The Fears of an Anti-Puritan – R.B. Kerr, 11/22/1906

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

In the discussion of the sex question England lags far behind America, notwithstanding its freer press. The
boldness of experiment which has long existed on this side of the Atlantic is as yet unknown over there, and
even the theoretical free-lovers of England are too few and scattered to have any influence. At last, however,
there are signs of a coming awakening. Many writers of some reputation have begun timidly to allude to the
subject of sex, and to hint that some kind of change is needed. One of these is Hubert Bland, who did more
perhaps than anyone to create the Anti-Puritan League, and who has now published a book called Letters to
a Daughter, in which there are signs of a progressive spirit. This book is criticised in Fabian News for October
by Cecil Chesterton, secretary of the Anti-Puritan League, and some of his remarks are so characteristic
of persons who are just beginning to study the sex question that I wish to make a few comments on them.
Speaking of Bland’s position on the sex question, Chesterton says: “Neither the sentimentalities of the
conventionalists nor those of the revolutionists can disturb the balance of his judgment. His point of view
is unconventional, but he is not an anarchist. He knows that without conventions civilization, and indeed
human life as we know it, could not exist. He criticises them freely, but he does not urge a blind revolt
against them, as such. He sees the complexity of human problems, notably of the problem of sex. He has
no sudden and clear-cut solution.” These statements are rather vague, but I gather from them that Mr.
Chesterton, while dissatisfied with things as they are, cannot summon up courage to cut the knot by the
simple method of individual freedom. He thinks the community must superintend the love relations of
individuals; otherwise something dreadful—he hardly knows what—would happen. As there are many
who think like Mr. Chesterton, perhaps the best thing I can do is to mention other subjects regarding
which a similar belief formerly prevailed, but has now been abandoned by all intelligent persons.

Not long ago it was the universal belief of mankind that the state must superintend the religious opinions of
the individual, otherwise society would be in a state of chaos. Francis Bacon, though far in advance of his
age in religious toleration, wrote an essay on “Unity in Religion,” in which he described the dreadful things
that would happen if men went to different churches. “Heresies and schisms,” he says, “are of all others the
greatest scandals, yea, more than corruption of manners.” Little more than two centuries ago John Bunyan
spent twelve years in jail for preaching in an unlicensed conventicle, and the vast majority of Englishmen
thought it served him right. A few years earlier Roger Williams was driven from Massachusetts for advocating
freedom of conscience. It was not for fear that men’s souls would be damned that writers like Bacon abhorred
heresy, but because they believed that social life would become impossible if heresy were allowed. Little more
than two centuries ago it was the universal opinion of mankind that if books could be published without being
licensed by a government official the most disastrous consequences would ensue. Even when licensing was
abolished the press was still severely restrained by the law courts, and liberty was only very gradually secured.
The liberation of the press has been approved by historians of every shade of opinion. The rather prudish
Macaulay says: “From the day on which the emancipation of our literature was accomplished the purification
of our literature began. That purification was effected not by the intervention of senates or magistrates but by
the opinion of the great body of educated Englishmen, before whom good and evil were set, and who were
left free to make their choice. During a hundred and sixty years the liberty of our press has been constantly
becoming more and more entire, and during those hundred and sixty years the restraint imposed on writers
by the general feeling of readers has been constantly becoming more and more strict.”

Ten years ago nearly all scientists, and the great majority of people who prided themselves on their intelligence,
thought that compulsory vaccination was necessary; otherwise nobody would get vaccinated. In England,
however, the untutored multitude made such resistance to compulsory vaccination that Parliament, with many
misgivings, abolished it in 1898. What has been the result? In the very first year of voluntary vaccination the
number of vaccinations rose 33 per cent, and it has steadily increased ever since. In 1898, the last year of
compulsory vaccination, only 47 per cent of the children born in London were vaccinated; in 1901, under
voluntary vaccination, 85 per cent were vaccinated. Not long ago everybody thought it necessary that the
law should, by the severest penalties, punish the act for which Oscar Wilde was condemned. Most people
still think so in English-speaking countries, but hardly anywhere else. In Holland, Belgium, France, Italy,
Spain, and probably other countries, such acts are no longer punished by law, and a great agitation with
a like aim is going on in Germany and Austria. The legislators of those countries have had the sense to
see that if persons who have this peculiarity are left free they will not marry, and will have no children to
inherit their peculiarity; but if they are not left free, they will marry and have children like themselves. One
could give almost endless instances of regulations which were once thought indispensable and are now
thought ridiculous. But none of them were so absurd as regulations on sex. Religion and authorship are
artificial things peculiar to man, and nature gives us no rules for our guidance in such matters. But the
relations of the sexes are already regulated by the laws of physiology. Nature tells everybody when the
age of love should commence, when it is good to have and when not to have relations with the other sex,
whom it is good to have relations with and whom to avoid, how long love should last, and all other matters
of the same kind. All these things have been settled by millions of years of natural selection.

By the attraction of opposites and other feelings nature tells us what persons we should mate with in order
to have superior children. If we choose an unsuitable mate, nature soon shows us our mistake. Now and
again people are born with a tendency to sexual excess, just as they are born with a tendency to gluttony
or drunkenness, but natural selection is always weeding such persons out. Throughout the whole animal
world the relations of the sexes and the rearing of offspring are regulated to perfection by the laws of
physiology, and animals are entirely free from many diseases and evils that afflict mankind. It is only when
we come to man that we are told that nature cannot attend to the relations of the sexes without the aid
of Roosevelt and Comstock. The rules of moralists and legislators regarding sex consist of nothing but
wholesale attacks on the laws of physiology. Women are told that they must not have love relations until
many years after nature has commanded them to do so. Strong, healthy women are told that they must
live and die as old maids. Vigorous young women are told that they must be “true” to old men with one
foot in the grave. Women wedded to imbeciles, drunkards, and diseased persons are told that it is their
duty to have as many children by such men as possible. Young men are forbidden to have natural relations
with clean and decent women and are driven to associate with those who give them the foulest ideas
of sex and turn them into fountainheads of disease and corruption. Variety in love is condemned as
bad, although change of air, change of scene, change of diet, change of occupation, and every other
conceivable form of variety are admitted by every rational being to be good.

I have no space to deal with all the groundless fears of those who think sex should be regulated, but I will
deal with a difficulty Mr. Chesterton raised in the same paper some time ago: that children would be deserted
under free love. The answer is that in many parts of the world marriage has already been abandoned by
half the people, and children are not deserted. In Vienna, 45 children in every 100 are illegitimate, and in
Prague and Munich, 44. Did anyone ever hear that the children of these cities were deserted? If they were,
there would be a high death rate. According to Mulhall, the most legitimate of cities is Rotterdam, where
only 7 per cent are illegitimate, and Vienna is the most illegitimate of cities; yet Rotterdam has a heavier
death rate than Vienna. My own opinion is that children will never be really well cared for until they are
publicly maintained, but at least they are as well cared for without marriage as with it. That free love
is better than bond love is not a mere theory, but a thoroughly tested and proven fact. For many
years freedom in love has been practiced in America by individuals and by communities. Many persons
have lived and died under it, and many children have been born and raised under it. Up to date it has
been an absolute success, and it is preached and practiced by an ever-increasing number of persons,
especially women. Messrs. Bland and Chesterton are well-known journalists, and they should come to
America and study free love on the ground and then publish an account of what they have seen and
heard. Before many days were past they would laugh as much at their present ideas as I have no doubt
they now laugh at Bacon for thinking that society would fall to pieces if men went to different churches.