=Blissful Blindness.= Some of the cleverest, most cynically suspicious husbands and wives go thru life blissfully blind to their mate's sidesteps. They see thru anyone else's husband or wife but they seldom suspect _their_ husband or _their_ wife. The stress which they place on the possessive works in their case as the fetish which a savage takes into battle. In hoc signo vinces.
It is only in the so called smart set that men and women allude to their mates by their first names. The working classes, sexually the most conservative and puritanical, use the expressions "my man" or "the missus"; middle class men and women pompously refer to their mates as Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith, always reminding their hearers of the legitimacy of their union. The celebration of wooden weddings, silver weddings, etc., is a means of reminding the community that Mr. and Mrs. John Smith _own_ each other, just as the engagement diamond is a scarecrow proportionate in visibility to the prospective bridegroom's fortune.
Even if free love unions became the adopted standard of the land, those unions would be celebrated with appropriate ritual, the aim of which would be to tie the man to the woman and the woman to the man and to warn away sexual hunters of both sexes.
Free love will not be possible until the absolute equality of men and women has been accepted, not only theoretically but practically.
Before that equality is a fact, there must be written into the statute books some form of financial assistance to the woman disabled by pregnancy and lactation and which will enable her to retain her independence regardless of her physiological condition.
Even this will not be enough. Birth control measures will have to become lawful and the subject of careful scientific teaching before woman can hope to lead her life unenslaved to her children's father.
=What of the Child?= Besides, in free love arrangements, the mates are not the only parties to be considered. There is a party of the third part: the children, if any.
If a perfectly independent male decides to cohabit for an indefinite period of time with a perfectly independent female, the community can hardly interpose any objection. For after all, most of our ethical indignation at the thought of temporary unions is due to the miserly fear of the community lest a pregnant woman and fatherless children be thrown upon it for support. No one's rights would be trespassed upon by such arrangements, ephemeral as they might be. As they would not cost anyone any money they would be considered acceptable. When a self supporting Sarah Bernhardt or Isadora Duncan bears children out of wedlock and we run no risk of being taxed for the support of her "illegitimate" progeny, we assume more liberal views than we would should a stenographer or a switchboard operator commit the same "errors."