Among the comparatively uncivilised mass of the people, where a good deal of familiarity between the sexes exists before marriage, and where indeed marriage not unfrequently follows on sex-connection, these special evils are not so prominent. But among the masses the crying need for some sensible and coherent teaching for the young is only too clear; and it is perhaps among the masses that the neglect of the law of transmutation works to more evil results than among the classes; since among the former--sex-intercourse being comparatively accessible, and obstacles to marriage (from monetary and other considerations) comparatively infrequent--the feeling is liable to flow far too much along the mere physical channels; and the romance and sweet comradeship of love, especially after marriage, comes too often to be replaced by an inert and indeed rather brutish sentiment of simple juxtaposition. So far with regard to difficulties arising from personal ignorance or inexperience in youth. But stretching beyond and around all these are those other difficulties which are due to the marked special relation of the woman to the man in civilised society generally, and of the man to the woman; and which arise from deep-lying historic and economic causes. Into the large subject of these causes it is not necessary to enter here. Suffice it to say that the difference in physical strength between the sexes, together with woman's disability during the period of child-birth and rearing, gave man from early times an advantage, which complicating itself during the historical period has ultimated (though not of course in the present day only) in what may be called the slavery of woman, her subordination to man, and dependence on him for the means of subsistence; the result being that, till a comparatively few years ago, the woman was condemned to the most special and indeed narrow sphere of life and action; her education, as for this sphere, was most limited, and quite different from that of the man; and her interests were wholly diverse from and often quite opposed to his. Under these circumstances there was naturally little common ground for Marriage, _except_ sex. And the same remains largely true even down to to-day. The sex-needs once satisfied, and the emotional charm weakened or undone, man and wife not unfrequently wake up with something like dismay to find how little they have left in common; to find that they have nothing in which they can take interest together; that they cannot work at the same things, that they cannot read the same books, that they cannot keep up half-an-hour's conversation together on any topic, and that secretly they are cherishing their own thoughts and projects quite apart from each other.