half were either celibates or lived apart from their wives. Even
the married ones revealed the tendency plainly. For example,
consider Shakespeare. He was forced into marriage while still a
minor by the brothers of Ann Hathaway, who was several years his
senior, and had debauched him and gave out that she was enceinte
by him. He escaped from her abhorrent embraces as quickly as
possible, and thereafter kept as far away from her as he could. His
very distaste for marriage, indeed, was the cause of his residence in
London, and hence, in all probability, of the labours which made
him immortal.


In different parts of the world various expedients have been resorted
to to overcome this reluctance to marriage among the, better sort of
men. Christianity, in general, combats it on the ground that it is
offensive to God--though at the same, time leaning toward an
enforced celibacy among its own agents. The discrepancy is fatal to
the position. On the one hand, it is impossible to believe that the
same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards
celibacy as an actual sin, and on the other hand, it is obvious that the
average cleric would be damaged but little, and probably improved
appreciably, by having a wife to think for him, and to force him
to virtue and industry, and to aid him otherwise in his sordid
profession. Where religious superstitions have died out the
institution of the dot prevails--an idea borrowed by Christians from
the Jews. The dot is simply a bribe designed to overcome the
disinclination of the male. It involves a frank recognition of the fact
that he loses by marriage, and it seeks to make up for that loss by a
money payment. Its obvious effect is to give young women a wider
and better choice of husbands. A relatively superior man, otherwise