or a
woman; it is a family and it must act as such in order to satisfy its
own demands. A man can no more act independently of the woman he loves
than the heart can act independently of the lungs. The man and woman who
compose the new unit are not only flesh of one flesh, but they are one
soul, one life; they are a complete organism. And the life of this
organism must be persistent to realize its own aims. In all the higher
forms of existence, processes move slowly. For nine months a woman
carries her baby as a part of her own body; then for three years the
father and mother carry the child in their arms; for a score of years
they must support, protect and train it before they let it go to seek
its own. Hence sexual love must be persistent as well as monogamic.

From all this it follows that each half of the human unit must find the
major part of its adult life in devotion to the one it has chosen as its
complement. This is no hardship; it is divine opportunity, if love binds
the lives in harmonious unity. If love is lacking, then there is no new
organism; and such a case falls outside this discussion.

Under the simpler forms of civilization that have prevailed in the past,
it was comparatively easy to find the complement for any particular man
or woman. With physical sympathy and desire, little more was needed than
common race and the same general social position. With simple
personalities even the marriage of convenience was apt to prove happy.

But, to-day, not only have men become infinitely more complex and
self-conscious than formerly, but women have ceased to be a general
class; and, in becoming individuals, they have developed wide ranges of
individual needs. Instead of fitting at the two or three points of
physical desire, race and social position, a man or woman, to live
strongly and well in this close union of body and soul, must fit each
other at many points. To the older sympathies must be added a common
attitude toward religion, education, artistic tastes, social ambitions,
industrial aptitudes, and a score of other living sympathies, if the
days are to pass in happiness, and each is to maintain his fair share of
the life of the new unit. Physical desire still remains the paramount
thing, but these other sympathies tend to strengthen it, or their
absence may weaken and ultimately destroy it. It is comparatively easy
for a person to find a complement to two or three of his, or her,
qualities; it is very