GERMAN MORALTY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11446, 28 January 1918, Page 7

GERMAN MORALTY.

ENCOURAGE POLYGAMY. MILLIONS OF PAMPHLETS. During the ■war there have been frequent reports of German schemes for increasing future man-power by the promotion of bigamy or poly- . £»my. There recently reached Lon- ; don trustworthy evidence in the ; shape of a pamphlet, in its second edition, which has been published iby the firms of Oscar Muller, of Cologne. It is called “The Secondary Marriage as Only- Means for the Rapid Creation of’ a New raid Powerful Army and the Purification of Morality. ” The author, whose name is Carl Hermann Tore os, says that he is well over 70 years of age, and that he has ‘travelled almost every sea, and worked through life with open eyes.” The pamphlet is based upon the future needs of the German army, because “the military strength of a people depends in part upon the number of men able to bear arms. 5 Germany’s heavy losses in the war must be made good, and at the same time every effort must be made to meet the decline in *tli6 birth-rate which was lamented before the war. The writer leads up to his mein proposals with a chapter which declares that “the conception of immorality is relative,” and that “good morals are only what the upper classes of society approve.” The “facts” are said to give Germany “the justification, in case of necessity, to put the stamp of morality upon what to-day seems immoral.” “In any case, if the falling off in births ;,is to he counter-acted bachelordom must be reduced to - the minimum which the circumstances require. ” The main proposals are stated as follows: —“Women in all classes of society who yiavojcoached a certain age are, in’ phe interests of the Fatherland, not only authorised hut called upon to enter into a secondary marriage, which is supported by personal inclination. Only a married msn may be the object of this inclination, mid he must have the consent of his married wife. . This condition is necessary in order to prevent the mischief which otherwise might surely be expected. The offspring of these lawful secondary marriages bear the name of tlieir mother, and are h uded over to the care of the State, unless the mother assumes responsibility tor them. They are to be regarded in every respect as fully equal members of society. The mothers wear a narrow wedding ring as a sign of their patriotism. The secondary marriage can be dissolved as soon as its object has been attained.” Elsewhere Herr Torges says he thinks that the objects of his new institution can be fulfilled in 20 years, aud that secondary marriages might then he abolished. The Aargauer Volksblatt, a Swiss Catholic organ, declares that several millions of copies of the pamphlet h*.ve been distributed gratis to the German soldiers in the trenches, and to all classes of German women at homo, and that the pamphlet has been in circulation for more than six mouths without a single Gorman newspaper making any protest. The pamphlet is therefore described as a piece of official propaganda “against which the whole civilised world must rise up in in indignation. ”