Sundays. Now, when you and I were young (I take it for granted that you
and I are approaching the fifties) young men did marry; even within this
restricted area, 'twas their wholesome way in life to form an attachment
early with some nice girl in their own set, and to start at least with
the idea of marrying her. Toward that goal they worked; for that end
they endured and sacrificed many things. True, even then, the long
engagement was the rule; but the long engagement itself meant some
persistent impulse, some strong impetus marriage-wards. The desire of
the man to make this woman his own, the longing to make this woman
happy--normal and healthy endowments of our race--had still much
driving-power. Nowadays, I seriously think I observe in most young men
of the middle class around me a distinct and disastrous weakening of the
impulse. They don't fall in love as frankly, as honestly, as
irretrievably as they used to do. They shilly-shally, they pick and
choose, they discuss, they criticise. They say themselves these futile
foolish things about the club, and the flat, and the cost of living.
They believe in Malthus. Fancy a young man who believes in Malthus! They
seem in no hurry at all to get married. But thirty or forty years ago,
young men used to rush by blind instinct into the toils of
matrimony--because they couldn't help themselves. Such Laodicean
luke-warmness betokens in the class which exhibits it a weakening of
impulse. That weakening of impulse is really the thing we have to
account for.

Young men of a certain type don't marry, because--they are less of young
men than formerly.

Wild animals in confinement seldom propagate their kind. Only a few
caged birds will continue their species. Whatever upsets the balance of
the organism, in an individual or a race tends first of all to affect