[finder] what that sect calls passion

Apparently the phrase "free love" dates much farther back than I had assumed. In today's Salon, Christopher Ketcham writes, "Adding to doubts about Lincoln's logic was his odd use of the marriage metaphor in explaining the concept of the union. He blasted the kind of marriage that the South had in mind: 'The Union, as a family relation,' Lincoln averred, 'would not be anything like a regular marriage at all, but only as a sort of free love arrangement -- to be maintained on what that sect calls passionate attraction.'"

Setting aside whether I agree with Lincoln about how marriages or confederations should work, I think a few years ago this metaphor would have sounded incoherent to me; now it's stuck in my head. I guess I'll wait until the next time I'm discussing either topic and see whether the analogy illuminates anything.