intensity of its emotions. “It is no whim,” remarks that close student of minds, healthy and diseased, Dr. Isaac Ray, of Providence, “but a suggestion of sound physiology, that the nervous erethism, excited even by courtship, has a controlling influence over the female will.”[31] I should do wrong, moreover, did I not here allude to the dangers, so often proved to exist by their results, of undue waiting, to the moral as well as the physical health. When parties have plighted to each other their faith, they often consider themselves as already one, and demean themselves together too much as such,—forgetting for the time that thus they are almost sure to lose their mutual and self-respect,—they are more likely, for this very reason, to take offence at some unintended trifle, or to become wearied of each other and so to break their engagement, and that they run great risk, by a forced and hasty marriage, of giving its tongue to scandal, and confessing each other’s shame. The length of a betrothal, just as the time of its inception, is too often dependent upon circumstances of a trivial character. Where these endanger the happiness of the man alone, he himself should judge as to the propriety of allowing them undue weight. He has no right, however, as so often occurs, to drag or to coax a young girl to the altar, who is as yet but half matured, or to condemn her to remain for years half-mated, through his selfish fears that unless thus pledged she would elude his grasp. As I have said, too early bloom is apt to presage too early decay; and even with the best of care our American dames at fifty are prone to pass into the condition called old, even while their husbands, more advanced in years, are still in the very prime of life. A word to the wise should surely be sufficient. Let us hope that Lord Bacon erred in declaring love wholly inconsistent with wisdom, and now consider,— FOOTNOTES: [27] Loc. cit., p. 76. [28] Loc. cit., p. 76. [29] Loc. cit., p. 73. [30] Loc. cit., p. 77. [31] American Journal of Insanity, October, 1866, p. 267. IV.—THE RIGHTS OF THE HUSBAND. Most men would claim these to be absolute. In view of such claim, which is constantly in practice enforced, married women are expected to quietly yield themselves, often most unwilling victims. Have I any ground for this last assertion? I have. Is it gained from observation or from confession? It is gained from both. Is it a conclusion hastily founded? On the contrary, it is the result of the daily study and direct questionings of fifteen long years. But it is evident that there are two very distinct sides to this important inquiry; and it is requisite that they should both be fairly presented before the balance can be struck between them. Are these rights absolute, or are they the rather reciprocal with duties? Should mere instinct, or reason, be the rule?