All of which seems to me so very important--so inevitably important-- that I cannot but think it should be remembered when young men and women are deciding about their marriages. Have you noticed the lines on the face of that greatest of men--Abraham Lincoln? They were there in large measure because he married a woman who could not or would not share his real life. II PHYSICAL HARMONY It is beyond all question that in many cases where marriage is not turning out happily the real cause lies in some failure to achieve real and true adjustment of the sexual relationship which marriage involves. Here again there are no absolute rules. Miss Royden, for instance, has written a most notable chapter called "The Sin of the Bridegroom" in which with fine candor she points out how cruel it may be for a husband to suppose that on the first night of his marriage, and after a day of great fatigue, his wife will necessarily be emotionally attuned for her first experience of intimacy, and how fatal the results may be if he imposes himself upon her in an unresponsive hour. I am sure that every word in that chapter is true and important. I agree with the suggestion that every man should read it before he marries. But it is also true that many couples who did then experience intimacy can look back upon the first night of marriage as on a sacred occasion which they recall with wonder. Yes, there are no absolute rules. But there are unalterable facts. And the supremely important one here is that sexual intimacy is only a perfect experience when it is a mutual experience. I think the delusion is nearly dead that woman is a passionless creature, who will never actively desire her husband but who ought to be willing to receive him whenever he desires. Happy marriages can only be built upon the grave of that misconception. It was held to be a view honoring to women. As a matter of fact it led to a great deal of cruelty. No doubt women differ greatly, but in every woman who truly loves there lies dormant the capacity to become vibrantly alive in response to her lover, and to meet him as a willing and active participant in the sacrament of marriage. And till that dormant capacity has been stirred into life sexual intimacy may be actually repulsive, with the result that children may be born who are not in the full sense the product of creative love, and that the relations of husband and wife may remain difficult and unsatisfying to both. This is not what God ordained. There is an art of wooing which Nature teaches to many men, and would, I think, teach to all men if they were patient and willing to learn. It consists in a love-making that appeals to the mind, the heart, and ultimately the body, and through it alone can a woman be attuned for her natural part in marriage. It is her inalienable right thus to be wooed before sexual intimacy is asked for, and husbands who are too impatient to offer such wooing do her a real wrong.