AUTHOR. In all partnerships, we pledge a portion of our liberty on certain points agreed upon. Now the husband and wife are partners; they cannot therefore be as perfectly free with respect to each other as though they were strangers; but it is necessary, we repeat, that their position should be the same and their pledges mutual. If the wife can neither sell, nor alienate, nor give, nor receive, nor appear in court without the consent of the husband, it is not allowable for the husband to do these things without the consent of the wife; if the wife is not permitted to practise a profession without the consent of the husband, the husband is not at liberty to do so without the consent of the wife; if the wife cannot pledge the common property without authority from the husband, the husband cannot pledge it without the consent of the wife. I go further; I would not willingly permit the wife, before the age of twenty-five, to give her husband authority to alienate anything belonging to one of the two; the husband has too much influence over her for her to be really free before this age. READER. But what if one of the parties through caprice or evil motives is unwilling that the other should do something that is proper and advantageous? AUTHOR. Arbiters are frequently chosen in the differences that arise between partners in business; society, represented by the judicial power, is the general arbiter between the husband and wife; still we think that it would be well to establish between them a perpetual arbiter, holding the first degree of jurisdiction: this might be the family council, organized differently from the present. Before this confidential tribunal, better fitted than any other to understand the case, the husband and wife should carry, not only the differences arising between them concerning questions of interests, but those relating to the education, profession and marriage of the children. This tribunal should give the first judgment, and much scandal would be avoided by its decisions, from which besides one could always appeal to the social court. I need not add that the right of the father and the mother over the children is absolutely equal, and that, if the right of either could be contested, it would not be that of the mother, who alone can say, I _know_, I am _certain_ that these children are mine. READER. In fact, it is odious that the plenitude of right should be found on the side of the mere legal presumption, the act of faith, uncertainty. Regarding marriage as a partnership of equals, do you not think that it would be well to mark this equality and the distinction of personalities in the name borne by the spouses and their children? AUTHOR. Certainly, on the day of marriage each of the spouses should join his partner's name to his own; this is done already in certain cantons of Switzerland, and even in France, among a few individuals.