It may be said--and often of course is said--that such cases as these only prove that marriage was entered into under the influence of a passing glamor and delusion, and that there was not much real devotion to begin with. And no doubt there is truth enough in such remarks. But--we may say in reply--because two young people make a mistake in youth, to condemn them, for that reason, to lifelong suffering and mutual degradation, or to see them so condemned, without proposing any hope or way of deliverance, but with the one word "serves you right" on the lips, is a course which can commend itself only to the grimmest and dullest Calvinist. Whatever safe-guards against a too frivolous view of the relationship may be proposed by the good sense of society in the future, it is certain that the time has gone past when Marriage can continue to be regarded as a supernatural institution to whose maintenance human bodies and souls must be indiscriminately sacrificed; a humaner, wiser, and less panic-stricken treatment of the subject must set in; and if there are difficulties in the way they must be met by patient and calm consideration of human welfare--superior to any law, however ancient and respectable. I take it then that, without disguising the fact that the question is a complex one, and that our conclusions may be only very tentative, we have to consider as rationally as we conveniently can, first, some of the drawbacks or defects of the present marriage-customs, and secondly such improvements in these as may suggest themselves to us, and as may seem feasible. And if we turn to the question of how things stand in the present day, one of the first points to strike us--and one that we have already touched on in another paper*--is the serious want of any special teaching to young folk on matters of love and sex, and the responsibility resting on parents and teachers to supply this want. That one ought to distinguish a passing sex-spell from a true comradeship and devotion is no doubt a wise remark, but that it is often difficult, even for adults, to do so makes it all the more necessary that young people should have some rational ideas on the subject, and above all that they should get some understanding of the nature of that true love which alone can make marriage a success. The search for a fitting mate, especially among the more sensitive and highly-organised types of mankind, is a most complex affair. And it is indeed hard that the young man or woman should have to set out--as they mostly have to do to-day--on this difficult quest without a word of suggestion or help, as to the choice of the way or the very real perplexites and doubts that beset it. *Sex-Love, and its place in a Free Society. Labour Press, Manchester.