Marriage and Love
BY
EMMA GOLDMAN
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MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
210 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK
1911
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
ALEXANDER BERKMAN
A Unique Contribution toSocio-Psychological Literature
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY REPRESENTS THREEPHASES:
- The Revolutionary Awakening and its Toll—The Attentat
- The Allegheny Penitentiary: Fourteen Years in Purgatory
- The Resurrection and After
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Marriage and Love
BY
EMMA GOLDMAN
Price Ten Cents
MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
210 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK
1911
MARRIAGE AND LOVE
The popular notion about marriage and love is thatthey are synonymous, that they spring from the samemotives, and cover the same human needs. Like mostpopular notions this also rests not on actual facts, buton superstition.
Marriage and love have nothing in common; theyare as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonisticto each other. No doubt some marriages have beenthe result of love. Not, however, because love couldassert itself only in marriage; much rather is it becausefew people can completely outgrow a convention.There are today large numbers of men andwomen to whom marriage is naught but a farce, butwho submit to it for the sake of public opinion. Atany rate, while it is true that some marriages are basedon love, and while it is equally true that in some caseslove continues in married life, I maintain that it doesso regardless of marriage, and not because of it.
On the other hand, it is utterly false that loveresults from marriage. On rare occasions one doeshear of a miraculous case of a married couple fallingin love after marriage, but on close examination it[4]will be found that it is a mere adjustment to theinevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each otheris far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, andbeauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriagemust prove degrading to both the woman andthe man.
Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement,an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary lifeinsurance agreement only in that it is more binding,more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly smallcompared with the investments. In taking out aninsurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents,always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however,woman's premium is a husband, she pays for itwith her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her verylife, "until death doth part." Moreove