The way in which girls and young men are led to look forward to the married state as if it were a kind of fairy transformation, summed up in the formula “and they were happy ever afterwards,” vitiates the whole value of the contract; for while it lays all emphasis on the contentment that naturally comes with proper physical adaptation, it passes over the enormous difficulties which any such permanent contract between sensitive and intelligent beings must entail. (2) It is harmful, secondly, because by leading both young people to expect too much from marriage, it expedites the period of disillusionment, which is bound ultimately to supervene in the great majority of such unions. If the State solution of the sex problem, known as monogamic marriage, be really a good institution, then surely everything should be done to make it tolerable for as long as possible to those who are parties to it. Since disillusionment must come, it is obviously the duty of teachers and elders to endeavour to postpone it as long as possible. And the way to do this is certainly not by emphasizing the “happiness” of marriage to the exclusion of all thought about its enormous and almost insuperable difficulties. A salutary reform in this respect would consist in leading young people to accept the State’s solution of the sex problem in a more sober mood, with a more grave concern about the future, with a greater insight into the utility of marriage, and with less precipitancy than is shown at present. They would realize that while union was what they desired, legal marriage was the least unsatisfactory way for all concerned of meeting that desire for union; but that it was only a clumsy way of securing their sexual adaptation, and held no necessary promise of any greater happiness than they could expect from any other system of constraints. It might be objected that, in this case, young people would not marry. The reply to this objection is that they would if their desire for normal adult adaptation were strong enough, but that they would be likely to fulfil the contract all the more satisfactorily by realizing from the start its utility, its limitations, its very doubtful promise, and its artificial nature. (3) It is harmful, thirdly, because, by _confusing marriage with the pursuit of happiness_, grave considerations are likely to be overlooked. Let me give a concrete instance:—