Marriage and Morals

Marriage and Morals is a 1929 book by the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell that questions the Victorian notions of morality regarding sex and marriage.

Russell argued that the laws and ideas about sex of his time were a potpourri from various sources, which were no longer valid with the advent of contraception, as the sexual acts are now separated from the conception. He argues that family is most important for the welfare of children, and as such, a man and a woman should be considered bound only after her first pregnancy.

Read more about Marriage And Morals:  Cultural Response

Famous quotes containing the words marriage and, marriage and/or morals:

    “Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
    —Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)

    “After the first couple of months, she and Charlie didn’t see much of each other except at breakfast. It was a marriage just like any other marriage.”
    —Orson Welles (1915–1985)

    “Kelly: I washed my face clean the morning I woke up in your bedroom.
    Griff: You got morals in my bedroom?
    Kelly: You had nothing to do with it. Nothing! It was your mirror.
    Griff: You must have taken a long look.
    Kelly: It was the longest look of my life. I saw a broken-down piece of machinery. Nothing but the buck, the bed, and the bottle for the rest of my life.”
    —Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)