Robert Dale Owen

“ See, what a mass of evil arises from bastard children, from child-murder, from deserted 131children, from diseased children, and even where the parents are most industrious and most virtuous, from a half-starved, naked, and badly housed family, from families crowded into one room, for whose health a house and garden is essential. All these matters are a tax upon love, a perpetual tax upon human pleasure, and upon health; a tax that turns beauty into shrivelled ugliness, defaces the noble attitude of mankind, and makes their condition worse than that of the cattle of the field. ”

“ I will give my hand freely to a galley-slave, and speak to the highway-robber as to an honest man; but there is one character with whom I desire to exchange neither word nor greeting—the cold-hearted, deliberate, practiced, and calculating seducer!
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction their sting, and stamps to the world its victim? Why is it, that the man goes free and enters society again, almost courted and applauded for his treachery; while the woman is a mark for the finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal? ”

“ What is the actual state of society in Great Britain and even in this republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy, should so fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction a simple, moral, effectual check to population? Are her sons all chaste and temperate, and her daughters all passionless and pure? I might disclose, if I would, in this very city of New York—and in our neighbour city of Philadelphia—scenes and practices that have come to light from time to time, and that would furnish no very favourable answer to the question. ”

“ Is it not notorious, that the families of the married often increase beyond what a regard for the young beings coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labour, toiling to live, and living only to die; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence! ”

“ Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man to be alone. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. ”

“ How beneficent that knowledge, which discloses to us some moral, practicable check to population, and relieves us from the despairing conclusion, that the irrevocable doom of man is misery, without remedy and without end! In the absence of such knowledge, truly the prospects of the world were dark and cheerless. The modern doctrine of population has weighed like a spell on the exertions of benevolence, and chilled, almost to inaction, 62even the warm heart of charity. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she begins to fear that all her exertions are to result in hopeless disappointment. ”

“ It is a question of passing importance, “How may it best be regulated?” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity. Assuredly not by the world’s favourite regulator, ignorance. No. Do we wish to bring this instinct under easy government, and to assign it only its due rank among human sentiments? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise the body, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human being. What is it gives to passion its sway, and to desires their empire, now? It is vacancy of mind; it is listlessness of body; it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual ”

“ But the days are gone by when ignorance may be the safeguard of virtue. The only rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge. There is no fact, in physics or in morals, that ought to be concealed from the enquiring mind. Let that parent, who thinks to secure his sons’ honesty or his daughters’ innocence, by keeping back from them facts—let that parent know, that he is building up their morality on a sandy foundation. ”

“ The virtue of ignorance is a sickly plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven; of precarious growth; and, even if at last artificially matured, of little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to withhold from their children—especially from their daughters—facts the most influential on their future lives, and the knowledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well-being. ”

“ It appears evident, then, to a demonstration, that population CANNOT be suffered to increase unrestrained for more than a very few hundred years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner or later, some restraint or other to population must be employed; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic disciples, that if no other better restraint than vice and misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they are the lot of man, from generation to generation.
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a question—whether there shall be a restraint to population or not. ”

“ She becomes a mother; and society has something tangible against which to direct its anathemas. Nine tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are caused by seduction, even in the present state of public opinion on the subject, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeeling selfishness of him who fears to become a father, administers some noxious drug to procure abortion; perhaps—for even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps the frenzy of the wretched mother takes the life of her infant, or seeks in suicide the consummation of her wrongs and her woes! ”

“ If not, enquire whether all human propensities, duly governed, be not a benefit and a blessing to the nature in which they are inherent.
Human beings, of whatever sex or class! examine dispassionately and narrowly the influence which the control here recommended will produce throughout society. Reflect whether it will not lighten the burdens of one sex, while it affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of the other. Consider whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating; conducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the permanent welfare of the human race. ”

“ There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family among whom there are no secrets and no reserves: where the young people confide every thing to their elder friends—for such to them are their parents—and where the parents trust every thing to their children; where each thought is communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge given, as simply as it is received. If the world contain a prototype of that Paradise, where nature is said to have known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family ”

“ THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT. Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?
But that common sense is so scarce an article, and that the various superstitions of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the enquiries, even of after life—but for this, the very statement of the question might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every rational being. Nothing so elevates man above the brute creation, as the power he obtains over his instincts. ”

“ Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that, when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics ”

“ It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper and important one—whether man can obtain, and whether he is benefitted by obtaining, control over this instinct. Is it desirable, that it should never be gratified without an increase to population? Or, is it desirable, that in gratifying it, man shall be able to say whether offspring shall be the result or not?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be necessary to substantiate, that such control may be obtained without the slightest injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral feelings ”

“ In the former case, you might call me a very shocking person; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded—if you be unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion—if truth be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your object—then approach with me a subject the most important to man’s well-being; and approach it as I do, in a spirit of dispassionate, disinterested free enquiry. Approach it, resolving to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. ”

“ It must be confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler: it is a healing salve to the luxurious conscience; 53an opiate to drown the still small voice of truth and humanity, which calls to every man to be up and do his part towards the alleviation of the human suffering that every where stares him in the face.
It is vain to argue with these defenders of the evils that be, that the day of overstocking is afar off. They tell you, it must come at last; and that the more you do to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of population—the sooner it will come. ”

“ We talk of a love, of virtue, of friendship, of heroism, of character, of generosity; but this kind of love is a matter wholly distinct from the passion of love between the male and female. All men are apt to feel the tender passion of love for a beautiful woman: all women for a handsome and agreeable man: but this is nothing more than a desire to associate ourselves with the most agreeable objects for sexual commerce. ”

“ You seem to pre-suppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; that violence and vice are inherent in human nature, and that nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from becoming a vast slaughter-house, or an universal brothel. You judge your own sex and the other by the specimens you have met with in wretched haunts of mercenary profligacy ”

“ I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow out of a fear of offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution would follow. I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be supposed careful to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can be assigned; but a wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal cause; and a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whether the true cause be assigned or not. ”

“ Constancy, where it actually exists, is the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance. And if in the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something else, why not in all other cases, where restraint may be considered desirable? Shall men trust in the greater, and fear to trust in the less? Whatever any one may choose to assert regarding his relatives’ secret inclinations to profligacy, these arguments may convince him that if he has any safeguard at present, a perusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it. ”

“ She lives a life of infamy; the loud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all return. She dies of long and lingering disease: yet she is in fault, she is the criminal, she the froward and untameable child—and society, forsooth, is the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion from her undefiled bosom! ”

“ It is a commendable virtue in those who have the ability to practice it, but for such as cannot or will not, and such as are regardless of consequences, it is of the utmost moment to the mother that the power of control should be placed in the right hands. How frequently do we hear the mothers say, I have all the family I want, and am determined to have no more children if I can prevent it; but alas: she has not the power, when the partner of her bosom loses the self-control of his passions. ”

“ Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unreasoning—sometimes even generous, imprudence of youthful passion, and the calculating selfishness of the matured and heartless libertine. It is a melancholy truth, that pseudo-civilization produces thousands of seducers by profession, who, while daily calling the heavens to witness their eternal affections, have no affection for any thing on earth but their own precious and profligate selves. ”

“ I have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth and influence, that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of morality and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to the end of the world; that he who attempts to remove them fights against God and nature; and, if he partially succeed, will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase, until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, and they shall be compelled to prey on each other. ”

“ There were very many of our most respectable citizens noticed among the mass—a result unlooked for, and certainly ominous of a deep and abiding feeling of abhorrence and detestation among the better classes, for the practices of this miserable female, which may yet prove of fearful import to her, and to those who countenance and support her in the vile and unholy occupation, the known existence of which in our midst, in defiance of all law, and outraging every sense of decency and morality, has been suffered so long to rest, as a foul plague-spot upon our city. ”

“ Society avenges itself on the criminals of its own creation; it is employed in anathematizing the vice to day, which yesterday it was the most zealous to teach.
“Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society of modest and accomplished women, associate with the most vicious and miserable beings, and thus destroy those exquisite and delicate sensibilities, whose existence cold-hearted worldings have denied; thus they annihilate genuine passion, and debase that to a selfish feeling which is the excess of generosity and devotedness. ”