560 The Journal of Heredity 
novel as a popular medium for the 
revelation of life; and works of fiction 
exposing the inequalities and the defects 
of conventional marriage are moral 
sermons in disguise. But wedded love 
is not only a poetic dream. It exists in 
spite of scepticism. Love in novels 
usually ends at the altar. Apparently 
the bulk of novelists cannot conceive 
that our interest may be held by a 
recital of conjugal love.” 
The church has also failed to live up 
to its possibilities in its attitude toward 
matrimony, Mr. Gallichan believes. 
It should share with art the task of set- 
ting high standards and helping men 
and women to reach them. 
SOUND ETHICAL TEACHING 
“The historic crusade with impurity 
has failed, because purity, in its true 
sense, has not been defined and inces- 
santly promulgated as the happier 
mode of living. A child is wont to 
question why he should obey the 
counsels of his parents; and the wise 
parent will endeavor to convince the 
child that obedience of the moral rule 
brings satisfaction, whereas infringe- 
ment brings penalties and unhappiness. 
Every intelligent mind asks the ques- 
tion, ‘Why should I act in this way, and 
refrain from acting in that way?’ 
Positive ethical teaching essays to 
provide a convincing answer to such 
rational inquiry. Moralists should en- 
deavor, therefore, to convince that the 
path of purity, or the state of marriage, 
though not immune from difficulties 
and trials, is less perilous and more 
tolerable in the long run than the path 
of impurity, or the state of libertinism, 
and that virtue is not always painfully 
laborious. This might be proved on 
utilitarian grounds. There is evidence 
enough that, as most persons marry, 
and that many marry more than once, 
the majority find at least a fairly high 
degree of felicity in wedded life. I have 
shown that the married live longer than 
the celibate; that they preserve higher 
health of body and mind, and are less 
subject to neuroses and psychoses; and 
that conjugality develops restraints 
and virtues that tend to the well-being 
of society. 
“All counsels of sex-morality must be 
savored with practical reason, and made 
positive and explicit. It is futile to 
offer marriage as an alternative to a 
supportable single life, or as a substitute 
for pseudo-celibacy, unless marriage is 
represented as more alluring than these 
conditions. Wedlock should be re- 
garded as a truly great and noble social 
sacrament, and not as a way of escape 
from sin, a life of material comfort, or a 
mere custom of respectability. Esteem 
for marriage must be inculcated in 
order to counteract disesteem and 
reluctance to marry. The potential 
worth of marriage is only recognized 
by those who think clearly and deeply 
upon the subject. Yet the mass of 
men and women who enter lightly into 
this momentous partnership are pro- 
foundly ignorant concerning its char- 
acter and the innermost feelings of 
one another. This may seem extrav- 
agant to all except those who have 
devoted close inquiry and observation. 
There are still millions of people who 
think that instinct, or play of sex- 
attraction, 1s the beginning and the 
end and the totality of love and marri- 
age, and that if we ‘follow our instincts 
we cannot go far wrong in the realm of 
Eros.’ No greater fallacy exists. Is 
there a sane man who relies upon his 
‘instincts’ in business affairs ?”’ 
NEED OF KNOWLEDGE 
“Men are not taught to understand 
women, and women are not taught to 
understand men. Without even the 
most rudimentary knowledge of com- 
parative sexual physiology and _ psy- 
chology, how can the sexes hope to 
understand each other, and to live 
harmoniously, morally, and sanely, in 
wedlock? Many men know more of the 
psychology of the horse than of woman. 
A woman who drives a motor-car has 
at least some knowledge of its mechan- 
ism; but many women who take hus- 
bands for life know nothing whatever of 
masculine organization.” 
“We fall in love instinctively; but we 
cannot instinctively alone make a suc- 
cess of marriage and the passing on 
of the flame of life to our children.” 
“The promotion of marriage in early 
