The earlier a marriage can be consummated, the less is the danger of freshness being lost in this way; the greater the prospect that man and wife will grow close together, just as do the man and wife of the people, through the difficulty of the common struggle for existence. But if this struggle becomes easier before youth has entirely passed, then there enters often into the life of the man a crisis which the practised French call “La maladie de quarante ans”: the need of the man for a new erotic experience. While those on a lower erotic plane, to-day as at all times, seek this in transient secret alliances, it leads those on a higher level in our time to the most tragic of all separations, where the man—after decades of the most intimate life together, of the most faithful work together, of mutual understanding—drives the wife out of the home in order to bring in a young wife who has never been to him, perhaps never can be to him, a fellow fighter and helper, as the repudiated wife was, but who has for him the charm of the mystery which the maiden had for the man before the days of coëducation, sexual discussions, comradeship, and dress-reform! Women students now escape the earlier danger of the daughter of the family, falling in love out of lack of occupation. They have not the time, often also not the means to permit themselves erotic dreams. There are among them many poor girls who dare lose no single semester, for they must hasten to earn their livelihood. Moreover, such a girl knows that if she should yield to the need for tenderness, for support, that is so strong in her, the same fate could happen to her as to this or that fellow student who after a short happiness was left alone when the lover found a good match. And she was left behind not only in her sorrow but also in her work. And the more a yearning girl buries herself in her studies, the more science or art unlock their riches to her, the happier, more full of life she feels herself in spite of loneliness, scanty means, and shabby dress. Among women students there are also many of the cerebral type, mentioned above, women who need tenderness neither in the form of friendship nor of love; yes, who fear in both a bond for their “free individuality.” These take part in sports, discuss, jest, with their fellow men students, openhearted and unconcerned, without thinking whether they please or not. All these young girls now go about with perfect freedom; even in the Romance countries, a young woman can now go alone with her bag of books or her racquet. For in circles where study has not yet exercised its freeing influence, sport has brought this about.