-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.18/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.18/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 18 </A> ----- Laissez Faire City Times May 3, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 18 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Love from the 60s to the 90s (The 1860s to the 1890s, that is) by Don Lobo Tiggre This April just past, spectators to America�s War On Sex were treated to the spectacle of the state of Tennessee breaking up April Divilbiss� family. The Divilbisses never hurt anyone and their little girl passed a psych evaluation with flying colors. But they are pagans, and polyamorous (two husbands, one wife), which was enough for the state�not to put too fine a point on it�to abduct their daughter and refuse to return her until the three adults broke up their marriage. The story made national, and even international news. Whether you agree with this type of arrangement or not, the power of bigots to stomp into a happy household and abduct little girls under color of law is a sobering�and for many�terrifying reality check. It is tempting for freedom-lovers to let the feeling of persecution generated by such incidents weigh us down. However, a quick look at history should be enough to remind us that our freedom to live the lifestyle of our choice is greater now than it has been for a thousand years, or more, in the West. Just how old is Mrs. Grundy anyway? No one can say for certain, but she has been with us for a long time, heaping unwanted public attention and condemnation on those who dare to be different in their sexuality. And yet, it seems doubtful she held much sway in Rome or Greece; those cultures seem to have been fairly lifestyle-tolerant. During the dark ages, there was such a vacuum of authority that even the Wiccans of the time were largely left alone by Christendom. However, with the rise of the centralized power structures of the nation-state came an increasing will and ability to enforce many of the more sexually repressive attitudes of the fathers of the Catholic church. This deepening tide of repression grew to a crescendo of hypocrisy that only abated when World War I put an end to the Gilded Age. How bad was it? Court cases show that even after the turn of this century, a wife�s income was considered to be her husband�s property. Marriage, as construed by the culture and laws of the Victorian era, basically gave a man ownership over his wife. More specifically, it gave him a legal right to her sex, regardless of how she might feel about it. Since even information regarding contraception was banned, control over reproduction was in the hands of men. There was no legal recourse for a woman, and little else she could do�short of murder�to stop her husband if he wanted to have sex with her. Consider the tone of this advertisement from The Wyoming Press, published in 1900 for a product that had been for sale throughout the latter half of the 19th century: HOW IS YOUR WIFE? Has she lost her beauty? If so, Constipation, Indigestion, Sick Headache are the principal causes. Karl�s Clover Root Tea has cured these ills for half a century. Price 25cts. And 50cts. Money refunded if results are not satisfactory. Sold by Harrison & Roth, Druggists. The insult to women aside, this ad and others like it�all directed at men�clearly show what a sexually benighted time the Victorian era was. But something extraordinary happened at the height of this hypocrisy: the Free Love movement. The movement actually started at about the same time as an interest in Spiritualism swept the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. It is worth clarifying that in the mid 1800s, Spiritualism meant communicating with spirits�knocking noises on walls and tables, speaking to dear old aunt Thelma, that sort of thing. The New York Times , regarded as a liberal bastion by today�s conservatives, did not then regard these spirits very highly: "They were not in the field five years till they sought a �fusion� with the Free-Lovers, began to assail the marriage relation, invent new causes of difference between man and wife, and find excuses to satisfy the consciences of bigamists, and adulterers and fornicators." Key figures in the early Free-Love movement, many of whom were also abolitionists, included Victoria Woodhull (the first female candidate for U.S. president), Thomas L. and Mary G. Nichols, Andrew Jackson Davis, and Stephen Pearl Andrews. The movement was fairly conservative to begin with, in that the focus was still on the propriety of traditional family structures and duties. However, Free-Lovers also held that love (and, for some, Spiritual affinity) should determine whether a union formed or endured, not the church or state. Later, as the movement matured, it grew more diverse, even encompassing a faction that could be described as polyamorous. There were two groupings, known as the Exclusivists and Varietists, in 1870s. Reformers in both camps believed that true love justified and led to true marriage, but the Exclusivists said this could only happen between two people. The Varietists believed that love was like lust and could be felt for any number of people, and therefore could, and even should, express itself in plural and varied ways. The main spokesman for this view was Moses Hull, publisher of a Free-Love journal called Hull�s Crucible. The Comstock Era After the Civil War, and right on through the most vicious repression of the whole era�the reign of terror of vice-hunter Anthony Comstock�a new cadre of fighters for the freedom to love emerged and rocked the country. Chief among these were Moses Harman (1830 � 1910), Angela Tilton Heywood (18?? - ?), and Ezra Hervey Heywood (1829 � 1893), but there were many others, including Moses Hull. Most had been active in the abolitionist movement. After chattel slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment, these trained reformers, flush with the warmth of victory, turned their attention to new challenges. Chief among these were labor issues and the repression of sexuality, which was particularly hard on women. The Heywoods lectured, agitated, and published a journal called The Word from the 1870s through the 1890s. The Word dealt with several reform tropics, but focused a great deal on Free Love. The dauntless Moses Harman, who had once been a southern Methodist minister, published a journal dedicated to rational inquiry that focused on many social issues but was particularly outspoken in defense of women and the freedom to love. Harman�s journal, called Lucifer, the Light Bearer (1883 � 1907), as well as The Word, ran directly afoul of the Comstock Act and principal figures from both publications were sent to jail repeatedly�Harman even doing hard time breaking rocks at the Joliet penitentiary in Illinois, at the age of 75. The Comstock Act of 1873 was named after the crusader; he wasn�t a congressman himself. But he was able to get funding from the YMCA and from some of the wealthiest men of the time to pressure Congress into passing the law which was named after him. The act prohibited obscenity in the mails, without defining "obscenity", along with specific "indecent" and "immoral" items as contraceptives and birth control information. The fines were stiff and the penalties included jail time. Comstock also traveled around the country prosecuting those who violated prudish laws, especially those who were outspoken about it, and encouraging others to do the same. This virulent repression was so widespread that English playwright George Bernard Shaw refused to visit the United States, saying in a letter to the New York Times (September 26, 1905): "The reason I do not go to America is that I am afraid of being...imprisoned like Mr. Moses Harman.... If the brigands can, without any remonstrance from public opinion, seize a man of Mr. Harman's advanced age, and imprison him for a year under conditions which amount to an indirect attempt to kill him, simply because he shares the opinion expressed in my Man and Superman that 'marriage is the most licentious of human institutions,' what chance should I have of escaping?" In spite of this persecution, the Free-Love movement pushed forward. To all appearances, Moses Harman was a soft-spoken and kindly man, but an unwavering believer in the freedom of speech. Because of his belief in this fundamental human right, he had a policy of not censoring the material he published�some say he did so in order to challenge the obscenity laws and demonstrate their injustice. The famous "Markland" letter he published in 1886 was one of the main causes of his arrest first arrest, in 1877. In part, it read: "About a year ago, F____ gave birth to a babe and was severely torn by the use of instruments in incompetent hands. She has gone through three operations and all failed. I brought her home and had Drs. ____ and ____ operate on her, and she was getting along nicely until last night, when her husband came down, forced himself into her bed and the stitches were torn from her healing flesh, leaving her in a worse condition than ever. I don�t know what to do�Will you point to a law that will punish this brute?� What is rape?� Can there be legal rape? Did this man rape his wife? Would it have been rape had he not been married to her?�If a man stabs his wife to death with a knife, does not the law hold him for murder? If he murders her with his penis, what does the law do?� Can a Czar have more absolute power over a subject than a man has over the genitals of his wife?" Yes, Moses Harman did hard time, but thanks to him, many women around the country began awakening to their subjugation and many more found in Lucifer precious information about birth control and other subjects they couldn�t inform themselves of anywhere else. The Word Angela and Ezra Heywood also published a journal, The Word, but went much further than that. Angela spoke at public meetings�a most unfeminine thing to do, by the standards of the time�in a very open and straightforward manner that kindled the ire of the censors. The couple was instrumental in the founding of the New England Free Love League and even created something they called the Free Love Bureau. The bureau essentially served as the first "Playboy advisor," providing people with straight answers to questions on love and sex that would not be answered anywhere else. For reasons that made sense to Victorian minds, while it was Angela�s unvarnished honesty that most angered the censors, it was Ezra they charged with crimes and imprisoned. While the people the Heywoods helped were surely grateful for Angela�s candor, the populace at large was certainly not. In a letter by one Laura C. Eldridge Angela received the following thanks for her efforts on behalf of women and sexual freedom: "...You foul mouthed, disgusting thing! You ought to be tied to a whipping post until you promised to use decent language. Your demented idiot of a husband isn�t half-so much to blame as you are; I think he would be half decent if it wasn�t for you... Of course Heywood will go to prison where he ought to go, only you ought to be there too�and put in close confinement�where you couldn�t contaminate the rest of the felons with your dirty tongue. You nasty brute! You vilest thing in the country!...Your children ought to be taken away from you and very likely will be..." However, the efforts of these champions were not wasted. Moses Harman�s daughter Lillian worked at Lucifer and certainly helped carry his thinking forward. She also married her father�s editorial partner, Edwin C. Walker. The two openly defied church, state, and popular will by marrying each other by simply agreeing to do so, on terms of their own making. Lillian, 16 at the time, retained her maiden name and full property rights to her self, her sex, her earnings, her belongings, and her life. The couple was immediately arrested, promptly tried, and found guilty of violating Kansas law, by "�unlawfully and feloniously� living together as man and wife without being married according to statute." Following their sentencing (75 days for Edwin and 45 days for Lillian), the judge asked the couple if they had anything to say. "Nothing except that we have committed no crime," answered the 16-year-old bride. "But we are in your power, and you can, of course, do as you please." These people and many others fought for light in the midst of the blackest of starless, moonless nights. They had many adventures and misadventures, and left a legacy of truth that could not be undone. We should remember this when we read about the current prosecution of the polygamous, or gays, or lesbians (or Christians or Sovereign Individuals or anyone else who dares to be different). An excellent book on the subject is The Sex Radicals, by Hal D. Sears (The Regent�s Press of Kansas, 1977); in it you can learn more about these courageous people who helped turn the tide against repression of human sexuality. Should anyone doubt the courage and creativity of those who went before us, they have only to look up the "horse penis affair" and that should settle the question. When the hot acid of bigotry weighs on our minds, let�s remember how far we�ve come and try to keep some perspective. Sure, we�ve got the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, but we don�t have anyone remotely like Anthony Comstock charging around, making it his personal mission in life to trample upon the happiness of the April Divilbisses of the world. And we can talk about things like breast cancer and birth control freely�heck, Larry Flynt has pushed the envelope so far that pictures, stories, and even movies of people in any variety of combinations having sex can be sent through the mails to and from most places. Yes, Mrs. Grundy�that decrepit life-and-love-hating old crone�is still with us, but women need no longer become the property of men. Love and liberty matter, and freedom is not dead! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don Lobo Tiggre is the author of Y2K: The Millennium Bug, a suspenseful thriller. Tiggre can be found at the Liberty Round Table and The Liberty Channel. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 18, May 3, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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