LIFE COMPANIONSHIP 



pretty certain soon to have a fledgling or two in the 

 nest, that will require their combined efforts for a 

 score of years. Other fledglings will probably follow 

 at intervals of two or three years, each one extending the 

 period of parental responsibility by a like amount ; and 

 by the time the last fledgling is ready to leave the nest, 

 the parents are no longer young, no longer middle- 

 aged even; their life- journey is far spent, their life- 

 work near its completion. 



Hence it is that human marriage is, under existing 

 conditions, so fixed and permanent an institution. 

 Hence it is that the average normal man and woman 

 choose but once, while upon the wisdom of that choice 

 will depend almost everything that makes for the happi- 

 ness and usefulness of their own lives and the lives of 

 their offspring. So long as marriage continues to bring, 

 as an unavoidable sequel, the production of offspring, 

 leaving the parents no option, and such is the fact for 

 the average man and woman to-day, so long must the 

 marriage state be regarded as normally a life com- 

 panionship and a life-long mutual responsibility; nay, 

 more, a responsibility that extends down the long line 

 of unborn generations. Obviously then, no sane man 

 or woman of normal endowment can wish to enter on 

 the matrimonial state without full and earnest consider- 

 ation, and the utilisation of the best selective judg- 

 ment attainable. 



But, on the other hand, we must not forget that it 

 is possible to carry caution to a dangerous extreme. 

 If there are many youths who tend to marry before they 



