ting a family of
their own, who yet should not be denied the comfort and help of
married life. The tragedies of sons and daughters made to drag out a
lonely existence and either condemning the one they love to like
denial or else giving up the hope of union and seeing their chosen one
wedded to another--the sort of tragedy that forms the subject of many
novels--is a tragedy to be outgrown. It may be that social burdens in
behalf of parents or other dependents can not be lifted to the extent
of making a completed family life possible to some young people. All
the more, two people who truly love each other and are bound to one
great sacrifice, namely, that of children of their own, should be able
to escape another, that of denial of marriage.

There are other cases in which marriage is right and childbearing may
be wrong. There are tendencies to disease, in which, although there
may be a long and useful life for the one bearing a family taint, it
may be socially wrong to risk carrying on that taint. If all who need
to know are agreed, and there is a chance of living many years of real
union together, no law should step in to prevent, and no inherited
view of the limitation of marriage to those seeking parental relation
should refuse assent to the union. There are many conceivable
limitations to parental functioning, even for those who are keenly
aware of the social significance of parenthood, which do not apply to
marriage of those truly mated in thought and purpose. It is, however,
the height of irrationality, and will more and more be seen to be
such, for men and women to enter a relation the natural result of
which, in the vast majority of cases, is the bearing of children, with
no idea on either side as to what is the ideal and the wish and the
purpose of the other party in the marriage union.

The question, again, for those who are agreed that they want to start
a family as well as begin a mating is definitely to be considered,
namely, that of the right time to begin the family they wish to have.
It may be, as many believe, that too hasty adding of the strenuous
discipline of parenthood to the often difficult task of adjustment of
two mature and forceful natures, such as marriage so often brings
together, is likely to give an unnecessarily hard start in the new
life. Two people who have just got used to themselves, perhaps, have
at marriage to get used to each other. It may be that they could
succeed better in this