The Irish standard., 1903-04-18

The attack on marriage by the
Socialist, Representative Frederick
Mccartney, of Rockland, at Paine
Memorial hall last week, shows that
the Socialists have at last thrown off
the mask Of deception which they
have worn so long, and now consider
themselves strong enough to announce
openly the fundamental principles of
international socialfsm,-one of the
three principle tenets of which is the
abolition Of marriage, says the Boston
Republic.
This is the logical and proper step
for the Socialists to take, as they be-
lieve, to quote their greatest living
apostle, Frederik Eagels, that ''Three
great obstacles block the path to social
reform, private property, religion and
the present form of marriage" Mr..
Mccartney said that Marriage is
simply sanctifed prostitution" and
that "woman's ideal in life to-day
is to get married, to find the realization
of her life, the end Of her life in a
man." Glib and fluent in the field of
agitation, and expert in the work Of
infiaming the passions of envy and
hate, he was dlscreely dumb as to
the remedy for whatever of alleged
evil exists to-day.
We have not space to enter fully into
this matter at this time, further than
to briefly show, by the best socialistic
authority, what this doctrine proposes
to do for woman.
Bebel, the great authority on social
ism, says that the duty to work, with
out regard to sex, is one Of the funda-
mental laws Of the social democratic
state. He also says that domestic life
must be confined within the narrow
est possible limits. Women, married.
as well as unmarried, must have some
employment. It is evidence without
argument that this would utterly
break up and destroy all domestic life
By the way Of substitute for home life
great central restaurants, immense ly-
ing-in hospitals where women could
be cared for during their period of
confinement, and the like, would be
established.
Family life, Involving authority over
children and responsibility for their
welfare, socialism proposes to abolish,
and to supercede parental care by
making children the wards of the
state. Beside this,is abolished the right
Of inheritance, along with that of pri-
vate property.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, who may be
called the father of modern commun-
ism, saw this very plainly. He had
also the courage Of his convictions,
and carried his five newborn children,
one after the other, to the turnstile of a
founding hospital.
Hassenclever, a leading Socialist,
member Of the German Reichstag, now
deceased, said in an address before the
German Workhgman's Union (see
Wolsey's Communism and Socialism,:
The woman question would be taken
by the developed, or, more correctly
speaking, the communistic state under
its control; for in this state when the
community Composed Of individual
men and women equally entitled to the
privileges Of citizenship bears the OBJ
legations Of maintaining the children,
and no private capital exists, the wom-
en- need no longer, out OF regard for
the children, be chained to one man.
The bond between the sexes will sim
ply be a moral one, and IL the charac-
ters did not harmonize, could be dis
solved"
In his Historical Basis of Socialism
in England" II. M. Hyndman says
(page 459:
'Thus breaking down and building
up 60 on slowly together, and new
forms arise to displace the old. 1t is
the same with the family. That, in
the German Christian sense Of mar
riage for life and responsibility Of
the parents for the children born in