In thus summarily, perhaps even roughly, referring to the most important of all human relations, I shall, I doubt not, again shock certain sensitive minds. In these delicate matters, however, it is best to be frank and plain. At one time of his life or another, every man, selfish or generous-hearted as he may be, delicate or brutal his nature, looks forward to marriage: not as a spiritual blending of two souls in one merely, not as a self-sacrificing means of making some woman supremely happy, nor in fulfilment of a supposed duty to leave children behind him, the latter being very generally considered too old-fashioned doctrine for these days, but as the means of gratifying certain instinctive, and therefore natural, although so often condemned as carnal, bodily desires, and thereby, as many will not hesitate to acknowledge, was their own purpose in marrying, of keeping himself in the better physical health. I would not be thought to believe that such selfish motives, low ones they may very properly be called, actuate the majority of mankind. Many are governed by sordid considerations, others by platonic, and still others by very romance. Through almost every marriage, however, there runs this thread of instinct, more or less strongly marked, more or less distinctly recognized, at times indeed deliberately woven in, and according as one or the other of these conditions obtains, so is it generally that the after and relative life of the parties is decided. Let us grant, to save time, what I have already assumed, that it is natural for man to long for woman, and thus yearning, to seek her; and that, constituted as they both are, the one reciprocally for the other, not for the world’s purposes of population alone, but for imparting to and receiving from each other the most exquisite of physical sensations, it was intended by the Creator that, like every other function, those pertaining to this most intimate acquaintance should also occasionally be allowed gratification. The question now confronts us, How is this possible? How can men lead manly lives, fulfilling all the purposes for which they were constructed and for which they were born, and yet avoid infringing upon the rights or the happiness of others? To this question a variety of answers have been given. Of late years, many have advocated the so-called doctrine of Free-love, in accordance with which, by some alleged process of elective affinity, every positive would seek its negative, every male its female, and this whether or no each of the parties were already legally the property of some other person. Subversive as such views, if allowed, would prove of all domestic unions, and therefore of the peace of society, their interested advocates have found many proselytes. Many more still carry into constant practice what they would be ashamed, or would not dare openly to acknowledge.