Political economists, almost without exception, have inveighed against an early entrance into wedlock. I could give much evidence upon this point, were it necessary. They base their reasonings upon several assumptions, which are almost purely such. In some ancient states, as Sparta, it was by law forbidden to men to marry under the age of thirty. “And in this,” says Acton, “as in many other matters, Lycurgus, the old lawgiver, showed his wisdom.”[27] In some modern states, also, a time has been fixed, as twenty-five years, until which men must remain celibate. These restrictions have frequently been established for the purpose of keeping alive a martial spirit. When a people are permitted to follow the dictates of their own hearts, they are apt to anchor themselves at home, tied down by the innumerable cords of affection and pecuniary necessity or advantage. If this is prevented, the youth remains for a certain number of years at the service of the state, is taught that first of all lessons of life, obedience, without a knowledge of which no man can himself come to rule; he is supposed less likely to form a hasty or injudicious conjugal alliance, and from having been sent hither or thither across the world at the command of his superior, to be finally more anxious to settle permanently down as a private citizen. Again, in most countries, whether young or old, there is a tendency, exaggerated, no doubt, in many instances, to become overstocked by the human race; and theorists and lawgivers vie with each other in their efforts to keep down the population. Not only is it thought that by preventing the young from marriage, a direct check is thus given, but that when that condition is entered at a more advanced time of life, the man has become sobered by age, and what is technically called “more prudent.” Many suppose that the children of persons in the prime of life are more likely to be sound in body and in mind than the offspring of earlier years,—a result that does not necessarily occur,—while others, among whom Mr. Acton, more or less distinctly denying the benefit of marriage as a sanitary measure, add to the above arguments a still more untenable one, that perfect continence is the only wise and true measure of life. “Marriage,” he says, “is not the panacea of all earthly woes, or the sole correction of all early vices. It often interferes with work and success in life, and its only result is that the poor man (poor in a pecuniary point of view) never reaches the bodily health or social happiness he might otherwise have reasonably expected. Under the age of twenty-five I have no scruple in enjoining perfect continence. The sighing, lackadaisical boy should be bidden to work and win his wife before he can hope to taste any of the happiness or benefits of married life.”[28]