“The law is the same. In hot climates where boys and girls marry early the races are not strong, dominant. And in our own latitude the children of well-grown, well-trained men and women are stronger mentally and physically than those whose parents marry in their teens.”
Billy winced. “I should think that—that—well, when boys and girls are old enough to care for each other that would mean they were old enough to marry.”
“In the dawn of the race when men were no wiser than the plants, when they lived naturally, it did mean that. But as the race unfolds and we make artificial conditions, man sees more fully perhaps the meaning of God’s command to him to have dominion over every thing on the earth. Man’s growing wisdom is in charge over Nature to mould her material forms to higher, ever higher perfection.”
“Then why is it that kids do marry? Why do they want to before they ought?”
“Why do you wish to eat before you are really hungry? Why do you wish to run, leap, dance, be ever on the move, whether you have conscious need for motion or not? Why does a baby try to walk before its legs will bear it?”
Billy grinned. “You’re too deep for me, marms.”
“Because Nature is often blind. To preserve the race is her first business. She sacrifices the one to the welfare of the many. Man, exercising the power God gave him, sees that only as each one comes to his best, will he contribute to the race the best possible stock. Therefore our wisest thinkers say that all should wait till at least well in the twenties before marriage.”
Billy was thoughtful for a minute. “What of the fellow who likes a girl so well that he can’t keep—well, keep from thinking of her?” He knew very well that his mother cast a quick look at him, but he did not meet her eye, and she went quietly on with her employment of snipping and digging.
“That is a very deep question, one to which you should give much study. There are books prepared especially to answer such questions. For ages man has been developing unevenly. The truth is that men and women are nine-tenths alike; that is, human—eating, drinking, suffering, joying, loving each other and mankind alike, and dying alike. Only in about one-tenth of their natures are they different, this being the difference of sex.”
“Gee! That seems strange.”