in the absence of women); but it had its value as giving the young
sociologists present, of whom I was one, an authentic notion of
what a picked audience of respectable men understood by married
life. It was certainly a staggering revelation. Peter the Great
would have been shocked; Byron would have been horrified; Don Juan
would have fled from the conference into a monastery. The
respectable men all regarded the marriage ceremony as a rite which
absolved them from the laws of health and temperance; inaugurated
a life-long honeymoon; and placed their pleasures on exactly the
same footing as their prayers. It seemed entirely proper and
natural to them that out of every twenty-four hours of their lives
they should pass eight shut up in one room with their wives alone,
and this, not birdlike, for the mating season, but all the year
round and every year. How they settled even such minor questions
as to which party should decide whether and how much the window
should be open and how many blankets should be on the bed, and at
what hour they should go to bed and get up so as to avoid
disturbing one another's sleep, seemed insoluble questions to me.
But the members of the conference did not seem to mind. They were
content to have the whole national housing problem treated on a
basis of one room for two people. That was the essence of marriage
for them.

Please remember, too, that there was nothing in their
circumstances to check intemperance. They were men of business:
that is, men for the most part engaged in routine work which
exercized neither their minds nor their bodies to the full pitch
of their capacities. Compared with statesmen, first-rate
professional men, artists, and even with laborers and artisans as
far as muscular exertion goes, they were underworked, and could