Polygamy and polyandry have been found wanting and have been abandoned. Monogamy is, at the present day, tempered by frequent infidelity and numerous divorces. Which means that it does not satisfy the needs of the human race. Shall free love offer a solution?
=Man the Dissatisfied.= I might as well voice here my pessimistic belief that there is no permanent solution for any human problems. The only tangible difference between man and the animals is that the animals are satisfied and man everlastingly dissatisfied. No cat was ever dissatisfied enough with the primitive feline way of catching mice to invent a mouse trap.
The animals solved their problems thousands of years ago. Unless domesticated and exposed to the exclusive influence of men, they never vary from the form of behavior of their particular species.
The only problem they have been unable to solve is how to get rid of man, the invader and parasite, and they will never cope with it.
Man's satisfaction with every new improvement is only temporary.
=The Next Step.= Free love may be the next step in the evolution of the sexual partnership but it certainly will not be _the_ solution of the marriage problem.
As far as the mates themselves are concerned, free love will only be a success in the case of extremely normal individuals for whom the sexual relationship means solely physical gratification. As soon as affection intervenes in those unions, the thousand forms of jealousy we shall describe in another chapter will enter into play.
Jealousy among free lovers cannot but rage more fiercely than among the legally married. A thousand details of married life are simply meant to establish the mates' ownership of each other in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world. The number of war marriages contracted hastily during the great European conflict by young men and women on the eve of the bridegroom's departure for Europe testifies to the powerful "safety" symbolism of the marriage ceremony.
A gullible young man in love with a girl would not have trusted her alone during his absence from home. She might have experienced a change of heart. After going thru a wedding ceremony with him, however, he _knew_ that she could not change her mind and love another. As a matter of fact most of those unions were disastrous. A virgin might have waited. A young woman left alone after a few days of erotic enjoyment was naturally an easy prey for any clever tempter. The bridegroom, on the other hand, went away blissfully, secure in the thought that the marriage certificate, the ceremony, the wedding ring, the transformation of Mary Brown into Mrs. John Smith would protect his "honor" while he was away.