ts and lives is taking place; it is more often the wife
than the husband who is disappointed in marriage, and this is
largely due to her inability to merge, not necessarily
subordinate, her individuality in an equal union with his.
"Marriage to-day is becoming more and more dependent for its
success upon the adjustment of conditions that are psychical.
Whereas in former generations it was sufficient that the union
should involve physical reciprocity, in this age of ours the
union must involve a psychic reciprocity as well. And whereas,
heretofore, the community of interest was attained with ease, it
is now becoming far more difficult because of the tendency to
discourage a woman who marries from merging her separate
individuality in her husband's. Yet, unless she does this, how
can she have a complete and perfect interest in the life
together, and, for that matter, how can he have such an interest
either?"

Professor Muensterberg, the distinguished psychologist, in his
frank but appreciative study of American institutions, _The
Americans_, taking a broader outlook, points out that the
influence of women on morals in America has not been in every
respect satisfactory, in so far as it has tended to encourage
shallowness and superficiality. "The American woman who has
scarcely a shred of education," he remarks (p. 587), "looks in
vain for any subject on which she has not firm convictions
already at hand.... The arrogance of this feminine lack of
knowledge is the symptom of a profound trait in the feminine
soul, and points to dangers springing from the domination of
women in the intellectual life.... And in no other civilized land
are ethical conceptions so worm-eaten by superstitions."

We have seen that the modern tendency as regards marriage is towards its
recognition as a voluntary union entered into by two free, equal, and
morally responsible persons, and that that union is rather of the nature
of an ethical sacrament than of a contract, so that in its essence as a
physical and spiritual bond it is outside the sphere of the State's
action. It has been necessary to labor that point before we approach what
may seem to many not only a different but even a totally opposed aspect of
marriage. If the marriage union itself cannot be a matter for contract, it
naturally leads to a fact which must necessarily be a ma