Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1889 — IS MARRIAGE A CURSE? [ARTICLE]

IS MARRIAGE A CURSE?

Aa Imported Society, that Would do Away With the Unequal Mttloj Of Men and Women. Anew order, called the Oder ol the Golden Star, has sent representatives to this country from Germany, Otto Yon Held ren, the Supreme Knight of the order, arrived at St. Paul, Tuesday, and immediately proceeded to advocate the new doctrines they propose to teach. He said to a reporter: * ‘The first principle of the order is the abolishment of the present system of marriage, which I and my brother members believe to be one of' the greatest curses resting on society. By that I do not mean that we intend to inaugurate a loose and vicious system oflove. but rather to propagate ivid perpetuate the doctrine of natural selection and the affinity of soul to soul. We hold in our order after one has become a member of it that he or she cannot marry outside that order. His selection is to be based upon the physical and mental fitness of each other and a mutual agreement and understanding. after a probationary period of six months, that they will live as husband and wife as long as harmony continues. “We do not permit divorce where lack of harmony is discovered. We inquire closely into the causes of the trouble, and if there is no reasonable or rational probability of the two remaining together and there is every reason why they Should separate, then the bond that has united them is amicably dissolved. They remain members of the order; each goes his or her awn wav, and if. there be children, they are cared for by a system which we have which raises, educates and starts them in the world with a trade or profession infinitely more honored than the children of divorced couples of modern society. 1 ‘We do all that we can to promote bodily and mental purity. All that we read, all that we attempt aims from the beginning at bringing about a natural and not an immoral state of society. Our work is to destroy the false and artificial. In attacking the marriage system of to-day our protest is against the unequal mating of men and women, their irrevocable union or their divorcement without inquiry or study of the fault. We substitute for it no code of church or law. but the binding force of a social union by which no step is taken without thought inquiry and careful preparation.”