_Geschwister_ is needed to embrace the "young creatures" who, in
petticoats or trousers, form the genuine democracy of American youth.
Up to the doors of college, and often even beyond them, the boy and
girl have been "co-educated;" at the high school the boy has probably
had a woman for his teacher, at least in some branches, up to his
sixteenth or seventeenth year. The hours of recreation are often spent
in pastimes in which girls may share. In some of the most
characteristic of American amusements, such as the "coasting" of
winter, girls take a prominent place. There is no effort on the part
of elders to play the spy on the meetings of boy or girl, or to place
obstacles in their way. They are not thought of as opposite sexes; it
is "just all the young people together." The result is a spirit of
absolute good comradeship. There is little atmosphere of the unknown
or the mysterious about the opposite sex. The love that leads to
marriage is thus apt to be the product of a wider experience, and to
be based on a more intimate knowledge. The sentimental may cry fie on
so clear-sighted a Cupid, but the sensible cannot but rejoice over
anything that tends to the undoing of the phrase "lottery of
marriage."

That the ideal attitude towards and in marriage has been attained in
average American society I should be the last to assert. The way in
which American wives leave their husbands toiling in the sweltering
city while they themselves fleet the time in Europe would alone give
me pause. But I am here concerned with the relative and not the
absolute; and my contention is that the average marriage in America is
apt to be made under conditions which, compared with those of other
nations, increase the chances of happiness. A great deal has been said
and written about the inconsistency of the marriage laws of the
different States, and much cheap wit has been fired off at the fatal