After marriage, we find again the fear of living in the dread of having children and the restraint of parenthood. To create life has become too heavy a responsibility, too irksome a burden, above all a nuisance; and it is thus that France has been called the land of only sons. By suppressing the choice of making a will the Civil Code has struck a heavy blow at the coherent unity of the family, grouped round its head and supported by its land. But we have lately been told by _La Réforme Sociale_ of the method employed by the Normandy peasants, after having already been employed by so many of the bourgeoisie for the preservation of the inheritance. For the heir nominated by the father, or according to custom, is substituted the only son. In the mountains of Savoy the traveller often notices on the slopes bordering the roads, and sometimes even in the hollows of hidden valleys, shrines dedicated to Our Lady of Deliverance. Young, wives in the hope of having children used to make pilgrimages to these shrines. To-day young wives thank God for a barrenness which in former days was a reproach. A child is such a rarity that it is watched over and spoilt. Thus the fear of living has its effect even on those destinies which depend, so far as their beginnings are concerned, upon us only. So many fathers and mothers cannot consent to be separated from their children, and turn them aside from careers that are wider but more adventurous, from marriages which would take them far away but which would be morally advantageous to them; they weaken them, enervate or wear out their courage instead of arousing it, and in their sentimental selfishness impose on them a servitude which lowers their characters. Of this fear of living, however, examples are to be found in our public life, in our social life, in the art which expresses the feeling of our times, in our institutions, even in matters of our health.