may fail
because it has not been indulged in earlier.

But let us all realize frankly how often this problem troubles the
majority of engaged couples--no matter how fine their principles may be.
Understanding and love are more helpful in such situations than general
advice and "don't." Assisting the young couple to marry soon is usually
the best help we can give.

* * * * *

If an engaged couple are willing to think this matter over as
unemotionally as possible, the following points may be considered:
Postponement of marriage because of economic conditions has been a
problem almost as old as the race; they are not the first couple to face
this difficulty. Revolt against the standards of home, church, and
society is almost always an expensive decision; secret actions are to be
deplored; worry about "what may happen" may destroy the serenity in love
which should ideally characterize the engagement period. They should be
glad that they do have "sex hunger," but should recognize that each
person owes just a little to the preservation of morality and social
standards; even if they feel that the conditions which beset them are
hard, they should think twice before placing themselves "outside the
pale of social sanction."

The engaged young man may well do some special thinking of his own. No
birth-control methods are sure; the testimony of medical groups rates
various procedures as from 20 percent to 90 percent safe; no man who
really loves his fiancee would take the chance of "getting her in
trouble." More of the responsibility of this decision rests on the man
than on the girl. She may seem to be entirely willing, but the normal
girl worries, even if only over what her parents would think if they
knew. More than one marriage has been wrecked because of the psychiatric
effect upon the girl of such practices during her engagement.

Furthermore, many engaged couples do not finally marry; memories of
forbidden intimacies are not going to make it easier for either to give
himself or herself fully to the right person later on; premarital
relations with another may prove a real handicap to the full
realization, later, of an ideal romance and marriage. The complete
realization of sex after marriage is never so fully accomplished,
emotionally and lovingly, if the two have refused to wait. Even the most
sophisticated young people have somewhere inside them hesitations about
the wisdom of defying s