state, likely to be injurious to the other partner, or to the
offspring. In America, Rosenberg and Aronstam argue that every
candidate for marriage, male or female, should undergo a strict
examination by a competent board of medical examiners, concerning
(1) Family and Past History (syphilis, consumption, alcoholism,
nervous, and mental diseases), and (2) Status Presens (thorough
examination of all the organs); if satisfactory, a certificate of
matrimonial eligibility would then be granted. It is pointed out
that a measure of this kind would render unnecessary the acts
passed by some States for the punishment by fine, or
imprisonment, of the concealment of disease. Ellen Key also
considers (_Liebe und Ehe_, p. 436) that each party at marriage
should produce a certificate of health. "It seems to me just as
necessary," she remarks, elsewhere (_Century of the Child_, Ch.
I), "to demand medical testimony concerning capacity for
marriage, as concerning capacity for military service. In the one
case, it is a matter of giving life; in the other, of taking it,
although certainly the latter occasion has hitherto been
considered as much the more serious."

The certificate, as usually advocated, would be a private but
necessary legitimation of the marriage in the eyes of the civil
and religious authorities. Such a step, being required for the
protection alike of the conjugal partner and of posterity, would
involve a new legal organization of the matrimonial contract.
That such demands are so frequently made, is a significant sign
of the growth of moral consciousness in the community, and it is
good that the public should be made acquainted with the urgent
need for them. But it is highly undesirable that they should, at
present, or, perhaps, ever, be embodied in legal codes. What is
needed is the cultivation of the feeling of individual
responsibility, and the development of social antagonism towards
those individuals who fail to recognize their responsibility. It
is the reality of marriage, and not its mere legal forms, that it
is necessary to act upon.

The voluntary method is the only sound way of approach in this matter.
Duclaux considered that the candidate for marriage should possess a
certificate of health in much the same way as the candidate for life
assurance, the question of professional s