in marriage through genuine sex attraction and
harmony of character and disposition. In this union they should
mutually encourage each other to labor socially for the common good of
mankind, in such wise that _they further their own mutual education
and that of their children_, the beings nearest and dearest to them,
_as the natural point of departure for helping general human
betterment_.

If love in its relation to sex be conceived in this manner, it will
purify it by doing away with its pettinesses and it is just into these
pettinesses that the most honest and upright of matrimonial loves too
often degenerate. The constructive work done in common by two human
beings who, while they care lovingly for each other, at the same time
encourage each other to strive and endure in carrying out the
principles of right living and high thinking, will last. Love and
marriage looked at from this point of view, are relatively immune from
the small jealousies and other evil little developments of a
one-sided, purely physical affection. It will work for an ever more
ideal realization of love in its higher and nobler dispensations.

Real and true love is lasting. The suddenly awakened storm of sex
affection for a hitherto totally unknown person can never be accepted
as a true measure for love. This sudden surge of the sex feeling warps
the judgment, makes it possible to overlook the grossest defects,
colors all and everything with heavenly hues. It makes a man who is
"in love," or two beings who are in love, mutually blind, and causes
each to carefully conceal his or her real inward self from the other.
This may be the case even when the feelings of both are absolutely
honest, especially if the sex feeling is not paired with cool egoistic
calculation. Not until the first storm of the sex feeling has
subsided, when honeymoon weeks are over, is a more normal point of
view regained. And then love, indifference, or hatred, as the case may
be develops. It is for this reason that love at first sight is always
dangerous, and that only a longer and more intimate acquaintance with
the object of one's affection is calculated to give a lasting union a
relatively good chance of turning out happily. One thing is worth
bearing in mind. Woman invariably represents the conservative element
in the family. Her emotional qualities, combined with wonderful
endurance, always control her intellect more powerfully than is the
case with man; and the feelin