In deciding on marriage, however, care should before all be taken to determine that the girl has attained complete physical and especially complete sexual development. The age at which woman attains complete sexual maturity is in our climate and race coincident on the average with the twentieth year of life. For the hygiene of marriage it is necessary that the bride should not be extremely youthful. Notwithstanding the fact that the legal codes of civilized countries nowhere demand for girls a greater age than fifteen years before permitting marriage, this limit is, generally speaking, fixed far too low. Before becoming a wife, the girl should not merely have attained complete physical development, with her reproductive organs in a state of maturity, but she must also be developed intellectually to such an extent that she is fully capable of understanding the nature and significance of marriage. At the age at which marriage is legally permissible, a girl is still far from having attained physical and mental ripeness for marriage, reproduction, and maternity. Especially with reference to the last consideration is it inadvisable that in our climates a girl should marry earlier than from 18 to 20 years of age, and preferably even she should first attain the age of from 20 to 22. In that case her happiness as a mother will be more secure, and there will be a greater probability of her producing a healthy progeny. In the East, indeed, quite different views prevail. According to the laws of _Manus_, a girl might marry on attaining the age of eight years; if within three years thereafter her father failed to provide her with a husband, she might choose one for herself. Among the Hindus it is regarded as a disgrace to the parents if a girl does not marry quite young, indeed before the first appearance of menstruation. _Atri_ and _Kasypa_ state that if a girl begins to menstruate before she leaves her father’s house, the latter must be punished as if he had destroyed a fœtus, while the daughter herself loses caste. Marriage delayed till after the appearance of menstruation being regarded as sinful, girls are married while still children, in order to prevent the loss of mature ova, which is regarded as equivalent to infanticide. Very early marriage has thus in India been legally ordained for thousands of years. The Hindus, who even now regard every menstruation which has not been preceded by coitus in the light of infanticide, marry their daughters before the age of puberty.