SOCIALISM AND MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 52, 25 November 1907, Page 6

SOCIALISM AND MARRIAGE

In last Saturday's issue of The Dominion was published. an article from the " Standard," London, :in which the attitude of Socialists towards religion was shown to be not merely irreligious or irreverent, bxit anti-religious and Atheistical. It is well now to turn to the social side of the Socialistic propaganda, and see how its teaching . proposes to affect the; family life of the community. The abolition of marriage, or a condition of free love, is the corollary of Atheism, and, therefore, it is not surprising to find that the leading exponents and teachers /of the Socialistic creed make no concealment of the intention to replace marriage by,. State-counten-anced licence. This is, in fact, as much part of Socialism as is the nationalisation of the,land, and all means of production; it is a logical part of any creed that makes for an impossible and an impracticable equality. Out of the mouths of their own apostles the Socialists stand condemned. Mrs. Emily Snowden, the- greatiiigh priestess of the cult, preaches abroad that the wife must be as free as the: air, that, apart from any natural.love she may have for them, no ties inust : .bind her to husband or children. That eccentric genius, Mr. Bernard Shaw, who by persistent self-advertising— "The cart and the trumpet," to use his own admission qji this head—has pushed himself to the fore-front of Socialism, in his work "The Quintessence of Ibenism," makes the Socialist Premier in embryo say: "Unless woman repudiates her womanliness, her-duty to her husband, to her children, to Society, to the law, and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself. Therefore woman has to repudiate duty altogether." Elsewhere he calmly suggests: "All progress involves the beating of honour, chastity, etc., from their position." That is to say, because honour and chastity embarrass Socialism, which is neither honourable, nor chaste, therefore honour and chastity must go. llobert Owen, another Socialist light, gave forth that,'under the new regime, or, to use his own terms, "in the New Moral World," the irrational names of husband and wife, parent and child, will be heard no more.

As for the children, they will be the property of the whole community. Bebel is characteristically outspoken. He asks: " Man and woman being animals, can we talk of matrimony, of indissoluble bonds ? " And answers thus: "Plainly, nd. The woman remains always /free as the man remains always free." Then, as a natural step in advance, Earl Pearson, in his treatise named "Socialism and Sex," writes: " If the State is to guarantee wages it is bound in self-protection to provide that no person shall be born without its consent." Such, then, is the teaching of modern Socialism as regards the relation of the sexes, and Eiich is the outlook for the children born under the Socialistic rule. The home has to go; the family life has to go; all children are, as the property of the State, to be brought up under similar conditions, wear similar clothes, play in the same barrack nursery, and lean on a soulless " State " instead of a mother's love and care! It will be said, of course, that such Socialism as this has no use or place in a favoured land such as this Dominion of New Zealand; that the Socialism here is either that of King Edward or of Dr. Eindlay, and will go no further. And that is the very plausible argument of which all God-fearing, decent, would-be progressive persons have most to be suspicious. One of Socialism's mottoes is "Little by Little," its policy is never to show its full hand; its treatment is to poison by inches, and, when the patient is sufficiently demoralised by obnoxious .doctrines to be immune to disgust and repulsion, to inject the full dose of spoliation, Atheism and immorality. The proof of this lies in the difference between the Socialism publicly preached ten years ago, and that which is orated to-day. If anyone who now calls himself a Socialist is not prepared to go these lengths, then it is for such an one to publicly denounce the whole creed, and to cease, to pose under a banner to which all his best instincts forbid hini being loyal. At least it cannot be said that "he has not been warned, that the community at large has not been warned, of what lies ahead as a menace to the individual and. the.nation.