There are some who, in seeking liberation from the ignominious conditions of our present amatory life, are wishing to rid marriage from all legal bonds, and are pointing to Free-love as the way of escape. To me this seems a very great mistake. I admit the splendid imaginative appeal in the idea of Love's freedom as it is put forward, for instance, by the great Swedish feminist, Ellen Key; I am unable to accept it as practical morality. This, I believe, should be the only sound basis for reform. The real question is not what people _ought to do_, but what they _actually do_ and are likely _to go on doing_. It is these facts that the idealist fails to face. Love is a very mixed game indeed. And all that the wisest reformer has ever been able to do is to make bad guesses at the solution of its problems. The fundamental principle of the new ideal morality is that love and marriage must always coincide, and, therefore, when love ceases the bond should be broken. This in theory is, of course, right. I doubt if it is, or ever will be, possible in practice. Experience has forced the knowledge that the most passionate love is often the most likely to end in disaster. Nor do I think that the evil is much lessened when no legal bond is entered into. Those few people who have made a success of Free-love would probably have made an equal success of marriage. I know personally several cases in which the same woman, and many in which the same man, has tried in succession legal marriage and free unions and has been equally unhappy in both.