People would ask, 'Were you married before the registrar?' and the
answer would be, 'No, we are Samurai and were united before the Elders.'
In Catholic countries those who use only the civil marriage are
considered outcasts by the religiously minded, which shows that
recognition by the State is not as potent as recognition by the
community to which one belongs. The religious marriage is considered the
only one binding by Catholics, and the civil ceremony is respected
merely because the State has brute force behind it."
There is in this passage one particularly valuable idea, the idea of an
association of people to guarantee the welfare of their children in
common. I will follow that a little, though it takes me away from my
main line of thought. It seems to me that such an association might be
found in many cases a practicable way of easing the conflict that so
many men and women experience, between their individual public service
and their duty to their own families. Many people of exceptional gifts,
whose gifts are not necessarily remunerative, are forced by these
personal considerations to direct them more or less askew, to divert
them from their best application to some inferior but money-making use;
and many more are given the disagreeable alternative of evading
parentage or losing the freedom of mind needed for socially beneficial
work.
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