Marriage and Morals

The subjects range from criticisms of social norms, theories about their origins and tendencies, evolutionary psychology, and instinctual attachment to children (or lack thereof), among others.

[1] Russell also argues for increased availability of birth control, the decriminalization of homosexuality, improved sex education, easier access to divorce, and greater freedom of women to pursue their own interests and careers.

[2] A decade later, the book, along with his protest against US involvement in World War II and his generally controversial position in public discourse, cost him his professorial appointment at the City College of New York, owing to a court judgment from a Catholic judge that his opinions made him "morally unfit" to teach.

[5] He explores the idea of "positive eugenics" (selecting for desirable qualities), concluding that such a program would be fraught with moral issues but could produce a very militarily capable nation.

[9] When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the Nobel Prize – somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals – I was apprehensive, since I remembered that, exactly 300 years earlier, Descartes had been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina in the winter time and had died of the cold.The Nobel Foundation, on the other hand, wrote that the prize recognized "his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought"; not any particular work.