Sex Before Marriage

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30234, 12 September 1963, Page 12

Sex Before Marriage

The recent discussion in ouri correspondence columns on! sex before marriage reflects the community’s concern for moral standards in this particular, but also generally. All experience (as, for instance, in the French and Russian revolutions) sup-: ports the instinct of society that it must protect its fabric by a code of morality, and that the inability of some to respect that code I is no reason for abandoning ' it. No matter how low the standard may be set. some persons will still fall short.! For the ordinary individual,! this is a matter for his own conscience, bearing in mind * the effects his personal behaviour will have on others; but the community is entitled to expect that those in positions of privilege and responsibility conform to its

standards in their public life. The British Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle) is entitled to whatever private opinions he may have. What caused the public criticism of him in Britain (and eventually in letters to the editor of “ The [“Press”) was that he ap- ! peared to condone an attack ion a moral code endorsed I by the community not as a ! matter of law but as a ! matter of convention and ; decency. British people are particularly tender on this point because of recent disclosures in high places, which prompted one writer [to observe wryly that what [are loosely termed the intelligent classes might be intelligently termed the loose classes. Such an observation, we hope, is not really justified in Britain, or in New Zealand.