cravings of her children for urban life and urban occupation.

The housekeeping problem is for the woman on the farm seldom an easy
one, but, nevertheless, conditions that make of the farmer's wife an
overworked house slave are in these days of labor-saving devices without
excuse. In any case, such a family situation in the country, whatever
its cause, must be regarded as pathological.

Sex has too large a place in the construction of the rural family. One
of the advantages of the country family of which we hear much is the
general tendency toward earlier marriages than in the city. Without
doubt marriages, as a rule, do occur earlier among country people. This
fact is significant in more ways than most writers recognize. A very
thoughtful student of the American family, Mrs. Parsons, has called
attention to the social importance of the fact that after maturity
mental and moral traits are more likely to influence the choice than
merely physical traits. In other words, the earlier marriages are more
likely to be influenced by sex interests--using the term in a narrow
sense--than are the later marriages. This brings no social problem to
the minds of those who see in marriage, for the most part, merely
physical attraction and relations. The movement of human experience
seems, however, on the whole, to be away from such a conception of
marriage. Although the postponement of marriage requires for social
welfare a greater moral self-control, we have every reason to suppose
that we must gain social health by a higher moral idealism rather than
by a return to the earlier marriage of former generations. In that case,
to a considerable degree, the earlier marrying of the country people
discloses that they have not as yet felt the full force of the modern
causes that make for later marriages. Earlier marriages may be indeed
happier, but they are often narrower.

A recent writer tells us that the vices of the country are the vices of
isolation. Sex difficulties arise spontaneously and require no
commercial exploitation when young people live a barren and narrow life
without ideals. This emphasis of sex is expressed not merely in
immorality and illegitimacy, but also in a precocious interest in sex
and in a precocious courtship. Early marriage, therefore, often
represents the reaction from an uninteresting and empty environment and,
however fortunate in itself, certainly does not demonstrate a socially
wholesome situation.

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