me. People are always interested in matrimony, whether
from the objective or subjective point of view, and that is my excuse
for perpetrating yet another book on this well-worn, but ever fertile
topic.

Marriage indeed seems to be in the air more than ever in this year of
grace; everywhere it is discussed, and very few people seem to have a
good word to say for it. The most superficial observer must have noticed
that there is being gradually built up in the community a growing dread
of the conjugal bond, especially among men; and a condition of
discontent and unrest among married people, particularly women. What is
the matter with this generation that wedlock has come to assume so
distasteful an aspect in their eyes? On every side one hears it vilified
and its very necessity called in question. From the pulpit, the clergy
endeavour to uphold the sanctity of the institution, and unceasingly
exhort their congregations to respect it and abide by its laws. But the
Divorce Court returns make ominous reading; every family solicitor will
tell you his personal experience goes to prove that happy unions are
considerably on the decrease, and some of the greatest thinkers of our
day join in a chorus of condemnation against latter-day marriage.

Tolstoy says: 'The relations between the sexes are searching for a new
form, the old one is falling to pieces.' Among the manuscript 'remains'
of Ibsen, that profound student of human nature, the following
noteworthy passage occurs: '"Free-born men" is a phrase of rhetoric.
They do not exist, for marriage, the relation between man and wife, has
corrupted the race and impressed the mark of slavery upon all.' Not long
ago, too, our greatest living novelist, George Meredith, created an
immense sensation by his suggestion that marriage should become a
temporary arrangement, with a minimum lease of, say, ten years.

That the time has not yet come for any such revolutionary change is
obvious, but if the signs and portents of the last decade or two do not
lie, we may safely assume that the time _will_ come, and that the
present legal conditions of wedlock will be altered in some way or
other.

Fifteen years ago there was a sudden wave of rebellion against these
conditions, and a renewed interest in the sex question showed itself in
an outbreak of problem novels--a term which later came to be used as one
of reproach. Perhaps the most important of these was Grant Allen's _The
Woman Who Did_. I c