J71 



simply because his parents persisted in regarding the 

 natural claims of manhood and maturity as childish non- 

 sense to be beaten out of boy's heads by diplomas and 

 Greek classics; because they lacked all sympathy with 

 him and failed to persuade him to await the proper time 

 when the law would recognize his right. 



It is strange that in the plain uneducated peasants 

 family this early marriage is a common circumstance and 

 a popular event in the domestic circle, whilst amongst 

 the upper and more educated classes this same early 

 marriage is considered foolish and next door the criminal 

 - and that, notwithstanding the abundant proofs of the 

 mischief done by the influence of the latter view. 



I say abundant proofs and I do not exaggerate in stat- 

 ing that the mischief wrought by these opinions is 

 immense. 



Our kitchens and our streets are never specially di- 

 stinguished for purity. The inexperienced youth soon 

 has his eyes opened to the fact that not he himself but 

 his purse, slender though that may be, is the object of 

 desire in these spheres. Not rarely he has the satisfac- 

 tion of finding that this purse and all his strenuous discre- 

 ditable costly efforts to refill it, have been sacrificed not 

 for the benefit ot his fancied flame, but in , the interest 

 of some insolent big-fisted bully long already accustomed 

 to exploit all the resources of the woman subjected to> 

 his power. 



The ideal is thus irremediably smashed; but as na- 

 ture's physical demands have found a source of realistic 

 supply, and as the appetite of ^health grows with the 

 food it feeds on, these physical demands are soon de- 

 prived of all their moral meaning and woman becomes 

 for such a youth a t thing, a beautiful apparatus as it 

 were, for the discharge of electric energy and relief of 

 desire. 



As soon as this change has taken place and a man 

 looks upon woman only in this way, the fountain of all 

 sorts of nervous and sexual disorders is fairly tapped. 



