ouples as a
necessary introduction to a life of connubial joy. There is, in our
opinion, nothing in the custom to recommend it. After the excitement and
overwork before and accompanying a wedding, the period immediately
following should be one of _rest_.

Again, the money expended on the ceremony and a tour of the principal
cities, etc., might, in most cases, be applied to a multitude of after-life
comforts of far more lasting value and importance. To be sure, it is not
pleasant for the bride, should she remain at home, to pass through the
ordeal of criticism and vulgar comments of acquaintances and friends, and
hence, to escape this, the young couple feel like getting away for a time.
Undoubtedly the best plan for the great majority, after this most eventful
ceremony, is to enter their future home at once, and there to remain in
comparative privacy until the novelty of the situation is worn off.

4. IF THE CONVENTIONAL TOUR is taken, the husband should remember that his
bride cannot stand the same amount of tramping around and sight-seeing that
he can. The female organs of generation are so easily affected by excessive
exercise of the limbs which support them, that at this critical period it
would be a foolish and costly experience to drag a lady hurriedly around
the country on an extensive and protracted round of sight-seeing or
visiting. Unless good common-sense is displayed in the manner of spending
the "honey-moon," it will prove very untrue to its name. In many cases it
lays the foundation for the wife's first and life-long "backache."

* * * * *

{201}

Advice to Newly Married Couples.

[Illustration: THE HONEY-MOON.]

1. "BE YE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY" is a Bible commandment which the children
of men habitually obey. However they may disagree on other subjects, all
are in accord on this; the barbarous, the civilized, the high, the low, the
fierce, the gentle--all unite in the desire which finds its accomplishment
in the reproduction of their kind. Who {202} shall quarrel with the
Divinely implanted instinct, or declare it to be vulgar or unmentionable?
It is during the period of the honeymoon that the intensity of this desire,
coupled with the greatest curiosity, is at its height, and the unbridled
license often given the passions at this time is attended with the most
dangerous consequences.

2. CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGE.--The first time that the husband and wife
cohabit t