LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—
As I stand committed, before the public, as the originator of a system of Matrimonial Selection and Creative Science, you have a right to demand of me that I shall present to you to-night a statement of something practical that will stand the test of your criticism. And I desire to say, in the outset, that in this lecture I shall endeavor to lift my subject above the plane in which it is ordinarily treated. I don’t believe I ever announced a lecture on Matrimony, that I did not detect the ripple of a smile on the face of my audience, as if they regarded the whole subject as a huge practical joke, something wonderfully funny, on no account to be considered seriously.
Marriage is in fact a serious and a scientific problem, the solution of which may well engage the attention of the most profound intellects, and may well engage yours, because in its proper solution is embodied the advancement of society, the happiness of its members—nay, more, the salvation of the race itself; and yet it is, of all questions, most neglected. Young ladies and gentlemen reach maturity and marry without the first rudiments of knowledge in regard to the importance of the relation; in most cases in absolute ignorance of all the great physiological facts pertaining to conjugal selection and improvement of offspring, with little or no knowledge of the characters of either themselves or their consorts. The result is, what might be expected, a fruitful harvest of misery, crime, pauperism, disease, and death. Occasionally circumstances produce a happy combination, and the result is a reasonably correct union in spite of ignorance; but such cases are so rare that they are like oases in the desert, and the subject of universal admiration and comment when they occur. The most casual observer notes, that unhappiness is the rule in the married state, and conjugal felicity the exception. A recent discussion of the question, “Is Marriage a Failure?” has brought out so many exhibitions of domestic misery that society is startled into a serious consideration of the question at last.
It is my purpose to show, in this lecture, that there is a sensible solution of this great problem. That whenever we bring to bear upon this question the same amount of scientific thought and reasoning common sense, that we display in all things pertaining to financial values, the results would be fully as satisfactory. I plead for Investigation; I ask for Knowledge; I beg for Candid Thought and Scientific Experimentation.