The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-01-31
Marriage VS.. Free Love.
MRS. LIyERIoRE's LECTURE IN BosroS-w,
SHE THINKS OF FREE LOVE ADVOCATES


MRS. LIvERMoEE's LECTURE IN BosroS-wuAr
! SHE THINKS OF FREE LOVE ADVOCATES
The fourth lecture in the lvcapp,
course was delivered last evening bv
Mrs. Livermore, and entitled t'NIarTia %
VS.. Free Love.n 1t was made I'm of q
statement of a very high and pure idol
of marriage, succeeded by a short hnt
slight attack upon free love and its nrine
eipal feminine apostles in this conptry
and was, il is needless TO say, very inter,
esting and gracefully delivered. Mrs
LivermOre began by speaking of the an
cient ideas of marriage among different
nations, who considered woman ne fbe
inferior and slave of man, and con.
trasted it with the account of the crea-
tion given in Genesis, in which man
and woman are both said to be made i'm
the image OF God. Man has been said
to have Judgment and reason, while
woman has perception and feeling; man
IS the head, while woman is the heart.
God IS all these and in order that man
should be made in His image il is nee
essary that he should have all these.
and hence man is only half a man.
until he is married; and hence it is said
"What God has Joined together, let no
man put asunder" The fact that per
feet marriage is rare does not change
the theory; We ought not to drag down
our ideal because il is not easily at
tained. Because marriage has hitherto
been legally condition of slavery, we
should not say that it must continue so,
as If that We're the foundation of So
ciety.
Mrs. LivermOre said that in looking
about among young people she Won
dered that there was as much happiness
as existed, and took occasion to say, by
way of parenthesis, that she did not be-
lieve that there was more unhappiness
in married life than out of il, but rather
the reverse, and drew an extremely
funny, although truthful, picture of the
average courtship of young couple who
meet in society, fall in love and marry.
She then spoke of the fact that five
siXths Of the applications for divorce
come from couples who have been mar
ried only about six years; if they tidild
over that period they generally kept Oh
to the end. Making another parenthe-
sis, she observed that when people told
her that they had been married, twenty
five or thirty or forty years, and had
never quarreled, she always accepted
their statement with a large discount;
if people were idiots, they might get
along forever in n certain sloppy effu-
siveness Of good nature; but sensible
people had wills which were not easy to
bend, and occasionally two who loved
each other dearly would come into col
lision like two locomotives. When
this happened, those who were wise re-
ceded; and determined that such thing
should not happen again. She then
spoke of the different motives for which
people marry, and said that she really
believed that, at the present time, more
men marry the woman whom they love
than women marry the man whom they
prefer. This is partly because the men
select their wives, partly on account of
the wretched training Ofthe women, who,
being reared dependent upon the care of
q father or brother, naturally seek
another protector, and make a merce-
nary marriage. The remedy is to be
found in educating the girls until, in
stead of dawdling, idle, and lazy, they
stand upon their own feet; then, and
not till then, shall we have the grand
est marriages.
Most divorces are granted at the re-
quest of wives, and the grounds upon
which they are demanded are drunken
ness and RIGHTEOUSNESS. Mrs. Liver
more spoke at some length of the inev-
liable harvest which follows the sowing
of wild oats, and declared her belief that
there was no safety for young men until
they were held to the same standard of
temperance, purity and chastity as their
sisters. From this she went on to talk
Of the preponderance of men in the pop
ulation of the West, and of women in
that of the East, the result being that
in the former locality the men grew
coarse, while in the latter the women
were held cheap. 1t is necessary, she
said, TO 90 back and give women the
same training as men; then they will
find it for their advantage to go West as
much as their brothers do, and will not
sit down by the river of life and wait
till young man comes along and offers
10 paddle their canoe down the stream,
but launch boldly out and row them
selves. After defending Xantippe as a
much abused character in history, and
speaking of the unhappy marriages Of
several distinguished men, she closed
this portion of her lecture by drawing a
very beautiful picture of a true mar
Tiege.
She declared that the assertion of Mrs.
Woodruff, that free love and female
suffrage were identical, was utterly
false. Free divorce she thought worse
than free love. To say 81 loved once,n
said she, is libel on the name of love.
/ Whoever loves once, loves every hour.
They never loved who loved t'once.~
| Who loves once, loves as God loves, for
ever. She then spoke of the manner in
which the subject of love is treated i'm
some modern French novels; Of Jim
Bludso, with his
"One wife in Matchez under the hill.
| And another here in Pike
and of the Kit Carson drawn by .Toa-
quin Miller, leaving his stolen bride TO
die in the prairie fire, while he rides
away on her fathers stolen horse. She
explained all this as n social epidemic
of moral lOoseness everywhere preya-
/ lent, so that society, although having a
high standard of intellectual culture.
stands with its feet in the mire of sen
sualism. The lecture closed with an
animated portrayal of the wide differ
ence between the results of the doctrine
of marriage and free love, and an invi-
tatiOn to the audience to choose between
them.
An intoxicated Englishman beat his
wife recently in Chicago, and in default
Of fifty dollars to pay his fine was sent
TO Jail for one hundred days. The wifejs
heart finally softened toward him. and
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