nkled faces of
old women, and talk to them to discover that the outcome of
unselfishness and abnegation forms the nearest approach to happiness in
married life or out of it. It is the bearing of the burdens of life that
constitutes its happiness.

THE EVILS OF EARLY MARRIAGE.--No woman has the vitality to stand the
strain of maternity before the twenty-third year. If a girl marries at
eighteen years of age she gives the world children totally unfit to
struggle with its problems. At about twenty-two years she may give one
child of value to the world, but all others following will be
increasingly unfit. In early marriages children are apt to come too
frequently, and this is one cause of infant mortality. Statistics show
that children born with an interval between them of only one year have a
mortality of one hundred per cent, higher rating than those born with an
interval of two years. And if these children are the progeny of very
young mothers the percentage is even greater. The percentage of children
who are malformed and idiotic is greater among those born of too young
parents. It has been shown that the child can only inherit what the
parents possess. If the parents are not of an age when all the powers
are at their highest, the child is robbed of just this amount of growth
and force lacking; no amount of education or training can supply this
loss.

There is another feature of early marriages that should receive serious
consideration. A girl of eighteen or twenty has not reached that period
of growth where certain inherited tendencies will show. If she has
inherited a predisposition to consumption she may outgrow this period
provided she is permitted to reach her full growth without subjecting
her constitution to any strenuous physical or mental strain. If,
however, this girl marries and becomes a mother, the incident effect
upon her health will most likely weaken her to the extent of bringing to
the surface the inherited tendency. Many mothers succumb to just such
conditions, where had they remained single until a later period they
could have assumed the responsibility of maternity without any evil
consequences.

The idea that by an early marriage a woman can train and change the
inborn characteristics of her husband is a mistake. Few women can reform
a husband after marriage. If she cannot reform him before marriage she
will never do it afterward. These inborn traits will have their way
despite anything she may