The answer to the above question varies with the circumstances under which it is asked. Viewing the subject, as I am doing, solely from a medical point of observation, it is unnecessary for me to give much attention to the other arguments, for and against, that would else have to be considered.
Political economists, almost without exception, have inveighed against an early entrance into wedlock. I could give much evidence upon this point, were it necessary. They base their reasonings upon several assumptions, which are almost purely such. In some ancient states, as Sparta, it was by law forbidden to men to marry under the age of thirty. “And in this,” says Acton, “as in many other matters, Lycurgus, the old lawgiver, showed his wisdom.”[27] In some modern states, also, a time has been fixed, as twenty-five years, until which men must remain celibate.
These restrictions have frequently been established for the purpose of keeping alive a martial spirit. When a people are permitted to follow the dictates of their own hearts, they are apt to anchor themselves at home, tied down by the innumerable cords of affection and pecuniary necessity or advantage. If this is prevented, the youth remains for a certain number of years at the service of the state, is taught that first of all lessons of life, obedience, without a knowledge of which no man can himself come to rule; he is supposed less likely to form a hasty or injudicious conjugal alliance, and from having been sent hither or thither across the world at the command of his superior, to be finally more anxious to settle permanently down as a private citizen.
Again, in most countries, whether young or old, there is a tendency, exaggerated, no doubt, in many instances, to become overstocked by the human race; and theorists and lawgivers vie with each other in their efforts to keep down the population. Not only is it thought that by preventing the young from marriage, a direct check is thus given, but that when that condition is entered at a more advanced time of life, the man has become sobered by age, and what is technically called “more prudent.”
Many suppose that the children of persons in the prime of life are more likely to be sound in body and in mind than the offspring of earlier years,—a result that does not necessarily occur,—while others, among whom Mr. Acton, more or less distinctly denying the benefit of marriage as a sanitary measure, add to the above arguments a still more untenable one, that perfect continence is the only wise and true measure of life. “Marriage,” he says, “is not the panacea of all earthly woes, or the sole correction of all early vices. It often interferes with work and success in life, and its only result is that the poor man (poor in a pecuniary point of view) never reaches the bodily health or social happiness he might otherwise have reasonably expected. Under the age of twenty-five I have no scruple in enjoining perfect continence. The sighing, lackadaisical boy should be bidden to work and win his wife before he can hope to taste any of the happiness or benefits of married life.”[28]
There is much that may be said in favor, and much in disproval, of these several views. The great uprising of our own people, both North and South, during the late civil conflict, the long and patient endurance they exhibited, and the innumerable feats of great personal valor that they performed, sufficiently prove that early marriages, which are common in this country, and a national devotion for many years to the arts of peace, do not necessarily deprive a race of its most vigorous manhood. In our own instance, the conflict over, and the best blood of the country spilled, we were yet ready, if need had been, to defend our rights against the world.
As for becoming overstocked, there is for us no danger of this for many long years to come. Our fertile prairies, and the long reaches of arable land lying between the mountain ranges of the far West, are destined to cradle untold millions; and if to these we add the parched but still irrigable plains of the extreme Southwest, we see that our country is still in its infancy. If older nations had but followed the example of the Irish, the English, and the modern Jews, all over-crowding would be more than met by emigration, the peaceful transfer of colonists meeting the exigencies of the case far better than the former eruptions of northern hordes, thinned by disease, famine, and the sword.
Is it said, that contrary to the doctrines of physiologists and to the precepts of Scripture, a purely ascetic life is the only normal one? Acton has adverted to the fact, as he calls it, “that the intellectual qualities are usually in an inverse ratio to the sexual appetites. It would almost seem,” he continues, “as if the two were incompatible; the exercise of the one annihilating the other.”[29] With Thales, he would reply to those who ask when men should love, “A young man, not yet—an old man, not at all;” and he styles Lord Bacon the still wiser Englishman, quoting from him the following passages: “You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one who hath been transported to the mad degree of love; which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. By how much more ought men to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself. He that hath preferred Helena hath quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas, for whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection quitteth both riches and wisdom. They do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men’s fortunes, and maketh men that they can be no ways true to their own ends.”
As a fair offset to these remarks, I shall give a brief extract from a letter to Mr. Acton from a Cambridge graduate, whose experience will be found not so very different from that of intellectual and sedentary men this side the water. “Looking from the academic side of the question, the celibacy of Fellows would seem very desirable (for thus only can they retain their fellowships and the annual stipend pertaining), but no one can deny that such a principle involves the sacrifice of individual comfort. Is this fair to the celibate? I think not. It has always seemed to me that a single man is in an unnatural position; a being created by the Almighty to increase and multiply a race made from the beginning male and female, will, of course, have his natural instincts in accordance with this design; and mortify or control them as he may, they are still there, and cannot become extinct. The sufferings of an abstinent life I believe to be cruel to every man between five and twenty and five and forty; and though athletic exercises, regular diet, and so forth, supply some slight relief, still it is never permanent; and in any event of reaction, the sufferer will find himself the worse for his previous regularity. Of course a sedentary life aggravates the symptoms, and I cannot believe that any man of ordinary vigor, so living and so abstaining, will be free from nocturnal annoyance. Still, this would be among the least of his distresses; nay, in nine cases out of ten, I presume the safety valve of nature is a most happy and beneficial relief; and though I cannot fly in the face of medical authority, and deny that there is a pernicious class of the disorder, still I firmly believe all those cases immensely exaggerated by the sufferers, and capable of an easy cure, to wit, matrimony, unless the patient, by degrading practices, has reduced himself to a state of impotence. Meanwhile a man should go into training for a conflict with his appetites just as keenly as he does for the University Eight, the only difference being that the training will be more beneficial and more protracted. Besides diet and exercise, let him be constantly employed; in fact, let him have so many metaphorical irons in the fire that he will find it difficult to snatch ten minutes for private meditation; let his sleep be very limited, and the temperature he moves in as nearly cold as he can bear; let neither his eye nor his ear be voluntarily open to anything that could possibly excite the passions; if he see or hear accidentally what might have this tendency, let him at once resort to his dumb-bells, or any other muscular precaution, till he is quite fatigued; whenever any sensual image occurs involuntarily to his mind, let him fly to the same resource, or else to the intellectual company of friends, till he feels secure of no return on the enemy’s part. Lastly, I would fain add, let the sufferer from sexual causes make his affliction the subject of most earnest prayer, at any and all times, to that Ear where no supplication is made in vain. Thus armed, he may keep his assailant at bay, though I fear conquest is impossible, and the struggle a most severe one. Sound old Jeremy Taylor, after discoursing on chastity in something like the above strain, says, if I remember right, ‘These remedies are for extraordinary cases, but the ordinary remedy is good and holy marriage.”
As I have said, the time at which marriage may be entered upon must vary in accordance with the circumstances of each case. Love is proverbially blind, and I shall be told that regard ought to be had to the actual and relative ages of the parties, their health, their pecuniary circumstances and prospects, the advice and wishes of friends. All this is very true, to a certain extent, but far more depends upon the mental and spiritual strength of the husband; if he is determined to conquer adverse circumstances, he can generally do so, just in proportion as he curbs and keeps under control himself. Let him look forward and determine to use and not abuse his marital privileges, to respect his wife, and not make of her a mere plaything that will early wear out, and a man will find the lions that seemed to stand in his path the veriest illusion. The points, however, that I have referred to are worthy a moment’s consideration.