Modern marriage is now on the rocks. If it has drifted into this perilous position it is, however, not because the question of its advantages and disadvantages has been properly ventilated and discussed, and the disadvantages corrected; but because it has been persistently and almost maliciously overlaid with false sentiment and bogus psychology, by these very romanticists and sentimentalists themselves. If, therefore, it is to be saved, as it should be saved, this end can be achieved only by a blank refusal to shut one’s eyes to its drawbacks, so that the latter may be rectified wherever possible; and by a full and earnest advocacy of its advantages, however unromantic and unsentimental these may appear to feverish modern sensationalists. Before proceeding to the review of the specific objections outlined above, the general criticism of modern monogamic marriage with which the chapter opened must first be dealt with. _Method of Meeting General Criticisms._ 1. Stress should be removed from the alleged permanence of love and the happiness of the marriage state, as far as possible, and laid on the utilitarian aspect of matrimony. 2. The young people should be taught realistically that since some sort of physical adaptation in sex is indispensable to the healthy adult, monogamic marriage was designed as a means of meeting that need. 3. Its difficulties should be emphasized, and a happy issue shown to be as difficult an accomplishment as the complexities of the contract would lead them to expect. They should be told that in their search for a mate they should show more concern about minimizing these difficulties than about desiring to have “a good time.” 4. The responsibilities of a family should be understood, and the wife regarded in her utilitarian aspect as a keeper of the home, as a mother, and as a guardian of the home comforts; marriage itself, as the sacred garden of the future of mankind, in which each party to the contract has the privilege of contributing to that future. 5. Differences of temperament and tradition between mates should be avoided. Since ill-health forbids our marrying into our own families (the ideal match), the young must not forget that in going beyond their families for a mate in order to contradict certain hereditary taints—such as gout, or consumption, or cancer, or any other constitutional vice—they need not therefore contradict the virtues and abilities that their particular family line has cultivated; for this leads to decline, and to the procreation of children who have no character and no ability. They should seek, as far as possible, their like in a strange family.[66] The policy of avoiding family taints in too near relations should not be extended into a policy of seeking opposites.