reason among others women should never marry a man who does not work at
_something_. If he has no bread-winning business to remove him from his
wife's sphere of action for several hours daily, then he must have a
hobby, or a game mania, or engrossing duties which serve the same
purpose. Otherwise the wife must be constituted on a plane of inhuman
goodness and possess infinite love, tact, and patience if the two are to
live happily together.

The same principle applies to women, though it is not generally
recognised. I am convinced that a great number of middle-class marriages
prove unhappy merely because the woman has not enough to do. Possessed
of sufficient servants, her household duties occupy a very small portion
of her leisure, and if her children are at school (or perhaps she has
none) she has nothing more engrossing to do than read novels and pay
visits. The result is that one type of woman cultivates nerves and
becomes a neurasthenic semi-invalid; another cultivates the opposite sex
and fills her leisure hours with undesirable philandering; another
develops temper or melancholy or jealous fancies; and so on--all of them
spoilt as companions merely for want of sufficient occupation.

III

THE AGE TO MARRY

'To me the extraordinary thing is not that so many people remain
unmarried, but that so many rush into marriage, as they might rush
into a station to catch a train. And if you catch the wrong train,
what then? All you have to comfort you is the fact that you have
travelled.' --ROBERT HICHENS.

A great many unhappy unions might be prevented if people could find
their right age for marrying. As it differs with the individual, it is
impossible to lay down any exact rule. Some men are capable of making a
good choice at twenty-two; others don't know their own minds at double
that age. Some girls are fit for wifehood and maternity in their teens;
others never.

In the interests of abstract morality early marriages are desirable,
and in England everything the law can do is done to encourage them. In
France the preservation of family authority is considered all-important,
and the law apparently tries to check early unions by every means in its
power, regardless of the high percentage of illegitimate births which is
the direct consequence.[3]

[Footnote 3: In 1903 one tenth of all the children born in France
were illegitimate. In Paris alone the percentage was higher
still--ab