The theory of the bed presents questions much more important than
those put forth by our neighbors with regard to castors and the
murmurs of criminal conversation.

We know only three ways in which a bed (in the general sense of this
term) may be arranged among civilized nations, and particularly among
the privileged classes to whom this book is addressed. These three
ways are as follows:


1. TWIN BEDS.
2. SEPARATE ROOMS.
3. ONE BED FOR BOTH.


Before applying ourselves to the examination of these three methods of
living together, which must necessarily have different influences upon
the happiness of husbands and wives, we must take a rapid survey of
the practical object served by the bed and the part it plays in the
political economy of human existence.

The most incontrovertible principle which can be laid down in this
matter is, _that the bed was made to sleep upon_.

It would be easy to prove that the practice of sleeping together was
established between married people but recently, in comparison with
the antiquity of marriage.

By what reasonings has man arrived at that point in which he brought
in vogue a practice so fatal to happiness, to health, even to