
And
ever justice
is
done.
They may gloat o'er the senseless words tbey wiiog From trie pangs of thy despair They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide The sun's meridian glow The heel of a priest may tread thee down. And a tyrant work thee woe But never a truth has been destroyed They may curse and call it crime ; Pervert and betray, or slander and slay
; :
But the sunshine aye will light the sky, As round and round we run. And truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice
shall be done.
And
live there
now
such
men
as these
With thoughts
Many have And left their thought untold And many live, and are ranked as mad. And are placed in the cold world's ban.
For sending their bright, far-seeing souls Three centuries in the van
;
Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn Of the meanest of mankind. But yet the world goes round and round, And the genial seasons run. And ever the truth comes uppermoBt, And ever is justice done.
PAMPHLET
Stoci.tl
B'
sv-'f
GENERAL LIBRARY
U.C.
BERKELEY
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