Love and Marriage

By

Ellen Key
Author of “The Century of the Child,” etc.


Translated from the Swedish by
Arthur G. Chater

With a Critical and Biographical Introduction by
Havelock Ellis



G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press

Copyright, 1911
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Ninth Printing

The Knickerbocker Press. New York

iii

In this treatise, the veteran Swedish reformerattacks problems the most vital to the welfare ofthe human race, problems which have throughoutthe centuries engaged the attention of leaders ofthought.

The writers who have given attention to thecomplex subject of the relations of the sexes, ofthe obligations of the state in the control of theserelations, and of the organisation of the family asthe foundation of society, include such authorsas Plato, Goethe, Richter, Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft,Fourier, Comte, Mrs. Browning, Mill,Ibsen, Westermarck, Charlotte Gilman, HavelockEllis, and many others.

These problems are complex, and the difficultiespresented by them most serious. No writer hasever yet presented solutions that could be acceptedas finally satisfactory. Ellen Key writes with aprofound antagonism to the philistinism andhypocrisy which have characterised much of theconsideration given by the community to thesubjects. She points out (as has, of course, beenemphasised by many earlier writers) that theignoring of an evil does not dispose of it, and thativso far from preserving society from its influence,the burying of an evil merely tends to increase itscorrupting and demoralising results.

Whether or not the reader be prepared to acceptthe conclusions and recommendations of the Swedishthinker, he must recognise that these conclusionsrepresent the result of painstaking andscholarly thought and investigation. Daring andiconoclastic as they may be, the views of EllenKey are presented with a calmness and philosophyof method that is absolutely free from any traceof sensationalism. The book, which is being distributedin half a dozen languages to a world’spublic, must be accepted as a most importantcontribution to philosophic thought.

The introduction by Havelock Ellis, himself anauthority on social problems, will help to makeclear its purpose and character.

New York, January, 1911.

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CONTENTS