age, and consent of parents
must be obtained usually until the man is twenty-one and the woman
eighteen.

(3) Certain persons are forbidden marriage because of near
relationship or personal defect. Such marriage if performed may be
annulled.

(4) Remarriage may take place after the death of husband or wife,
after disappearance for a period varying from three to seven years, or
a certain time after divorce.

In the twenty-year period between 1886 and 1906 covered by the United
States Census of Marriage and Divorce slow improvements were made in
legislation, but a number of States are far behind others in the
enactment of suitable laws, and most of the States do not make the
provisions that are desirable for law enforcement. Yet there is a
limit of strictness beyond which marriage laws cannot safely go,
because they hinder marriage and provoke illicit relations. That limit
is fixed by the sanction of public opinion. After all, there is less
need of better regulation than of the education of public opinion to
the sacredness of marriage and to its importance for human welfare.
Without the restraints put upon impulse by the education of the
understanding and the will, young people often assume family
obligations thoughtlessly and even flippantly, when they are ill-mated
and often unacquainted with each other's characteristic qualities.
Such marriages usually bring distress and divorce instead of growing
affection and unity. Without education in the obligation of marriage
many well-qualified persons delay it or avoid it altogether, because
they are unwilling to bear the burdens of family support,
childbearing, and housekeeping. Society suffers loss in both cases.

41. =Reforms and Ideals.=--Because of all these deficiencies several
remedies have been proposed and certain of them adopted. Because of
the economic difficulties, it is urged that as far as possible by
legislation, illegitimate ways of heaping up wealth for the few at the
expense of the many should be checked, and that by vocational training
boys should be fitted for a trade and girls prepared for housekeeping.
To meet other difficulties it is proposed that popular instruction be
given from press and pulpit, in order that the moral and spiritual
plane of married life may be uplifted. The marriage ideal is a
well-mated pair, physically and intellectually qualified, who through
affection are attracted to marriage and through mutual consideration
are ready unse