যাহা সত্য তাহাই বলিব এবং বলিয়াছিও, অবশ্য ফলাফলের বিচারতার পাঠকের উপর।
নর-নারীর পবিত্র বন্ধনের সীমা ও পরিণতি সম্ভবতঃ একদিন কি হইবে এবং কি হওয়া উচিত, উপসংহারে শুধু সেই কথাটাই হারবার্ট স্পেন্সরের ভাষায় ব্যক্ত করিব।— “As monogamy is likely to be raised in character by public sentiment requiring that the legal bond shall not be entered into unless it represents the natural bond; so, perhaps it may be, that maintenance of legal bond will come to be held improper if the natural bond ceases. Already increased, facilities for divorce point to the probability that whereas, while permanent monogamy was being evolved, the union by law (originally the act of purchase) was regarded as the essential part of marriage and the union by affection as non-essential, and where as at present the union by law is thought the more important, and the union by affection the less important, there will come a time when the union by affection will be held of primary moment and the union by law as of secondary moment; whence reprobation of marital relations in which the union by affection has dissolved. That this conclusion will be at present unacceptable is likely—I may say, certain.......Those higher sentiment accompanying union of the sexes, which do not exist among primitive men, and were less developed in early European times than now, may be expected to develop still more as decline of militancy and growth of industrialism foster altruism; for sympathy which in the root of altruism is a chief element in these sentiments.
