It is certainly this fear which, when it does not lead to a comfortable, selfish, practical, bachelor’s life, prompts those marriages wherein one consults one’s lawyer rather than one’s heart, and thinks of income rather than of the advantages of beauty, physical and moral health, education, courage, ability and taste. Certain theories of the day, which on their critical side are not without justification, pretend to purify the sources of marriage by suppressing the consent of parents which is often too apt to overlook personal characteristics through consideration of the advantages to be gained, and by multiplying the facilities for union with the facilities for divorce; in a word, by associating marriage with those other unions which have no regard for the social order, into which they introduce anarchy. But marriage is the gateway of the family, the foundation of the home; its aim is to complete two lives by joining the one to the other and to bring other beings into the world. It cannot rely solely on that love which is commonly represented with bandaged eyes; for it is not purely an individual act, in that it both continues a tradition and perpetuates a race. Is it the importance of this race and this tradition which has to be considered, or is it only a petty ideal of practical happiness, comfortable and ignoble? Can man not feel himself fit to guide, guard, and direct the destinies of his own? Can woman not deprive herself of luxuries that are useless, or at least merely accessory? Would life, stripped of so many accessories and so many useless things, simplified but not diminished, become unacceptable? Must the place of moral force be taken by the heritage handed down by one’s father?