I have sought to put these matters as plainly as may be in the conviction that nothing can be gained by concealment. Any one who writes on the subject of marriage reform is very open to misconception. It is not realised that the effort of the reformer is not to diminish at all the bonds in any sexual partnerships, rather the desire is to strengthen them, but the forms of the partnership will have to be more varied, unless, indeed, we prefer to accept unregulated and secret vice. Matters are likely to get worse and not better. We shall, I do most sincerely believe, gain more morality by doing what I am pleading for than will be gained in any other way.
The only logical objection that I can think of being advanced against an honourable recognition of these partnerships is that, by doing away with all necessity for concealments, their number is likely to be larger than if the old penalties were maintained. This is undoubtedly true; it is also true that recognition is the only possible way by which such unions can cease to be shameful. Prohibition and laws, however stringent, can do nothing. The past has proved their failure; they will fail still worse in the future.
Nor is the change really so great or so startling as at first it may appear to be. Our marriage in its present form is primarily an arrangement for the protection of the woman and the family. What I want is that some measure, at least, of the protection now given to the legal wife, should also be afforded to all women who in an open and honourable way fulfil any of the same duties. I am not seeking to make immorality easier, that is very far indeed from my purpose. These changes for which I am pleading will make immorality much harder, for it will not be so easy as now it is to escape from the responsibilities of love.
No one can suppose, of course, that these changes can be other than gradual. There will be no stage at which a large section of society will give up the accepted convention of concealments with regard to unregulated unions, and will stand perplexed as to how they may readjust their opinion and moral judgments on this question. What will happen is this. The slow abandonment by society of the old attitude of blame and fear, as experiments in sexual partnership are made, at first by the few, to be followed by an ever increasing number. When the need for change arises, then does a change come.