  The only relationship in which two people can exercise their sexuality without the fear of reducing themselves to objects is monogamous marriage. Monogamy is required to ensure that there is equality and reciprocity in the surrender and ownership of the two spouses’ persons. The spouses exclusively surrender their persons to one another, so neither of them is in danger of losing his or her person and becoming an object. This perfect equality and reciprocity between the spouses is described by Kant as follows: “… if I yield myself completely to another and obtain the person of the other in return, I win myself back; I have given myself up as the property of another, but in turn I take that other as my property, and so win myself back again in winning the person whose property I have become. In this way, the two persons become a unity of will” (Kant Lectures on Ethics, 167). Furthermore, this mutual exchange of the two spouses’ persons must, for Kant, be legally enforced. Kant explains that marriage is “sexual union in accordance with law” (Kant 1797, 62). He wants something external, namely, the law, to guarantee this lifelong ownership of the two parties’ persons in marriage. He argues that this legal obligation to surrender one’s person to one’s spouses makes marriage different from a monogamous relationship between two unmarried partners.