n, so that the earth may be enabled to
feed her children and keep her workers in comfort, and that none may
enjoy the privileges of wealth who does not return some equivalent for
it to the community, just so will these Legislatures alter the present
laws of marriage, which now bind people unfit to live together and
allow the production of species which ought to get extinct. I believe
that by-and-by people will not be allowed to get married just as they
please, and simply because they please. Insane, sickly persons will not
be permitted to marry and bring insane and sickly children into the
world. There will be some careful pruning done for the good of the
human race, which, as it is, threatens to overcrowd the earth.

Before the law allows couples to marry, I believe--upon my word, I
do!--that it will require them to pass an examination and to prove that
they are fit persons for the undertaking, that their bodies and their
minds are sound and healthy, that they have means of living and the
prospect of keeping the families that may be born to them. Their
antecedents will be thoroughly investigated. It will be ascertained
that there is no insanity, no hereditary disease in the family of
either of them.

Old men of seventy will not be allowed to marry young girls of eighteen
or twenty. Old ladies of temporarily unsound minds will not be
permitted to be taken to the altar by calculating young men eager to
live without working, whatever indemnity the said young men may receive
for their adoption by the said old ladies. Marriage will be held
sacred, and no one will be allowed to trifle with the institution.

Then it will no longer be the custom to commit adultery or acts of
cruelty in order to obtain a divorce. No couples will be compelled to
remain fastened together, living a life of misery. If they find it
impossible to live happily and comfortably together, their mutual
consent to a divorce will be sufficient to secure their freedom.

By the adoption of such laws, with the daily improvement of all
sanitary arrangements and the progress of science, disease and misery
will disappear, the human race will become more healthy, happy, and
beautiful, and more than ever men and women will fall in love with each
other.

* * * * *

Then I hope that the Church will institute a new ceremony of marriage
that will give young couples a cheerful start, and do away with the
present one, which