New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-07-20

of people who do not know what they are
talking about, "thc eternal fitness of things"
Now, If Free Love means anything, and il
not n mere form of words with which these
idle women amuse Themselves with no object
but pastime. it means that the obligations Of
marriage are not binding ~ against the mo-
mentary inclinations of the parties married.
In place of those ideas of coniugal duty, with
which society has succeeded for some centu-
ries indifferently WELL we are to accept the
"Ligher truth" and the inner consciousness"
of each individual ~ his only rule of action
in social matters. People are to pair like birds
or beasts at the bidding of irresistible impulse,
ard the obligations Of fidelity are to last no
longer than the impulse. This, stripped OF its
vail Of mysticism, is the doctr;ne preached
by Mrs Davis and her associates and
there is but one word to describe this doc
trinc, which word we have heretofore with
held, but now let these ladies have it, be-
cause. "a The World observes, it is well TO
tell the truth in great crises this doctrine is
bcastly The good ladies who profess it may
sit in their balloons, far above the things Of
earth tossing up their half-dozen meaningless
phrases like the gilt balls Of juggler, ana
laying down an unsubstantil law for
men and women, which might suit
very well if the race were ike
chcrubs. with nothing but heads and
wings. Bat see what work the real men and
women make of it when they take hold OF 1t!
Two married men, whose souls reject the
tyranny Of marriage, find their affinity in the
same sOilcd dove, and eliminate each other
with reviewers from the embarrassing problem.
Another pretty free-loycr, who uses in her
letters The very slang of the platOnc
sistorhood on this coast, is so de-
voted to the purity and sacTednc5s OF
her emotions that she murders her eH-
lovers to save them from falling back into
the slough of matrimony, and gets visited by
leading apostles of the sisterhood from New
York in consequence, and dclugcd with their
sympathy. And yet when We refer to these
events as the natural result of INDUCING in
those restless impulses of revolt against tho
social and moral laws which Mrs. Davis finds
theoretically so irksome, these good women
"recOil with alright" and protest that this is
not what they mean by Free Love- OF course,
il is not. But this only proves that they DO not
know what they are doing nor whittier they
are drifting. Because they are yirtaous, they
know nothing Of the quality of the cakes AID
ale they are serving out to greedy and vulgar
buyers.
Let us sec if we can extract, out Of al this
unwhooSOme mass of metaphor, any clear
idea of what this authorized exposition of the
free-loyers marriage consists of. 81 regard
"marriage rs founded in the eternal fitness
"of things" says Mrs. Davis, "a law as i'm
"mutable and Interchangeable rs the laws which
"govern the earth, &C., &c, neither weak
"ened nor strengthened by any ceremony or
cOnycntiOnalsms, or One-sGed legislation,
"by which you have surrounded and Oyeriaid
/" il. / believe that marriage is of God, and
" from God, and that what He has joined to-
"gcthcr man cannot put asunder. Neither
" time, nor space, nor pFis0n-barS and bolts,
"nor death itself, can sundcr soals that
care bound together in the true mar
"riage that all pure, truo women seek"
Translating these words out OF ecstacy into
English, they mean that no marriage which
can DO violated is marriage-that if people
can exercise their free viii they are not lovers,
and must not mamy-thatifl love is not free, il is
not love. As the philosopher at camp meet
ing once said of vital picty, of you have it,
"you can't lose tiff You lose it, yOu never
chad it." Marriage is banishcd from the
realm of reason to that Of blind caprice, and,
when you weary Of one fancy, it is a sign it
was not a true Earri1ge, and you are free 70
geek another.
This is the bare and revolving hestality
stripped of its swaddling metaphors, which
these good and pure wOmen-mislod and
deceived by years of silly playing with phrases
land by one or two able and insdiOus leaders
of their own sex whose purposes Mrs. Davis
no more cOmprchends than she does the real
meaning of their catch-words)- now daily
preaching to the world. 1t is not a matter to
laugh at, to dismiss with q word of cOmpli-
mcnt and badnage. There is deadly virus
lurking in these disjointcd and illogical rhap-
sodies. Mrs. Davis, herself, boasts of the let
tiers which she receives from Discontinued
women all over the land, whose listless
minds have been poisoned by this confused
and violent defamation. 1t is sowing in
hundreds of families the seeds of discord and
ruin. The ignorant and impresSible women
whose principles have been shaken by this in
sidious propaganda will become the easy prey
of the first plausible scOundrel who can per-
suade them of his sympathy. A school which
is capable of preparing so baleful harvest of
foulness and misery cannot claim the immu
nifty of silence. Mrs. Davis's vagaries may be
fun TO men, but they are death to women.
IN IDIOTIC LIE.