“It is in the very nature of Love that as it realizes its own aim it should rivet always more and more towards a durable and distinct relationship, nor rest till the permanent mate and equal is found. As human beings progress, their relations to each other must become much =more= definite and distinct, instead of less so--and there is no likelihood of society in its onward march lapsing backwards, so to speak, to formlessness again.” Above all, Carpenter has introduced into the discussion of free love an element which to me appears of great importance from the medical standpoint: the question of relative asceticism, of =self-control=. He rightly considers that the duty of the love of the future does not subsist merely in the common physical union, but also in =spiritual procreation=. From the intimate spiritual contact between two differentiated personalities, the highest spiritual values proceed. Only self-control leads us to this highest love. “It is a matter of common experience that the unrestrained outlet of merely physical desire leaves the nature drained of its higher love-forces.... Any one who has once realized how glorious a thing Love is in its essence, and how indestructible, will hardly need to call anything that leads to it a sacrifice” (_op. cit._, pp. 7, 8). The indispensable prerequisites to the reform of love and marriage are, according to Carpenter, the following (_op. cit._, p. 100): (1) The furtherance of the freedom and self-dependence of women. (2) The provision of some rational teaching, of heart and of head, for both sexes during the period of youth. (3) The recognition in marriage itself of a freer, more companionable, and less pettily exclusive relationship. (4) The abrogation or modification of the present odious law which binds people together for =life=, without scruple, and in the most artificial and ill-assorted unions. Carpenter accepts Letourneau’s view, that, in a more or less distant future, the institution of marriage will undergo transformation into monogamic unions, freely entered on, and when necessary freely dissolved, by simple mutual consent, as is already done in several European countries--in Canton Geneva, in Belgium, in Roumania, as regards divorce; and in Italy as regards separation. State and society should take part in the matter only so far as the safety of the children demands, concerning whom =more extensive duties= should be expected from the parents. Carpenter also points out, as was shown seventy years ago by Gutzkow, that, as regards the development of the children, it is better, in unhappy marriages, that their parents should separate than that the children should grow up amid the miseries of such marriages.