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Marriage.First- It should be remembered that marriage implies as its natural result the production of offspring; and that a due regard for the welfare of such possible and probable offspring should be taken into consideration as a by no means unimportant element. It is, therefore, evident that marriage can be complete only when the parties to the contract are physically competent to fulfill the sexual relation, and, more than that, when the woman is capable of maternity. Now, while the girl is frequently capable, even in the earlier years of puberty, of becoming a mother, yet it is a fact patent even to the unprofessional mind, and well established by medical observation, that the girl is physically unfit for maternity, and that the disastrous results of premature motherhood are often visited, not alone on the youthful mother as physical injuries, but are also apparent in the puny bodies and limited intellect of her offspring. The girl, in other words, is not made a woman by her first menstruation, for in the years to follow there must occur not only the development of her sexual organs, but also the increase in size and change of form of her whole frame, particularly the part included between her hips - the pelvis-whereby the germ of a new life may be fitly and fully developed within her body, and at the proper time permitted to pass through the pelvis to the outer world. For the too youthful wife marriage often proves a pain, not a pleasure ; a grief, and not a joy. The imperfectly developed womb and ovaries, which might well have attained perfection if permitted to remain unmolested, unable to meet the demands of matrimony, are goaded into a state of irritation and disease. Her nervous system is often thereby enfeebled and she is prone to general prostration, as well as to those diseases peculiar to women. If she become a mother, she experiences more risk of injury during and subsequent to her confinement; and when called upon to nourish her infant as well as her own still growing body, it is not surprising that she often breaks down entirely. It has been found that in our latitude and climate women usually continue to grow and develop up to the age of 20 years ; though there are, of course, numerous exceptions in which maturity occurs earlier as well as later than this period, On the other hand, there are certain physical disadvantages accompanying over-maturity in the bride ; for it is a well-established fact that women who experience the first confinement at an age exceeding 28 or 30 years furnish a larger mortality from child-birth than those who become mothers between 20 and 30 years of age. From the physical standpoint alone, therefore, matrimony seems most advisable as a rule between 20 and 25 years - an age too, previous to which the mental development is not usually such as to demand marriage. In the choice of a husband no adviser can influence the dictates of a woman's heart ; and it is not our purpose either to usurp the duty of the parents in suggesting ordinary discretion and previous acquaintance with the mental and moral, as well as the physical, characteristics of the suitor ; nor to pad our pages with romantic, sentimental, and utterly absurd advice, so interesting to imaginative young ladies, as to just how tall and heavy and graceful and manly he should be ; as to what should be the color of his eyes, etc. It should be, however, remarked that certain physical characteristics ought, in the interest of the girl herself, to constitute insuperable obstacles to matrimony : It cannot be too emphatically insisted upon, that a man and a woman presenting the same hereditary taints, suffering from the same constitutional disease, or tendency to disease, should not, as they value their own happiness and that of their possible cnildren, marry. In our land this is particularly true in regard to consumption and insanity. Were our laws made with the same rigid regard for physical health as prevailed in ancient times, we would doubtless forbid marriage to all suffering or likely to suffer from consumption ; and while we are in these days more humane ; while we take into consideration, in the estimation of conjugal happiness, the mental and moral as well as the physical welfare of the participants, yet we must remember that consumption is an eminently hereditary disease, and that the child's chances of becoming a victim to it are greater if both parents be born of tainted stock than if one at least be healthy. The same remark may be applied to insanity, epilepsy and other diseases of the nervous system ; for we may be sure that while children may escape if the tainted be mixed with healthy blood, yet the most aggravated and numerous cases of obstinate nervous diseases are found in families where both parents exhibit a tendency to the disease. In this general fact, too, we have a solution of that much-discussed question, whether relatives, particularly cousins, should be allowed to marry. With reference to this, we may say that the simple fact of relationship - when not nearer than that indicated - constitutes no physical impediment to marriage, yet there usually exists in these cases a physical objection ; for the physical imper fection, if any exist-hereditary taints and tendencies to disease - will probably be found in both members of the family, and these defects and taints would in all probability be condensed and aggravated in their children ; and while we may say that there is no physical objection to the intermarriage of cousins as such, provided both be healthy, yet there will usually be found upon closer scrutiny a family tendency, the aggravation of which by intermarriage, would be disastrous to happiness. It need scarcely be remarked that close and repeated intermarriage among relatives is, from the physical point of view, undesirable. It is a law, true of man as of other animals, that the most vigorous qualities of a given stock are best maintained by a certain admixture of foreign blood ; and it is a fact of observation, that marriages between Americans - those whose ancestors have lived in this country for several generations - are less productive in at least the number of the children than marriages between a native American and a European ; though it must be admitted that since the size of the family is influenced by many other circumstances than the simple fertility of the parents, we are not justified in drawing the same conclusion from the fact just stated as might follow such observation upon animals. It is specially interesting in this connection to note the peculiarity of the Jews : they, as is well known, marry, as a rule, only members of the same race, and yet are remarkable for both physical and mental vigor of their numerous progeny. The peculiar traits, mental and physical, we may indeed say moral, are retained and perpetuated by intermarriage, and yet a sufficient latitude of choice is allowed to secure a proper admixture of stock. It must, however, be remembered that the religious tenets of Israel provide not only for the health of the soul, but contain also admirable regulations for the health of the body ; to which perhaps their fertility and general health are to be in part attributed. In selecting the time for marriage, certain physical facts should not be lost sight of amid social considerations. The health of the wife and of her possible offspring is furthered by consummation of the marriage rite in the spring or in the fall ; for entrance upon this new life is beset with physical and mental trials, which are certainly all the more trying amid the heat of summer or the cool of winter. One important consideration gives spring an advantage over autumn: that if a child be born within a year its chances will be far better for surviving the trying period of teething, since the most critical part of this process will then occur in cool weather, and not in the heat of summer. The wedding should occur about the middle of the interval between two menstrual periods. Although custom ordains that the newly-married pair shall start at once upon a wedding tour, yet it is generally understood that this tour need not be extended a greater distance than suffices to remove them from the immediate and critical observation of their friends ; indeed, it is a hopeful sign to observe that the wedding tour is no longer so imperatively required by society as formerly. From the physical point of view, certainly nothing could be more objectionable than a long journey immediately subsequent to the marriage ceremony. When, in addition to the annoyances inseparable from traveling, the bride is subjected to the trials incident to initiation into her new life, it becomes apparent that the girl is, during the ordinary bridal trip, subjected to a severe and in large part unnecessary physical strain, and that, too, at a time most critical and important for the security of her future happiness, as well as that of her husband. They are, it is true, withdrawn to a certain extent from the rude realities of life into an atmosphere of affection and sentiment; yet it must be remembered that this affection and sentiment, however sincere and hearty, has a physical basis - a foundation which would be much better and more securely laid if both, especially the bride, were relieved from all unnecessary fatigue and annoyance, for at this time she has supreme need of physical perfection and at the same time of the greatest tact and discretion ; sometimes, too, she must be prepared for disappointment, for probably every man, however sensible and rational in other matters, is positively silly during the courtship and engagement; invests his fiancee with perfections of body and mind which are actually never clothed in mortal shape ; in fact he marries an ideal creature of his own imagination, and during the first week of married life must learn to substitute the actual for the ideal. Hence it often happens that a certain revulsion of feeling is felt by many men, who nevertheless have sincere affection for their wives - a revulsion of feeling for which the bride is not responsible, and yet which she must anticipate and be prepared to meet. There can be little doubt, though it is a matter of course which scarcely permits of actual demonstration, that the seeds of much unnecessary discord and unhappiness are sown during the honeymoon by ignorance and lack of tact. It is therefore extremely desirable that all useless troubles and fatigues, such as those attendant upon traveling, be postponed until the wedded life be fairly begun. And it is hardly necessary to add that it is desirable to avoid the inquisitive eyes of friends and acquaintances, while on the other hand it is just as undesirable to forget and forsake the world entirely during this time ; the boy who eats jam without bread will surely have dyspepsia. 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