“Mr. Midith, will you please give us an account of your relations between parent and child, and between husband and wife?” asked Mrs. Uwins as the whole family, including Rev. Dudley, were seated in the cool, refreshing shade on the following Sunday afternoon. “We are not quite able to settle those questions to our satisfaction.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Midith, “with the greatest of pleasure.
“But allow me to tell you before I begin this subject, that I am well aware that I am here treading on treacherous ground. My ten years’ mundane experience and observation convince me that of all the superstitions there is none so wide-spread, none so deeply rooted in the minds of the masses of your people, as the sex superstition. It is more barbarously cruel, more blindly superstitious, more grossly prejudicial, and more intensely jealous than any other superstition on earth, whether it be religious, political, social or industrial. The masses of your people seem to hug with the same fondness the sex superstition, as the contemporaries of the inquisition hugged that ‘Holy Institution;’ and, no doubt, the vast majority of your men and women believe as sincerely that your present sexual slavery is as essential to social harmony as the contemporaries of the inquisition and of the institution of chattel slavery believed those institutions absolutely necessary for the highest social welfare.
“You have asked me to give you the Marsian view of these relations, and I shall be very much pleased to do so; for, in our opinion, there is no subject of human inquiry of which a thorough knowledge and a right adjustment conduces more to our health, to our well-being, and therefore to our general happiness than the subject of sex relations. It often seems to me that your parents here endeavor to make ignorance the safeguard of their children’s virtue and chastity. As a rule, neither the relation of parent and child nor the sex relations are ever openly and honestly discussed in the presence of the whole family; and when children arrive at the age of puberty, they know nothing about the evils resulting from sexual abuse, and in a state of ignorance, the child is apt to follow the promptings of its passions whether they are normal or still abnormal.
“All parents seem to teach their offspring, as early as possible, the danger of a hot stove, a sharp knife, the evil of intemperance, the bite of a poisonous serpent; but the evils of sexual licentiousness, resulting from an inadequate knowledge of the sex relations, is, as a rule, not only not taught by your parents, but it is actually suppressed by a false, fashionable standard of modesty. A knowledge of the evil consequences of an act is the deterrent that must keep us from doing that evil act. As long as we know no evil consequences resulting from the act of placing our hand against a hot stove, we are as likely to place it against the hot stove as into a glove. Our faculty of inquisitiveness may prompt us to reach out our hand in a state of ignorance, to examine a cherry red stove, but our knowledge of the painful consequences resulting from such an act deters us from it. We should learn the truth about all things, including the sex relation, and the sooner the better. We are never too young to learn.
“The sexual function is perhaps as deeply grafted into our nature as any other function. An improper adjustment of this function entails an immense amount of physical and mental injury.”
“That is what we believe,” said Mrs. Uwins. “The question of sex relations is as openly discussed in our family as any other question of information. Our children are nearly as well informed on those questions and functions, their use and abuse, as we are.”
“No, Mr. Midith, you need not feel backward about giving us the true and full explanation of your sex relation in the presence of our family,” said Mr. Uwins. “We keep the most complete and best illustrated physiologies in the most conspicuous place of our library. We all study them.”
“I am pleased to hear that you are as eager to learn on these subjects as you are on others,” continued Mr. Midith. “We should undoubtedly understand ourselves as well as possible in all particulars. Our whole aim on this subject, as well as on all others, should be to make individual intelligence the safeguard of life, health and happiness.
“From what I have told you already of our social and industrial system, you can clearly see that no able-bodied Marsite, whether man or woman, is dependent for material subsistence on any other individual. Every individual of the family, man and woman, keeps a time-record of the labor performed, as we have seen before, and receives equal compensation for a day of it, whether the work is mining iron, running an engine or bearing and nursing children. You see we have become humane enough to recognize the bearing and nursing of offspring as productive labor. This arrangement makes every individual free and independent of one another in the social and industrial world, and we believe that every one, male and female, should likewise enjoy the same freedom and independence to regulate his or her own sexual affairs at all times without any interference of any other individual, family, community, church, state or nation.
“The Marsian idea and practice of sex relations is, that whenever, in due time the maternal instinct of procreation prompts a woman to become a mother, she has the full privilege of soliciting the love of any man whose propagative association she desires for that purpose. This privilege, you see, throws the full control of motherhood in the hands of the women. The man sexually co-operates only when his assistance is agreeably solicited or accepted. The Marsites can, therefore, have no unwelcome motherhood imposed on the woman by the man.
“I have already told you that each individual, man, woman and child, has a private apartment in which each can live all alone, or invite as many companions as he, she or it may want or can get; but no one ever enters a private apartment of another for any social purposes without being invited by the inmate. Of course the arrangement of this invitation is left altogether with the individual. The woman invites her companions, both man and woman, if she so desires; the man does likewise. If the guest does not desire to accept the invitation, he or she remains away. All are as much at liberty to remain away as to respond to the invitation. But, as said before, no one calls on another in his or her private apartment without being invited. Hence, no one is bored with visitors, suitors or sweethearts whose company is not agreeable, or at such times when he or she prefers to be alone.
“From the foregoing explanation you can readily see that we have fathers, but no husbands; mothers, but no wives. No woman gives herself away to a man for any definite length of time; and no man gives himself to any woman for a definite length of time. Consequently, we have no marriages for life, as you have. We believe that both sexes should be completely free of each other at all times. We believe that no one should have any claim on another, whether male or female, further than the mutual solicitation of the parties from time to time desire to elicit. We believe that a woman, in order to live the purest life, must be free; must enjoy the full privilege of soliciting the love of any man, or of none, if she so desires. She must be free and independent, socially, industrially and sexually.
“We believe that bearing and rearing offspring constitutes a large portion of the productive labor of a well-adjusted society, and that mothers who do that should receive the same compensation for it as is paid for any other labor. Savages put nearly all the productive labor off unto their women, and yet the men, as a rule, think that they are doing nearly all the work which is worth doing. So what you call civilized man for long ages, shifts the burden of bearing and nursing offspring off unto their women as though it were little or no labor. And, in order to accomplish his purpose more effectually, the man first throws the woman in a sphere of industrial and social dependence by his superior physical strength, and then makes a contract with her, which is binding for life, by marrying her, perhaps, when she is young and inexperienced. No amount of after-knowledge, according to your opinion, enables her to retract her former steps on this point.
“With us, a woman who is about to become a mother receives the same pay for bearing the offspring as an engineer receives for running an engine; and a mother who nurses her infant receives like pay for that work alone. If she desires to do more, she is at liberty; if not, it is well also; she is the judge. Besides this, we believe that it is the duty of every man, young and old, as well as of every woman who is not a mother, to give all the general assistance possible to mothers, in the labor of nursing children. This labor of nursing and tending children is looked upon as belonging to all of us. It has become pleasant, sportive exercise. And even if it were not so, a man who would be unwilling to do his fair share of it, would very likely not leave many descendants, for a woman, when once free, is not likely to co-operate with a shirk.
“A woman who is about to become a mother, as well as one who is a nursing mother, occupies a double or triple room. One of these two or three rooms may be occupied by a companion or nurse, man or woman, who administers to the wants of the occupant, both before and after she has become a mother; and when the child is old enough—which is at a very young age—it occupies one of the apartments itself.
“Now let me tell you about the child’s financial conditions. I told you that no one can buy without money; and from what has been said of our social and industrial system you can, no doubt, easily anticipate that we are not cruel and barbarous enough to let the mother alone defray the expense of her child from her individual earnings. We know that in order to propagate the human species and perpetuate our community, rearing offspring is one of our inevitable obligations as you call it, a service which our parents rendered to us, and which we in turn must render to our children. For these reasons and for the pleasure we receive from it, we are all willing and ready to render our share of such services, which we do partly by issuing money to the child.
“At any time before the child’s birth, at the discretion of the mother, she selects for her pre-natal child a new time-book, with its proper number and shelf division, in which she makes the proper entries for ‘100 days,’ which have the purchasing power of over a $1,000; a fac-simile of this entry is sent to the mint, the same as of labor-reports. The minter stamps the money and sends it to the going-to-be mother. This money we call child-money and is always green in color, differing in color from all labor-money. With this child-money the mother pays all the child’s expenses; doctors, nurses, clothing, etc. Whenever this ‘100 days’ draw is gone and more is needed, the mother makes another draw, and whatever is left is saved by the child for future emergencies. We make a practice of not letting the child handle green money for itself, but inducing it, as early as possible, to earn its own money, which it handles and spends just as it pleases. Under the head of education I will tell you more about the child and its money.
“Our mothers, unlike yours, do not make baby garments, if they do not find pleasure in it. Infants’ complete costumes, of all patterns, are ready-made by factories, put up in delicate little trunks. The mother, during her plentiful leisure time, long before the child is born, examines the contents of the little trunks in the store, selects the most suitable one, and also gets such additional articles put in as she may desire. All of us, men and women, are pleased to see a clean, neatly dressed child. We all delight in nursing and entertaining it. No mother buys too much for this purpose to suit the family.
“The foregoing is a brief explanation of the sex relation of man and woman on Mars. It clearly shows you that our women are perfectly free and independent, not only in word, as you try to make your women believe, but in actual practice. Our highest aim of both men and women, in all our undertakings, is to live a happy life, and we have learned long ago that we cannot live a happy life without living a pure life; for impurity is always attended with suffering.
“Our women enjoy every privilege that our men enjoy. They receive like compensation for labor; this makes them financially free. They choose their own occupation, and are eligible to all positions to which the merit of their fitness can bring them; this makes them free industrially. They at all times have the privilege of being a mother, or not. They enjoy the same rights in going to see their suitor as the man enjoys in going to see his sweetheart. They have the privilege of inviting into their private apartment any man or woman whomsoever and whensoever they please. They are not bound by marriage to any particular man for life. As mothers, they receive the very best of care and assistance. They are not compelled to defray more of the expense in the support of their children than their proportionate share as a member of a family. They receive the same compensation for being a mother as they would for working in the garden or kitchen or ‘Com.’ They can visit and travel wherever they please, and always select their own companions, whether at home or abroad. They are completely free in every sense of the word. Of course, our men are just as free and independent as our women; they are under no obligation further than what they choose to do. Hence we have no sex monopolization.”
“Mr. Midith, it may be that such social, industrial and sexual relations produce that high state of order and happiness on Mars; but I fear that it would produce nothing but chaos and misery on earth,” said Rev. Dudley, after having apparently listened with profound interest.
“Very likely the masses of mankind here would, no doubt, regard such a sexual arrangement a dangerous state of affairs,” continued Mr. Midith. “But when we take the testimony of history we find that such a fear manifested by the multitude is of little or no intrinsic worth. The masses of mankind, burdened with toil and buried in superstition, have always at first feared the better things that were proposed in the line of progress and freedom. This fear of danger from the masses, manifested toward a measure of advance, is not so much a sign that the proposed system is vicious, especially if the measure tends toward individual freedom, as it is a sign that those who fear, distrust, and oppose it are yet immature for it. Their chord of sympathy and respect for others does not yet vibrate in unison with that high ethical standard. They feel a real discord, but they locate that discord in the proposed system, while it really is located in their own immature hearts and minds. Just in proportion as their hearts and minds are raised to a higher, broader, and nobler standard, the fear of danger and impracticability disappears. A few illustrations will make this plain:
“When Mr. Garrison first raised his voice against the long fostered institution of chattel slavery in the United States, he was calumniated by nearly every man, woman and child within the boundaries of the nation; he was stigmatized a crank, a fool, a traitor to his country, an enemy to the Christian religion, a subverter of the highest and noblest civilization that ever flourished on the face of the earth. He was a traitor then. Now he is a hero. But his proposed system was as good and true when he first proposed it as it is now; but the people’s hearts and minds did not correspond to it then. They thought that the defect lay in Garrison’s system, but it was really secreted in themselves. A little additional intelligence and sympathy put their hearts and minds just in tune with the proposed system. Just so with our sex relations. We have had a little longer time to evolve, and therefore attained a little higher and purer aspirations than you have; and because you can but dimly or not at all see the altitude to which the Marsites have ascended, you, like the contemporaries of Garrison, at once declared our position dangerous and impracticable. But do not forget to search for the discord in your own heart instead of searching for it in our system.
“You all know that not long ago you imprisoned people who were unable to pay their debts, and the contemporaries of that age argued that people would not pay their debts without such a law; but this law has long since been repealed or is entirely ignored, and people pay their debts perhaps better now than they did when the law was in force. But now you say that you could not do business without laws for the collection of debts, but you see we, under a better system, have no use for such laws, because we have no debts to collect. We have changed the conditions. It is your old barbarous profit system that makes you think you require such laws. As soon as you adopt a just system of trade there can be no debts to collect.
“The Czar very likely thinks that a government like that of the United States is no government at all, because the people enjoy too much individual freedom, and he, no doubt, has often predicted that it must soon crumble to pieces on that account, and you and I believe that the Russian government is destined to crumble, because the people have too little individual freedom. You look at our sex relations as the Russians look at your government of the United States.
“Now just notice your illogical position. If physical force is a factor of goodness in a government, the government of the Czar is one of the best on earth, because it perhaps employs a maximum of physical force; and if physical force is a factor of badness in a government, then our Marsian government is the best, because it employs a minimum of physical force. No doubt, in your opinion both the Czar and the Marsites are wrong, the former for too much compulsion and the latter for too little. You are standing somewhere between these two points. You are standing at a point which exactly corresponds with your intellectual culture. Each person measures his position by his own ethical standard. But notwithstanding your constant protest against individual freedom, you are slowly drifting away from the Czar toward individualism, and whenever, in time, you stand in our footsteps, you will see that your present sex relations are as slavish, despotic and impure as you, at present, look upon the despotism and injustice of the Czar.”