In order that the child may enjoy the full possibility of favourable conditions of life—in birth as well as in bringing-up—in northern Europe the age of the woman at marriage should be at least twenty, that of the man about twenty-five. This is the period of full maturity, and until this age is reached youth itself gains by complete abstinence, in order by its marriage at the proper age, in the words of Tacitus, to “let the children witness to their parents’ strength.” In the opinion of most younger men of science it is less and less probable that acquired qualities are inherited. Others, again, who have defended or still hold this view, have maintained with more or less force—as a condition of the progress of the race—that procreation should not take place until the activity and surroundings of the parents have acquired a definite character. Acute psychologists who have given attention to woman’s nature, consider that it does not attain its full spiritual maturity before about the age of thirty, while she then still possesses her youthfulness unimpaired; that until then her countenance does not acquire its true completeness of expression; that her individuality, intellectual powers, and passion are then for the first time fully awake; that only these properties can inspire deep love, and that thus woman gains everything by a later marriage, whereas the result of early marriages, where the husband has to “educate” his wife, is frequently, as a witty lady has remarked, that he is destined instead to educate a wife for someone else. Nor is it only narrow-viewed preachers of morality, but men of science with the broadest outlook in these matters, who declare ever more positively that abstinence until the age of maturity is in a high degree favourable to the physico-psychical strength and elasticity of both sexes, and that such favourable effect may sometimes extend beyond this age. To this direct gain must also be added the indirect one: that all self-control for a greater and gladdening end—and what end can be greater than this one?—gives to the will that force and to the personality that joy in its strength which will later be all-important in every other department of life. Such an advancement of the age of marriage will probably not be opposed by many women. Young girls have learned by the experience of others, and now there is scarcely to be found a woman married before the age of twenty who has not discovered that it was premature before she reaches twenty-five. Moreover it is seldom the woman’s desire that hurries on a secret union; for, in the absence of any admixture of Southern blood, it is a long time, many years indeed in some cases, before the senses of the Northern woman are consciously awakened.