In today's China, it would be an exaggeration to say that divorce has become fashionable, but the divorce rate continues to rise for everyone. "If only marriages based on love are moral, then only marriages that continue to be in love are moral. (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 4, pp. 78-79) Although not many people have necessarily read Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, many people know that Engels said such things. So ending a loveless marriage has become a legitimate reason for some people to divorce.

Is there no marriage without sex?

1. The Historical Evolution of Marriage Relations

To understand the problem, we should first understand how the marriage relationship has evolved in human history. In the final analysis, human production is two kinds of production, one is the production of material means of production and material means of subsistence, and the other is the production of human beings themselves, that is, reproduction. From the first production relations are formed, and from the second production are the marriage relations. In the early days of human society, when the development of human society was based on population increase as the main form of development, marriage became the main relationship of human society.

In "The Family, Private Property and the Origin of the State", Engels proposed that the historical evolution of human marriage relations has gone through the following stages:

1. Mixed marriage

This is the earliest and most primitive form of marriage in human beings, the so-called promiscuous marriage without limits. All men and all women in a group can have sex, all men are husbands of all women, and just as all women are wives of all men, even between parents and children. This kind of promiscuous marriage without restrictions is of great significance to the development of human society. According to the primitive division of labor, the main responsibility of men is hunting, plundering, fighting, etc., and life is very insecure, but under the conditions of mixed marriage, a large reduction of men will not affect the reproduction of the primitive herd, because a small number of men can impregnate a large number of women "without limits".

2. Blood family

Engels said that this was probably the first form of marriage to be developed under the mixed marriage system. Here marriages are divided by generations, with all the grandparents forming the first series of marriage circles, their children, i.e. all fathers and mothers, forming the second series of marriage circles, and the children of the latter forming the third series of marriage circles. In each marriage circle, all men and women are husband and wife of each other, and sexual relations are strictly forbidden between different series of marriage circles. Although this marriage precludes marriage between grandparents and grandchildren, parents and children, and siblings are still husband and wife, it is the first step towards excluding kinship marriage.

3. Punalua family

In the Punalua family, marriage is another important step towards the exclusion of kinship marriages, excluding marriages between brothers and sisters. On the face of it, the Punalua family is no different from the blood family, and marriage is also limited by rank, in which all men and women are husband and wife, but in each level of men and women, brothers and sisters are no longer included. "A row or series of sisters becomes the nucleus of one commune, and their siblings become the nucleus of another. The form of the family, which Morgan calls Punalua, has arisen by this or similar means, whereby a certain number of sisters—of the same or distant blood, i.e., from the cousin, and from the cousin or beyond—are the common wives of their common husbands, but among these common husbands their brothers are excluded; These husbands no longer call each other brothers, and they do not have to be brothers anymore, but call each other Punalua, i.e., close companions,...... Similarly, a group of brothers—siblings or those of distant blood—married a certain number of women, as long as they were not their own sisters, who were also called Punalua. (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 4, p. 34)

4. Dual family

A man has a matriarch among many wives, and this man is the matriarch of many husbands to this woman, for a longer or shorter time, and a man and woman live together in a form of couples, which is a couple's family. This type of marriage is different from group marriage and later monogamy, the difference with the former is that a man and a woman live together as the main form of cohabitation, and the latter is different from the latter in that the husband and wife do not have strict rights and obligations, and the foundation of the marriage is still very weak, and the marriage contract can be dissolved by the will of either spouse.

5. Monogamy

We have seen that the evolution of marital relations from mixed marriage to couples is moving in the direction of constantly narrowing the scope of marriage and excluding kinship. The exclusion of kinship can create offspring with stronger physique and intelligence, which is of great significance to the development of human society. Although this evolution takes place in a spontaneous state. Engels said: "In pairwise mates, the group has been reduced to its last unit, a molecule consisting of only two atoms, a male and a female. Natural selection has accomplished its mission by increasingly narrowing the scope of the marital relationship. In this regard, it has nothing more to do. Thus, if there are no new, social dynamics at work, there is no basis for a new form of family from the system of pairs. However, this momentum is starting to kick in. (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 48)

In group marriages, where only the mother is known, the couple family provides a new member of the family—the father, the exact father. According to the division of labor in the family, the father's responsibility was to obtain food and the tools of labor necessary for production, and later he naturally became the owner of domestic animals and slaves, etc., who inherited after his death? Under matriarchy, it can only be owned by the clan, and the children of the deceased do not belong to the clan of the deceased, but to their mother's clan, and the children cannot inherit the father's property. With the increase of the father's property and the consequent importance of his position, they used their position to change the traditional inheritance system in favor of their children, so that the matriarchy was replaced by the patriarchal system. In order to ensure the authenticity of one's children, one had to ensure the chastity of his wife, and in this way, monogamy was created. It was at this time that a new factor began to act on the marital relationship, that is, the property relationship.

If we divide human society into categories according to the age of ignorance, the age of barbarism, and the age of civilization, and then refer to mixed marriages, blood families, and Punalua families as group marriages, the three historical eras have corresponding marriage relationships. The group marriage system is compatible with the era of obscurantism, the system of couple marriage is compatible with the age of barbarism, and the monogamy system is adapted to the age of civilization.

2. Modernity: The Birth of Love

Speaking of modern sex and love, Engels pointed out: "Modern sex and love are fundamentally different from simple sex and desire and ancient love. First, it presupposes the mutual love of those who love each other. In this respect, women are on an equal footing with men, whereas in the ancient times of love, women's consent was by no means always sought. Secondly, sexual love often reaches such a strong and lasting degree that if it cannot be united and separated from each other, it is a great misfortune, if not the greatest misfortune, for both parties, and that they are willing to risk their lives only for the sake of being united to each other, which in ancient times only happened on the occasion of adultery. Finally, a new moral standard arises for the evaluation of sexual intercourse, which asks not only whether it is marriage or fornication, but also whether it arises from love, from mutual love? (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 73)

We have traced the historical evolution of the marriage relationship at great length, but we have not talked about sex and love, not only because sex and love have not played any role in the historical evolution of previous marriages, but importantly, it could not have or existed in all kinds of marriage relations before monogamy.

Sex is exclusive by its very nature, and another expression of it is jealousy. We know that the main reason why human beings have been able to get out of the fauna is because of the strong group, the strength of the group. In fauna, on the other hand, the herd is generally incompatible with the individual family. As Engels said: "The envy of the male both binds and restricts the family of the animal, and sets the family of the animal against the herd; As a result of this jealousy, the group, which is the highest form of cohabitation, becomes impossible on some occasions, weakened on others, or tends to disintegrate during intercourse, and its further development is hindered on the best occasions. (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 29) If the male jealousy of the animal kingdom only causes the flock to disintegrate during the mating period, and the human being, with its regular sexual behavior, if the male is jealous from the beginning, the result can only be that the flock cannot exist.

It cannot be denied that even in a group marriage, sex, life, and life can only occur between two people. Similar age, appearance and posture, long-term contact, etc., can definitely become two. Sex attracts each other, but this is by no means the product of sexual eros in our modern sense, which can only be the product of monogamous conditions. As Engels put it: "Thus for the first time a possibility was created, on the basis of which from monogamy developed from the difference in the circumstances – either within it, or in parallel with it, or contrary to it – the greatest moral progress to which we owe monogamy, the modern individual, sexuality, and love, unknown to the whole past world." (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 65)

III. Marriage and **

Our human society has a history of at least tens of thousands of years, while the history of civilization is only a few thousand years, and the vast majority of human society has spent its time in a period of ignorance and barbarism. That is to say, for the vast majority of human social life, marriage is a marriage without love. And in a civilized society, what about marriage and sex? Ironically, early sexual love generally did not occur within marriage but outside of marriage, such as knightly love in the Middle Ages. "AIB S, in German terms, is the song of Dawn, which has become the essence of Provans's love. It describes in a fervent tone how the knight slept in the bed of his lover, someone else's wife, with the guard standing outside the door, and at the first sight of the morning (IB), he informed the knight that he could slip away quietly and without being noticed. followed by the narration of the parting scene, which is the most ** of the lyrics. (Selected Works of Max and Engels, vol. IV, p. 66)

In slave societies and feudal societies, the first thing that dominated marriage was property relations, and it was the marriage that weighed the benefits and disadvantages. Second, the conclusion of marriage is often not the choice of the parties but the decision of the parents of both parties, for example, in China's feudal society, it is the order of the parents and the words of the matchmaker. And marriage is based on inequality between men and women. Although, in the long course of history, monogamy is also quietly changing, that is, the elements of sex and love are increasing, and the influence of property relations is weakening. Although we do not rule out that a couple of men and women who have never known each other may also fall in love with each other and become a loving couple after marriage, in those societies the basis of talking about marriage is that sex and love are empty words after all.

In contemporary China, the words of parents and matchmakers have become distant memories in most places. Since the majority of women participate in social work like men and become the main contributors of family life, this has led to the improvement of women's social status and the equality of men and women in the real sense, which has undoubtedly had a major impact on the marriage relationship in our society. But if our marriage is based entirely on sex and love, this is obviously not true. Aren't personal income, housing conditions, personal education, family background, and even height and physical fitness often considered by young people when choosing a mate? This means that in the marriage relationship in our society, there are still more or less considerations of weighing the benefits. And since sex and love are not the whole basis of marriage, can we also say that there is no sex and love cannot be the only reason for divorce? Is divorce also a trade-off? That is to say, "If only marriages based on love are moral, then only marriages that continue to be in love are moral." And when the basis of marriage is not "love only", can we not say that "only a marriage that continues to be in love is moral"?

Let's suppose that there is a young couple, united by passionate love, and there is no trade-off between love and marriage, and marriage is based entirely on sex and love. But the question is, how long can this passionate love last? This is certainly a firm belief in lovers who are not deeply in love, but for those who have rich social experience, they will know how much truth such love vows can have. In terms of the persistence of sexuality, it is very different for different individuals, especially for men. Relatively speaking, women's sex and love are more focused on and maintained for longer than men. If we just talked about the couple, the man no longer loves the woman, but the woman loves the man as always, is it unfair to the woman to end such a marriage, although it satisfies the man's requirements? Even if they no longer love each other, do they have to end their marriage?

Sex and love are undoubtedly important emotional ties in the relationship between husband and wife, but it is not the only bond that connects husband and wife, there are other feelings established in common life, and there are feelings established with common relatives, especially for common children. In modern society, the divorce of husband and wife not only involves the parties, but also involves all aspects, especially the children. Although divorce does not change their relationship with their children, they are no longer able to provide them with a complete home, which is particularly harmful to minor children. The family is the cell of society, and the instability of the family will also bring about a series of social problems.

Marriage relations are the product of certain historical conditions, and it is meaningless to talk about the relationship between marriage and sex and love in isolation from the reality of society. We are not all against divorce here, if the relationship between the husband and wife has completely broken down, and it is already very painful for both parties to maintain such a marriage, ending such a marriage is undoubtedly the best option. We do not rule out that the increase in the divorce rate contains a trend of social progress, expressing people's increasing demands on the quality of life. I just want to point out that in today's society, sex and love are not enough as the only reason for divorce. Maintaining the relative stability of the family is not only the common obligation of both husband and wife, but also the moral requirement that our society should put forward.

We talked about it. In the course of a long history, monogamy has also progressed, marked by an increase in the element of sex and love, and a weakening of the influence of property relations. With the development of history and the progress of society, one day when property relations no longer affect marriage, and even the upbringing of children is borne by society, and the conclusion and divorce of marriage are only related to the parties and do not involve anyone else, the end of a loveless marriage will definitely become a natural thing. As for how marriage relations will change at that time, in the words of Engels: "This will not be determined until the new generation grows up, a generation of men who will never buy women for devotion with money or other social power in their lifetime; And a woman will never commit herself to a man for any reason other than true love, or refuse to commit to a man he loves for fear of financial consequences. When such people appear, they will ignore everything that people think they should do today, they will know for themselves what they should do, and they themselves will create their own social opinion about their behavior that is appropriate to that – and that's it. (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 79)

Such a marriage may be true monogamy, or it may be a resurrection of the ancient system of group marriage in a higher form.