Marriage between two "unfit" persons can be defended on very many grounds so long as children are not born. It is, generally speaking, improbable that the unfit at their worst will either be drawn to each other or that they will wish to enter on any career which may tend to deprive them of what vitality they still possess. Most often such unions would be inevitably fruitless whatever vain attempts were made to make the dry bones live. Such unions would in nearly every instance simply mean that to prevent scandal a form of marriage is gone through and thereafter two weaklings give each other the comfort of communion; their common diet is suited to their needs, they live (as far as they can afford it) in an atmosphere adapted to their complaint. I do not envy the state of soul of their critics who would mar the placid satisfaction of mutual comfort which would solace their declining childless days. The union of the fit and the unfit is a calamity or a catastrophe in cases of knowledge, it is a crime where the victim is deceived into ignorance. The union of two unfit persons entered into in complete knowledge will be an infinitely smaller evil. To make marriage attractive we must very greatly increase the facilities for unmaking it, and we must lay down some general principles for its healthy continuance. The absolute right of a woman to her own person, and her prerogative to refuse to bear children, seem elementary conditions of civilised wedlock. Woman must be protected from outrage, be she wife or not. A married woman must have the same right over her own person and her own children that an unmarried woman has over hers. It is an unmistakable slight on marriage to compel a woman to relinquish any of the legal or social rights she would enjoy if unmarried. We cannot afford to throw these obstacles in the way of marriage, we want the best women to marry and not to abstain on account of the altogether unnecessary and unnatural disabilities which laws and men have made.