nd
giving them in marriage was to secure cows or ponies in return for
them. In India the object of marriage was the rearing of sons or
daughters' sons for the purpose of saving the souls of their parents
from perdition; so they flung them into the arms of anyone who would
take them. The Greeks and the Hebrews married to perpetuate their
family name or to supply the state with soldiers. In Japan and China
ancestral and family considerations have always been of infinitely
more importance than the individual inclinations or happiness of the
bridal couple. Wherever we look we find this topsy-turvy state of
affairs--marriages made to suit the parents instead of the bride and
groom; while the welfare of the grandchildren is of course never
dreamt of.

This outrageous parental selfishness and tyranny, so detrimental to
the interests of the human race, was gradually mitigated as
civilization progressed in Europe. Marriages were no longer made for
the benefit of the parents alone, but with a view to the comfort and
worldly advantages of the couple to be wedded. But rank, money, dowry,
continued--and continue in Europe to this day--to be the chief
matchmakers, few parents rising to the consideration of the welfare of
the grandchildren. The grandest task of the morality of the future
will be to _make parental altruism extend to these grandchildren_;
that is, to make parents and everyone else abhor and discountenance
all marriages that do not insure the health and happiness of future
generations. Love will show the way. Far from being useless or
detrimental to the human race, it is an instinct evolved by nature as
a defence of the race against parental selfishness and criminal myopia
regarding future generations.

Plato observed in his _Statesman_ (310) that

"most persons form marriage connections without due
regard to what is best for procreation of children."
"They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony
are objects not worthy even of serious censure."

But his remedy for this evil was, as we have seen (775), quite as bad
as the evil itself, since it involved promiscuity and the elimination
of chastity and family life. Love accomplishes the results that Plato
and Lycurgus aimed at, so far as healthy offspring is concerned,
without making the same sacrifices and reducing human marriage to the
level of the cattle-breeder. It accomplishes, moreover, the same
result that natural selection secures, a