Foreword
The tragic Judeo-Christian form of sexual repression, ultimately expressed in the double standards and hypocrisy of the Victorian era, are slowly becoming seen in the proper perspective. Modern times have shown an increase in marriage-less unions, group sex, and freedom for the woman to be what nature intended her to be a woman. The long crushing of sexual forces by the disastrous pattern of social teachings has led to bitterness and frustration over the centuries, and until recently has been a major stumbling block for a person's happiness.
Or so the author suggests in his book, The Boarding House. He has presented in an intricate and delicately woven plot, the agonizing story of a woman at the crossroads of her life, a product of false repressions and guilt-laden ethics, unable to cope with herself as she bursts from her self-imposed prison of sexual denial. Marleen Franklin, widowed for six years, is overwhelmed by her pent-up emotions which she has always considered dirty and degrading, almost taking her teenage daughter with her down the road to alienation and disintegration before subsequently evolving into a sensually creative, sexually mature woman.
The basic institution of monogamy in a world in which procreation has not only become secondary but threatens to become the source of our eventual fall as a species, is under attack by the author, with no holds barred. Its potentially inward direction, culminating in incest, however, is not considered by him as the danger, but rather the outward effect of guarding its members from the true capacities of the human being to relate to others. While we, as the publishers, refrain from suggesting whether he is right or wrong in his theories, we do strongly urge all serious students of sociology and social psychology to pay heed to the deep and penetrating insights that he has raised and the questions he has asked, for it is only after prolonged and torturous appraisal of our environment and culture can proper adjustments be made to alleviate the neuroses that plague us in every strata of life.
The Publishers Sausalito, Calif. July, 1974