In my volume introductory to Eugenics I have dealt at length with marriage from that point of view. Here our concern is with the individual woman, and though neither in theory nor in practice can we entirely dissociate the question of the future from that of the individual's needs, it is necessary here to discuss the present conditions of marriage in the civilized world, from the woman's point of view. We have to ask ourselves how these conditions act in selecting women from the ranks of the unmarried; whether the transition proceeds from random chance, or whether there is a selection in certain definite directions, and if so, what directions? We have to ask whether different women would pass into the ranks of the married if the conditions of marriage were other than they are; and we shall assuredly arrive at the principle that whatever changes are necessary in the conditions of marriage, so that the best women shall become the mothers of the future, must be and will be effected. One has elsewhere argued at length that monogamy is the marriage form which has prevailed and will be maintained because of its superior survival-value--in other words, because it best serves the interests of the future. But what of the individual in a country where there are thirteen hundred thousand adult women in excess of men, which is the case of Great Britain? Plainly, there is need for very serious criticism of such an institution in such circumstances. Let the reader briefly be reminded, then, that, as I have previously argued, Nature makes no arrangement for such a disproportion between the sexes. More boys than girls are indeed born, but from our infantile mortality, which is largely a male infanticide, onwards, morbid influences are at work which result in the disproportion already named. Two excellent reasons may be adduced why any disproportion in the numbers of the sexes should be the opposite of that which now obtains. The ideal condition, no doubt, is that of numerical equality. Failing that, the evils of a male preponderance, though very real, are comparatively small. For one thing, celibacy affects a woman more than a man: men, on the whole, suffer less from being unmarried. It is a more serious deprivation for the woman than for the man, in general, to be debarred from parenthood. This is a proposition which we need not labour here, for no reader will dispute its importance and its relevance.