eighteen, utterly ignorant
of life, knowing little of the man she is marrying, or of any other man
in the world at all, should be condemned to live with him for the rest
of her life. She falls out of sympathy with him, say, has no common
taste with him, nothing to share with him, no real communion except a
physical one. The life is nearly intolerable, yet many women go on with
it from habit, or because the world terrorises them.'

This is true enough, but Mr Meredith speaks as if it were still the
rule, as in our grandmothers' day, for a girl to marry in the teens,
whereas it is now quite the exception. Every year the marrying age seems
to advance, and blushing brides decked in orange blossoms are led to the
altar at an age when, fifty years ago, they would be resigned old maids
in cap and mittens. If a girl is foolish enough to marry immediately she
is out of the schoolroom, she must be prepared to take the enormous risk
which the choice of a husband at such an immature age must entail.

Elsewhere Mr Meredith says: 'Marriage is so difficult, its modern
conditions are so difficult, that when two educated people want it,
nothing should be put in their way. . . . Certainly one day the present
conditions of marriage will be changed. It will be allowed for a certain
period, say ten years, or--well, I do not want to specify any particular
period. The State will see sufficient money is put by to provide for and
educate the children. Perhaps the State will take charge of this fund.
There will be a devil of an uproar before such a change can be made. It
will be a great shock, but look back and see what shocks there have been
and what changes have nevertheless taken place in this marriage business
in the past.'

'The difficulty,' he continues, 'is to make English people face such a
problem. They want to live under discipline more than any other nation
in the world. They won't look ahead, especially the governing people.
And you must have philosophy, though it is more than you can hope to get
English people to admit the bare name of philosophy into their
discussion of such a question. Again and again, notably in their
criticism of America, you see how English people will persist in
regarding any new trait as a sign of disease. Yet it is a sign of
health.'

It will be seen that Mr Meredith puts forward the ten-year limit merely
as a suggestion. I recall in one of Stevenson's essays an allusion to a
lady who said: 'After ten y