WOMAN'S WOMAN'S CORNER.
WILL THERE BE A MARRIAGE REVOLUTION?
ĮBY VERA BRITTAIN, Author of “The Future of. Monogamy.””
During the Inst twenty years the social ideal of monogamy has thus come, at least for a few couples, within reach of realisation.
It is no longer fashionable to when the standard of education and praise the ideal of lifelong mar-intelligence differed widely between riage. Monognay, declare many husband and wife.. of our modern thinkers and writers. is an unnatural arrangement in posed an mankind by medieval cclesiastical authorities, who at tached to chastity A dispropor- tionate value which, would have been better accredited to more con- structive virtues.
During the last century, when it became the keystone of Victorian morality, this type of marriage re- sembled liberty in ons respect, only --that some of the worst oppres sions of society were committed in
its name.
Let it go, say these sex-reformers, along with other unregretted relics. of the dreary past, such as than deliers, crinolines, wagonettes, and fringed antimacasзars...
This condemnation would in- deed appear to herald the doom of our present matrimonial con ventions, were it not for one circumstance which many of the sex-reformers have overlooked. They assume that true monogamy the happy lifelong partnership of one man and one woman, based en equal and mutual and respect
has been proved a failure by
centuries of experiment.
On the other band there are certain features of modern life. such as the spread of birth-control knowledge, which suggest the ultimate possibility of universal promiscuous relationships Itte from social penalty. Civilised mankind stands at the parting of the matrimonial, ways. Which type of sex union is the future likely to witness 1+
J
*
One thing at least is certain: the modern man and the modern woman are growing ever less susceptible to sexual, regimentation: If we ean- not be made raoral by Act of Par- Hament we certainly cannot be made monogamous.
Our present laws and conventions, which thrust all but one type of sex union into a kind of moral wilder- ness, continue in complete disre gard of the obstinacy, perversity, intractability, and general contra- suggestiveness, of hutsan nature,
Monogamy is not to be enforced by censorship, by the limitation of
Bex instruction, by restrictions on
The available evidence points, birth-control teaching, by the per- however, to a different conclusion. petuation of the injustices still em It suggests that monogamous mar-bodied in the divorce laws, or even riage. like Christianity; has not by the prohibition of irregular been weighed in the balance and and experimente! unions. Least of found wanting, but has been found all can it he achieved by the pen alisation of the woman worker who difficult and has not been tried.
desires to combine a career with marriage and motherhood.
Far from being a feature of the unsatisfactory past, the attainment of trut monogomy lies, if anywhere, in the future,
The average Victorian happy marriage was more often than not a convenient Action, based on a doable moral standard. It should never have been identified with
It may well happen that in a nore enlightened future civilisation there will be many forms of legal marriage in order to suit different varieties of human psychology.
*
enslavement to
THE HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, MONDAY, MAY 12, 1930.
DIFFICULT DECISIONS
GWYAS (Copyright, 1930, by The Bell Syndicara, Inc.) KUILLAM
SEQUEL TO MURDER OF COMPRADORE. DETAILS OF PLOT TO SLAY
WAYFOONG OFFICIAL.
MORE ARRESTS EXPECTED
BY POLICE:
Two men have been arrested by the Shanghai Settlement police and Chinese authorities in connec tion with the attempted kidnap- ping and murder on December 6, 1029, of Mr. Zih Loh-zung, com- piadore of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.
In our present condition of monogamy, which does not mean-tological childishness, our stili al-
complute most though it has too long been held to animal instinct, functional changed mean an arrangement under which the wife is bound by rigid social and, physical limitation, there are restrictions while the busband pur- married couples by whom
probably only a limited number of monogamy is attainable.
sues-bis own line of conduct.
The increase of freedom and sex- knowledge which followed the war has produced, as one of its chief
results, a determinacion on
tru
The fact, nevertheless, remains.
in
that when loyal and lasting friend- ship, arising from highly the
dividualised selection and constant
part of the war generation and its successors to face the truth abou:
marriage,
These generations are not more licentious than their elders becaust they are less sanctimonious In spite of our totally misleading divorce statistics, there are prob- ably more happy monogramous marriages to-day than at any other time in the world's history.
The power to terminate easily an unfortunate scion renders more rather than less-probable an in crease in the number of successful partnerships
Sex equality, again, in so far as it has been achieved, favours the development within marriage, of those pleasant. mutual companion- ship which were seldom attainable
cemented by mutaal passion, does happen to be embodied in marriage, it constitutes, and will always constitute, one of the highres and rarest achievements of the human spirit,
One of the men, Sz Leong'voong, chauffeur, was originally arrest by the French police on suspicion of being concerned in a kidnapping fast February. Investigation dis closed his part in the murder of Mr. Zih. and he was handed over to the Settlement police. If the
GLUY
́ By GLUYAS WILLIAMS
WHEN HALFWAY UP THE CELLAR STAIRS, THE DOOR BLOWS SHUT, AND YOU DONT KNOW WHETHER TO STAY AS YOU ARE AND HOLLER · FOR HELP, OR TO TOIL UPWARDS AND ATTEMPT THE HAZARDOUS FEAT OF HOLDING THE
BARREL WITH ONE HAND WHILE YOU] OPEN THE DOOR; OR TO CARRY THE BARREL DOWN AGAIN AND START ALL OVER
week was aimed at capturing these THE SILVER SCREEN. suspects. No further arrests, how- ever, were made.
•
The Crime Recalled. . Mr. "Zih, 'accompanied by a body.. guard, had stopped his car at the intersection of Chekiang and Foo chow Roads late on December 6 in order to buy some food for his dogs when he met his death. While the bodyguard was making the, pur chase two armed men attempted to enter the car, Mr. Zih escaped to the roadway, but was seized and shot down by the two men when ho refused to accompany them.
A BORN COMEDIAN,
Any man who can keep an audi- ence of two thousand people amus- ed for fifteen consecutive minutes by his own unaided efforts is ob- viously a genius in the art of enter taining. The famous Grock can do this so could Will Rogers, working with even fewer "properties than the celebrated clown. Those who, brave, seen Rogers in his well-known' C. P. C. 1350, 1147, and 1389 vaudeville act, spioning ropes and rushed to the scene of the shooting, yards"-in which he kept up a and saw the two kidnappers run-running rapid fire of funny stories ning in the direction of Nanking and cynical comment while doing Road. A running battle followed, amazing tricks with a lariat will the police firing 22 shots at the be curious to see how this clever pair and the kidnappers shooting comedian figures on the screen. haphazard at all and sundry. One of the kidnappers escaped, but the other was cornered in the Zoey
utter to kidnap. Zih had Sung lodging house at 645 Chic Leon successful, he would have kiung Road. He threw his pistol taken the place of Mr. Zih's regu-away at the entraned to the house far chauffeur and driven the com The constables also entered the adore into Chinese territory. He bouse and shot this member of the was traced through his traffic re gang dead.. cord.
An alarm turned into Louza Sta The other man, Ko Zien-chin, ation brought a car load of police loafer, is believed to be one of and detectives to the spot where those directly responsible for the Mr. Zih was lying, but there was murder. He has been keeping on little they could do. Mr. Zib wae the move in Chinese territory for taken to the Lester Hospial where some months pust and it was only an operation was performed for recently that the Chinese authori the extraction of the bullets. He
died the next day,
was caught in Nantao and will be handed over to the Settlement po
ice on a despatch warrant from the Special District Court.
Such an achievement, however, can have but one permanent basis, which is that of voluntary self- discipline, founded on the mutual love and dignity of equal partners.ties learned of his whereabouts. He
Only if, by the alteration of our arbitrary laws and the reform of our inadequate sex-education, we can inculcate a reliance on such self-discipline in the young men and women of the future, shall we suc- ceed in rescuing monogamous mar- risge from the oblivion which even tually eclipses every outworn in stitution.
Five others are wanted in, con- rection with the murder. A series or raids carried out by police from the West Hongkew district last
Mr. Zin Loh-suti was the son of the late Mr. Zib-kung, who was compradore of the Wayfoong until his death some years ago, when the murdered man took his place. Be was a native of Bhanghai and had Loen with the bank for about 20 year.
"
The picture now showing at the Queen's Theatre, "They Had to See Paris, has been obviously
written round the whimsical per- sonality of the cowboy comedian, and it has been written well. The story is fresh, the situations novel, and the dialogue-well, it is gesi Will Rogers, and that is all that need he said. It is a clever and most amusing picture. one that can be seen twice and enjoyed as much the second time as the first. Irene' Rich and fargaret Churchill have good parts as the wife and daugh- ter of the rough-neck millionaire, and all the other leading characters are well played. There is real humour in the plot, and some of the situations are first-class farce.
4 very instructive and amusing talkie which precedes the star pic- ture shows how talking-films are made. Altogether an excellent pro gramme.
WILL ROGERS, world's most natural talking picture actor, makes WHOOPEE in Gay PAREE I
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