EARLY MARRIAGES. 245 



Arguments, plausible if unsound, might be advanced 

 tending to show that early marriages make for morality, 

 and something might also be said in answer to the 

 objections of the economist ; but there is not a single 

 word to be spoken in mitigation of the sweeping con- 

 demnation which the physiologist is compelled to pro- 

 nounce upon all marriages of the immature and the 

 senile. 



To the superficial observer it may appear that every 

 marriage must enrich the state, and that early mar- 

 riages must lessen the amount of sexual immorality, 

 but inquiry will prove conclusively how fallacious are 

 those views. 



Early marriages certainly tend to the production of 

 large families, but then a family, to be a source of 

 wealth to the state, must at least be self-supporting, 

 which is exactly what the feeble, degenerate children 

 of the great mass of our early marriages are not. 

 They are brought forth ill-developed and unhealthy ; 

 their immature, improvident parents are unable to 

 either feed or educate them as they ought to be fed 

 and educated ; hence, instead of being a source of 

 wealth to the state, they prove a serious drain upon 

 her resources. A large percentage of these miserable 

 children succumb during infancy, but a great number 

 drag out a pitiful existence, only to become inmates 

 of our workhouses and infirmaries, our asylums and 

 prisons, and, after being supported at the public ex- 

 pense for a longer or shorter period, to die prematurely, 

 leaving the state poorer than they found it and no 



