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bidden to think of marriage or to dream of the other sex 

 at such an age. Marriage is for a youth of this class 

 a still distant prospect. He has to finish his scholastic 

 course, to obtain some good appointment, establish around 

 him a certain degree of comfort and opulence, and then 

 only is privileged to think of wedlock; as though the 

 essential condition for matrimonial fitness consisted not 

 in sexual maturity, but in the comfort and luxury of 

 wealth; as though the chief requirement was that the 

 wife might sleep on down and feast on dainties, and be 

 not her husband's help-mate and house-wife but a deli- 

 cate doll serving as her husband's toy. No, if marriage 

 is a mystery in which the partners are so united, body 

 and soul, that in the language of the church "a man 

 shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave 

 unto his wife", there is no place for troubling about com- 

 fort, but place only for labour and energy of individuals 

 in promoting and perfecting nature's work on earth. 



It is to be regretted that this false philosophy infects 

 also women. Though less obedient, woman receives 

 these counsels with respect and utters no protest, whilst 

 the refusal of the right to marry at the proper age rous- 

 es unceasing protests from the men. 



Any boy of 16 if his health is sound is infallibly in 

 love, simply because the human seed of the healthy or- 

 ganism develops sufficiently between the age of 14 and 

 16. In the country among village folk this is well un- 

 derstood as a common -place natural fact. There they 

 address such boys plain advice and warning. "Wait a bit, 

 Jack; God grant you'll pass your seventeenth year and 

 we'll marry you, and you'll set up your own house and 

 home with a young wife". And Jack waits willingly, 

 knowing that till he is eighteen no priest will wed him 

 to any girl. He sees in this simply a law. But is it 

 so amongst educated circles ? 



Instead of looking upon marriage as an inborn natural 

 need of the human organism, pedagogic morality sets up 

 a hue and cry -- "What's this you are thinking of? 



