S.88 pp ....This, however, is an example of the mental peculiarity of human beings, from which spring both their vices and their intelligence, namely the power of imagination to break up habits and initiate new lines of conduct. ... In general, marriage is easiest where people are least differentiated. When a man differs litle from other men, and a woman differs little form others women, there is no particular reason to regret not having married someone else.....

..... I think that uninhibited civilised people, whether men or women, are generally polygamous in their instincts. They may fall deeply in love and be for some years entirely absorbed in one person, but sooner or later sexual familiarity dulls the edge of passion, and then they begin to look elsewhere for a revival of the old thrill.

....... Love can only flourish as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought that it is a duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and so- is the surest way to cause you to hate him or her. Marriages as a combination of love with legal bonds thus falls between two stools......

.... There can be no doubt that to close one's mind on marriage against all the approaches of love from elswhere is to diminish receptivity and sympathy and the opportunities of valuable human contact. It is to do violence to something which, from the most idealistic standpoint, is in itself desirable. ....

..but I do not recognize in easy divorce a solution of the trouble of marriage...but where there are children the stability of marriage is to my mind a matter of considerable importance....

...... I think that, where a marriage is fruitful and both parties to it are reasonable and decent, the expectation ought to be that it will be lifelong, but not that it will exclude other sex relations. A marriage that begins with passionate love and leads to children who are desired and loved ought to produce to deep a tie between a man and a woman that they will feel something infinetly precious in their companionship, even after sexual passion has decayed, and even if either or both feels sexual passion for someone else. This mellowing of marriage has been prevented by jealousy, but jealousy, though it is an instinctive emotion, is one that can be controlled if it is recognised as bad.

....... A companionship which has lasted for many years and through many deeply felt events has a richness of content which cannot belong to the firs days of love, however delightful these may be. And any person who appreciates what time can do to enhance values will not lightly throw away such sompanionship for the sake of new love.

........ There must be a feeling of complete equality on both sides; there must be no interference with mutual freedom; there must be the most complete physical and metal intimacy; and there must be a certain similarity in regard to standards of values...Given all these conditions, I believe marriage to be the best and most important relation that can exist between two human beings. If it has not often been realized hitherto, that is chiefly because husbands and wives have regarded themselves as each other's policemen. If marriage is to achieve its possibilities, husbands and wives must learn to understand that wahtever the law may say, in their private lives they must be free.