ore slowly than those of woman. He is more tardy in
completing his growth, and early indulgence more readily saps his
constitution.

We have placed the best age for woman to marry between twenty and
twenty-five years; for similar reasons, man is best qualified to become
a husband between twenty-three and thirty-three years.

Previous to the twenty-third year, many a man is incapable of producing
healthy children. If he does not destroy his health by premature
indulgence, he may destroy his happiness by witnessing his children a
prey to debility and deformity. An old German proverb says, 'Give a boy
a wife, and a child a bird, and death will soon knock at the door.' Even
an author so old as Aristotle warns young men against early marriage,
under penalty of disease and puny offspring.

From the age of thirty-three to fifty years, men who carefully observe
the laws of health do not feel any weight of years. Nevertheless, they
are past their prime. Then, also, with advancing years, the chances of
life diminish, and the probability increases that they will leave a
young family with no natural protector. The half-century once turned,
their vigor rapidly diminishes. The marriages they then contract are
either sterile, or yield but few and sickly children. Many an old man
has shortened his life by late nuptials; and the records of medicine
contain accounts of several who perished on the very night of marriage.

The relative age of man and wife is next to be considered. Nature fits
woman earlier for marriage, and hints thereby that she should, as a
rule, be younger than her husband. So, too, the bard of nature speaks:

'Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart.'

The woman who risks her happiness with a man many years younger than
herself, violates a precept of life; and when her husband grows
indifferent, or taunts her with her years, or seeks companions of more
suitable age, she is reaping a harvest sown by her own hand.

So commonly do such matches turn out badly, that in 1828 the kingdom of
Wuertemberg prohibited unions where the woman was more than twelve years
the senior, except by special dispensation.

After forty-five years, most women cannot hope for children. A marriage
subsequent to this period can at best be regarded as a close friendship.
Marriage in its full meaning has no longer an existence.

The relative age of