Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1483

1483. Here one will perhaps take the stand that the most perfect thing to do in such a situation would be to refrain from having sexual intercourse, to be completely sexually abstinent or celibate. But is this true? What is such a notion based on? It is based not on science or real cosmic knowledge, but solely on dogmatic belief. And since this belief in dogma or orthodoxy cannot stand the test of a really logical scientific investigation, it is to a corresponding degree "superstitious". While this "superstition" was previously virtually harmless, because situations where the question of "contraception" could crop up almost never occurred, the situation now is quite different. Now the traditional moral dogmas about sexual abstinence or celibacy can in many situations have a terribly "evil" effect. Indeed, in the worst cases they lead even to mental illness, not to mention all the terrible, unsuccessful parenting that thousands of children would experience if these dogmas, which, as will be remembered, are against all "contraception" and in favour of total celibacy outside marriage, were to be complied with. Such celibacy would stipulate that all those who were quite unfit to be parents would absolutely have to marry if they wanted sexual satisfaction. But what good could it do a child to have two such inept parents and the correspondingly imperfect home that they would provide? In such a case would it not be better to give up complying with dogma and use "contraception"? Since being unsuited for "parenthood" is due mainly to marital degeneration, and this degeneration certainly does not mean a reduction of the sexual desire in the beings concerned – on the contrary, it means rather a strengthening of it – it is evident that dictating asceticism for these people or complete celibacy cannot be just or perfect either. Nature does not demand complete celibacy from beings whose sexual desire and drive it has strengthened. It is thus established as fact that "contraception" is the solution prescribed by Nature itself through the being's intelligence. If Nature really one hundred per cent demanded a "church wedding" or marriage as a condition for sexual satisfaction, it would also have harmonised things in such a way that there would be exactly equal numbers of beings of both sexes, which is not the case at all. In situations and countries where there are, for example, many more women than men or vice versa, Nature cannot possibly insist on marriage for all beings, just as it cannot insist that the surplus beings be totally excluded from all sexual pleasure either. As we can see, the traditional, sexual and moral precepts or dogmas about celibacy or asceticism do not apply to the present intellectually advanced terrestrial human being. At previous stages in its evolution its sexual psyche was quite different. Its sexual desire or demands were not nearly as strong as they are today, and marriage and offspring were much more a matter of course for all beings than is the case today. But because terrestrial human beings previously had a different sexual disposition, their sexual moral precepts would have had to be correspondingly different too. It would therefore be nothing but an absolute mistake to have to live today according to the morality and precepts of this past, which were created for human beings with quite a different sexual disposition.