matters were left to these simple folk, there would never be any
changes at all; and society would perish like a snake that could
not cast its skins. Nevertheless the snake does change its skin in
spite of them; and there are signs that our marriage-law skin is
causing discomfort to thoughtful people and will presently be cast
whether the others are satisfied with it or not. The question
therefore arises: What is there in marriage that makes the
thoughtful people so uncomfortable?


A NEW ATTACK ON MARRIAGE

The answer to this question is an answer which everybody knows and
nobody likes to give. What is driving our ministers of religion
and statesmen to blurt it out at last is the plain fact that
marriage is now beginning to depopulate the country with such
alarming rapidity that we are forced to throw aside our modesty
like people who, awakened by an alarm of fire, rush into the
streets in their nightdresses or in no dresses at all. The
fictitious Free Lover, who was supposed to attack marriage
because it thwarted his inordinate affections and prevented him
from making life a carnival, has vanished and given place to the
very real, very strong, very austere avenger of outraged decency
who declares that the licentiousness of marriage, now that it no
longer recruits the race, is destroying it.

As usual, this change of front has not yet been noticed by our
newspaper controversialists and by the suburban season-ticket
holders whose minds the newspapers make. They still defend the
citadel on the side on which nobody is attacking it, and leave its