question in social life, in morals, or in
physiology, the American plan of granting absolute divorces is
dangerous, and destructive to what is best in life. It leads to hasty,
ill-assorted matches, to an unwillingness to yield to each other's
peculiarities, to a weakening of the family ties, to a lax morality.
Carry it a trifle farther than it now is in some of the Western States,
and marriage will lose all its sacredness, and degenerate into a
physical union, not nobler than the crossing of flies in the air.

Separation of bed and board should always be provided for by law; and
whether single, married, or separated, the woman should retain entire
control of her own property. But in the eyes of God and nature, a woman
or a man with two faithful spouses living, to each of whom an eternal
fidelity has been plighted, is a monster.

OF A PLURALITY OF WIVES OR HUSBANDS.

What has been said of divorce applies with tenfold force to the custom
of a woman living as wife to several men, or of a man as husband to
several women. We should not speak of these customs, but that we know
both exist in America, not among the notoriously wicked, but among those
who claim to be the peculiarly good--the very elect of God. They
prevail, not as lustful excesses, but as religious observances.

It is worth while to say that such practices lead to physical
degradation. The woman who acknowledges more than one husband is
generally sterile; the man who has several wives has usually a weakly
offspring, principally males. Nature attempts to check polygamy by
reducing the number of females, and failing in this, by enervating the
whole stock. The Mormons of Utah would soon sink into a state of Asiatic
effeminacy were they left to themselves.

COURTSHIP.

A wise provision of nature ordains that _woman shall be sought_. She
flees, and man pursues. The folly of modern reformers, who would annul
this provision, is evident. Were it done away with, man, ever prone to
yield to woman's solicitations, and then most prone when yielding is
most dangerous, would fritter away his powers at an early age, and those
very impulses which nature has given to perpetuate the race would bring
about its destruction.

To prevent such a disaster, woman is endowed with a sense of shame, an
invincible modesty, her greatest protection, and her greatest charm. Let
her never forget it, never disregard it; for without it she becomes the
scorn of her own sex and the jest