As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance;

I will take the institution called the private house or home;
the shell and organ of the family
As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance;
I will take the institution called the private house or home;
the shell and organ of the family. We will consider cosmic
and political tendencies simply as they strike that ancient and
unique roof. Very few words will suffice for all I have to say
about the family itself. I leave alone the speculations about
its animal origin and the details of its social reconstruction;
I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence.
It is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so)
a trap for mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge
fact can any one contrive to talk of 'free love'; as if love
were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune.
Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from
the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave.
Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he 'drew an angel down'
and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string.
These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake
consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly
plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover;
he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates
the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual;
the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph.
Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation;
and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.