The comparison of the ancient marriage with the modern marriage once more proves to us, then, how complex are human affairs, and how difficult it is to pass an absolute and definitive judgment upon them. Certainly, at first sight, the condition of the woman in the ancient family seems to us a horrible one, resembling that of a slave. We wonder how nations that had risen to a lofty level of social, intellectual, and moral development could have tolerated it. But when we consider the matter more attentively, we find that even this condition, wretched though it was in certain respects, was not without certain advantages, which may perhaps explain to us why women put up with it for so many centuries. The liberty which the woman of the present day enjoys has countless advantages; but it has made matrimony for her a struggle, in which, if some triumph, others are worsted, and those who triumph are not always the most virtuous and the most wise. Also, in this order of things, liberty is an excellent thing, especially for the fortunate and the brave; but the fortunate and the brave, where marriages and love are concerned, are not always those who possess the qualities which conduce most effectively to the progress of the world and the improvement of the human species. Modern liberty has set a high price on beauty and intelligence in woman, which is all to the good; but it has also made coquetry, frivolity, and vapidity into qualities which are useful for the conquest of man, who is not always a reasonable being and is even less reasonable than usual when he is in love—which is _not_ all to the good. For there is no doubt that between twenty and thirty years of age a man is much more sensitive to the attractions of a frivolous and seductive girl than to those of a serious and sensible woman. All human things, then, have their advantages and their disadvantages, and that perhaps is why the world never tires of its experiments in diverse directions and on every topic. Absolute perfection is unattainable—a fact which should make us careful not to boast too loudly of the times in which we live, nor to be too ready to disparage what preceding generations have done. IV THE LESSON OF THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE “_L’histoire est un recommencement perpétuel_,” a French writer has said. If the forms in which history manifests itself are infinitely various, the forces which inspire it are always the same, and are everywhere at work, on a large scale or on a small, openly or secretly. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the decadence of the Roman Empire is being repeated in our time in the modern world.