given civilization, though
a very select class among the wealthy offer an exception to this.

Now nothing is more familiar to us all than that there is a disharmony,
as Professor Metchnikoff puts it, between these ages for marriage and
the age at which the development of the racial instinct is unmistakable
and parenthood is indeed possible. The tendency of civilization is to
increase this disharmony, and it is impossible to believe that this
tendency can be healthy either for the civilization or for the
individual.

Still concerning ourselves with the more general aspects of the
question, let it be observed that, as regards men, this unnatural delay
of marriage very frequently brings consequences which, bearing hardly on
themselves, later bear not less hardly on hapless womanhood. The later
the age to which marriage is delayed, the more are men handicapped in
their constant struggle to control the racial instinct under the
unnatural conditions in which they find themselves. The great majority
of men fail in this unequal fight, and of those who fail an enormous
number become infected by disease, with which, when they marry, they
infect their wives, sometimes killing them, often causing them lifelong
illness, often destroying for ever their chances of motherhood, or
making motherhood a horror by the production of children that are an
offence against the sun. These are facts known to all who have looked
into the matter, but there is no such thing as decent public opinion on
the subject, and the author or speaker who dares to allude to them takes
his means of living, if not his life, into his hands.

No doubt men are largely responsible themselves for the rising marriage
age, but women are also responsible in some measure. This must mean on
the whole an injury to themselves as individuals, to their sex, and to
society. Both sexes demand a higher standard of living; the man spends
enough in alcohol and tobacco, as a rule, to support one or two
children, and then says he is too poor to marry. There is everything to
be said for the doctrine that people should be provident, and should
bring no more children into the world than they are able to support; but
before we accept this plea in any particular case, we should first
inquire how the available income is being spent. At present, every
indication goes to show that we are following in the track of all our
predecessors, spending upon individual indulgence that which ought to