V. Aversion to Marriage

Communism in the means of production, after which the modern social democrat strives, is quite compatible with separate family life. Not so, however, common property in the articles of consumption. The private household – the private family – has always a tendency to demand a recognition of private property. Where the right to private property has been abolished and separate family life has been permitted, communism of this particular kind has proved to be untenable.

Communism in articles of consumption, therefore, leads to a certain hostility to separate family life, and necessarily also to a certain dislike to individual marriage. This is particularly the case where the community is living in the midst of a society in which the right of inheritance has already been established. The practice of individual marriage inevitably prepared the way for a reversion to private family life, for the separate interests of a man and wife were in natural opposition to the general interests of the communistic circle.

This hostility was, indeed, necessary so long as the production of the community was too limited for communism to be founded on the practice of holding property in common, and its aim continued to be, as at first, not a universal co-operative association, but an all-embracing family.

This is no mere speculative conclusion. We find this aversion to family life and marriage in Plato, in the Essenes, in the cloister, and also in some communistic societies in the United States.

These examples not only prove that aversion to marriage is necessarily connected with this primitive communism, but also that the feeling can be expressed in very different ways; by the demand for celibacy on the one hand, and by the common possession of women on the other. The latter was required alike by Plato and by the Perfectionists of Oneida. Dislike to marriage by no means implies hostility to women. On the contrary, the emancipation of woman from separate households always has the tendency to raise her position in the community. This can be seen in Plato’s description of communism, and is still exemplified in the American communistic colonies.

The general bias of medieval communism on the marriage question is easily understood, as well as its uncertainty on the point. The consequences of its tenets drove its partisans to require either complete continence, or the possession of women in common; but their whole environment, their petty citizenship and small peasant households made separate families and separate marriages necessary. It is in the opinions held concerning the relation of the sexes that custom is an all-powerful factor; it is here, too, that new ideas have continually to encounter the greatest difficulties, for, in the sexual sphere, the extraordinary always appears to be disgusting and repulsive.

Medieval communists held very diverse opinions on marriage: one marked characteristic, however, distinguished them all, viz., a determined hostility to the matrimonial state.

This hostility appears among the oldest of medieval communistic sects – the Waldenses, which arose in the South of France in the second part of the twelfth century. They divided their adherents into two classes – the perfect (perfecti), and the novices (discipuli). For the first, communism and, perhaps, celibacy, also, was ordered; at all events, the latter state was deemed desirable. The novices (discipuli), on the contrary, were allowed to marry, and also to have worldly possessions. In return, it was the duty of the novices to support the perfecti, who were to consider themselves dead to the vanities of this world. This sort of communism reminds us of the platonic theory on the one hand, and of the Beggar monks on the other. In the Platonic republic, people were also divided into two classes – the ordinary people and the guardians. Communism and the avoidance of marriage were prescribed for the latter only. Like Plato, the Waldenses proclaimed the equality of the sexes, one of their heretical opinions being that women could preach as well as men; an opinion condemned by the Pope. Men and women went about together, giving umbrage to pious souls, who considered that, under such circumstances, celibacy was not synonymous with perpetual chastity.

A similar account is given of the Apostolicans, a sect founded by Gerardo Segarelli at Alzano, near Parma, about 1260. They called each other brothers and sisters, after the manner of the early Christians. Living in strict poverty, they were not permitted to have either houses of their own, or provisions for the next morning, or anything that was comfortable or convenient. If hunger raged among them they begged for food from the first person they met, without specifying any article in particular, and ate without discrimination whatever any one gave them. If a wealthy man entered the community, he was obliged to renounce the possession of his property, resigning it for the common use of the Brotherhood. Marriage was forbidden. “The Brothers who go into the world to preach repentance have power to take about with them a sister as an Apostle; not as a wife, but as a helper. They call their female friends, who were allowed to accompany them, their sisters in Christ, and firmly denied that they lived with them in a conjugal or improper manner, although they shared the same bed.

Mosheim thinks (merely on the ground of probability, and unsupported by definite information) that this prohibition of marriage and possession of property referred only to the Apostles – i.e., to the “agitators,” and not to the common Brothers. If this be so, they would resemble the Waldenses very closely. Certain it is, however, that they declare communism to be an indispensable antecedent to perfection.

In the Netherlands and in Germany communistic sects were grouped together under the name of Beghards. This sect was at first, especially in the Netherlands, an association, or brotherhood, of unmarried craftsmen, living as we have seen, in common households. In the Beghard Houses celibacy was enforced.

While, however, all these sects comprehended, under the term “celibacy,” the restraint from every kind of sexual intercourse, the “brothers and sisters of the Free Spirit” (a sect which sprang up in France in the fifteenth century) found a bolder and plainer solution of the matrimonial problem. Next to communism they claimed full, unbridled liberty for mankind, their conception of celibacy being complete sexual freedom, although marriage was prohibited.