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change in the views now in vogue about "falling in love" and all that
this term implies, by educating men and women at home through family
influence and example, and abroad by means of healthy public opinion, to
practice that abstinence which morality and Christianity alike enjoin.
This is my second contention.
In the third place I am of opinion that another consequence of the false
light in which "falling in love," and what it leads to, are viewed
in our society, is that the birth of children has lost its pristine
significance, and that modern marriages are conceived less and less from
the point of view of the family. I am of opinion that this is not right.
This is my third contention.
In the fourth place, I am of opinion that the children (who in our
society are considered an obstacle to enjoyment--an unlucky accident, as
it were) are educated not with a view to the problem which they will be
one day called on to face and to solve, but solely with an eye to
the pleasure which they may be made to yield to their parents. The
consequence is, that the children of human beings are brought up for
all the world like the young of animals, the chief care of their parents
being not to train them to such work as is worthy of men and women, but
to increase their weight, or add a cubit to their stature, to make them
spruce, sleek, well-fed, and comely. They rig them out in all manner of
fantastic costumes, wash them, over-feed them, and refuse to make them
work. If the children of the lower orders differ in this last respect
from those of the well-to-do classes, the difference is merely formal;
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