CONTENTS.

CHAPTERPAGE
[Prologue: Between Scylla and Charybdis—To Take or Not to Take a Wife?]vii
I.[Marriage in Modern Society,]1
II.[Sexual Choice in Marriage—The Art of Choosing Well,]36
III.[Age and Health,]55
IV.[Physical Sympathy—Race and Nationality,]95
V.[The Harmony of Feelings,]125
VI.[Harmony of Thoughts,]154
VII.[The Financial Question in Marriage,]171
VIII.[The Incidents and Accidents of Marriage,]192
IX.[Hell,]224
X.[ Purgatory,]251
XI.[ Paradise,]283

PROLOGUE.

BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.—TO TAKE, OR NOT TO TAKE A WIFE?

For the majority of men, and for at least thirty years of their lives, love is the strongest necessity, and governs them like a tyrant with no other curb than the wretched brake of written codes, which they do not read, and of social conventionalities, which they can easily silence by employing hypocrisy’s mask; an hypocrisy, let it be well understood, well dressed, well curled, and well educated.

How can one satisfy this greatest of all human needs?