READER. Ought society to permit unions disproportioned in age? Is it not to expose a woman to adultery, to marry her at seventeen or eighteen to a man of thirty, forty or even fifty years of age? What harmony of sentiments and views can exist at that time between the spouses? The wife sees in her husband a sort of father, whom notwithstanding she can neither love nor respect like a father, and she remains a minor all her life. AUTHOR. These unions are very prejudicial to woman and the race, and they would be for the most part averted, if the law should fix the marriageable age at twenty-four or twenty-five for both sexes. At seventeen, we marry to be called Madame, and to wear a bridal dress and a wreath of orange flowers; we certainly should not do this at twenty-five. If the flower is not called on to form its fruit until it is fully matured, neither should man and woman: now, in our climate the organization of neither is complete until twenty-four or twenty-five. Woman gives more to the great work of reproduction and wears out faster in it; to render her liable to become a mother prematurely is therefore to expose her to greater sufferings. In the first place, she is forced to share between herself and her offspring the elements necessary to her own nutrition, which weakens both her and the child. Her development is checked, her constitution is changed, she becomes predisposed to uterine affections, and runs the risk of becoming an invalid at the age when she ought to enjoy robust health. The enervation of the body brings with it that of the mind: the woman becomes nervous, irritable, and often capricious; she cannot nurse her children; she will not be capable of rearing them properly, she will make dolls of them, and will favor the development of faults which afterwards becoming vices, will afflict the family and society. This woman, a mother before her time, not only will never become the thoughtful companion and counsellor of her husband who, being much older than she, will amuse himself with her as with a child, but will be his ward for her whole life, and will have recourse to artifice to have her own way. Thus to weaken woman in every respect, to shorten her life, to put her under guardianship, to prepare the way for puny and badly reared offspring,--such are the most obvious results of her precocious marriage. To hold women in voluntary subjection and to organize the harem among us, we need only take advantage of the permission of the law authorising their marriage at the age of fifteen. That woman may not be in subjection; that she may be able to become a mother without detriment to her health and under circumstances favorable to the good organization of her children; that she may be a worthy and earnest wife, prepared to fulfill all her duties, she must not be married, I repeat, before twenty-four or twenty-five; and she must not marry a man older than herself.