ABSTRACT
The fundamental principle of the morality of the state of betrothal is the abstention from sexual enjoyment, for sexual relations between the pair are forbidden on any terms. In place of a sudden revolution in the sexual life, there should occur a gradual evolution. The morality of the state of betrothal as it obtains in our society to-day is characterised by two crimes against nature, morality, and reason. In the first place, it enforces upon the lovers a very dangerous condition of nervous hyperexcitability, inasmuch as it constrains them to sexual abstinence during months or years, in association with continuous nervous overstimulation. Secondly, it imposes upon the lovers a second dangerous nervous excitation, inasmuch as on the bridal night and during the subsequent weeks it instigates them to a sudden, and therefore in most cases unnatural and excessive, sexual indulgence.
