onship, and of the common care of offspring. The danger lies in
the possibility that these foundations for conjugal love will not have
been lain by the time that romantic sentiments begin to grow dim. It is
this crisis in the married life which seems disappointing in the
afterglow of the engagement and honeymoon.

Of late there have been attempts to build up a new conception of love
which shall incorporate the best features of romantic love and at the
same time make the transition to the conjugal affection less difficult.
This new conception has grown up through the increasing freedom of
women and the constant association of the sexes in the educational and
business world as well as in the social life. This free companionship of
men and women has done much to destroy the illusions about each other
which were formerly supposed to be so necessary a component of romantic
love, but it has also created the basis for a broader sympathy and a
deeper comradeship which is easily carried over into the married
relation.

The new ideal of love which is being thus developed combines complete
understanding and frankness with erotic attraction and the tenderness of
romanticism. It implies a type of marital relationship in which there is
preservation of the personality and at the same time a harmony and union
of interests that was often absent from the old-fashioned marriage, when
the wife was supposed to be more limited in her interests than her
husband. It may well be that the evolution of this new ideal of love,
which grants personal autonomy even within the marriage bond, will solve
a great deal of the present conflict between the individualistic
impulses and the exercise of the erotic functions as permitted by the
group.

It is, of course, an open question as to how far the interests of the
individual and the group can be made to coincide. Group survival demands
that the most vital and intelligent members shall be those to carry on
the reproductive functions. Therefore from the social viewpoint, it is
quite justified in setting up the machinery of social approval and in
establishing emotional attitudes by this means that will insure that
this takes place. On the other hand, it may be that the individuals who
will be thus coerced will be as rebellious against new forms of social
control as they are restless under the present methods of restraint.

If we free ourselves from a manner of thinking induced by inhibitions
developed t