In consequence, a man must either co-habit with his wife once in two
years, or else there will be some default in the marriage.

What is he to do? What is the moral course? Remember that three factors
have combined to impose the marriage. One, the most far-reaching today,
is economic; another, which is also extremely important, is social, and
the third, now rapidly losing its hold, but still not without influence,
is religious. The three forces together attempt to mould nature to their
will.

Economic pressure and the high cost of living make against the having of
children. They encourage default.

"How are we to have all these children?" the married couple asks. "How
can we feed and educate them?"

Social pressure also tends in the same direction. Religious morality,
however, still persists in its idea of sin, although the potency of this
sanction is daily becoming less, even to the clerical eye.

If nature had a vote, it would surely be cast in favour of polygamy. Man
is forever sexual, and in equal degree, until the verge of decrepitude.
Woman passes through the stages of fecundation, pregnancy, and
lactation.

There can be no doubt but that the most convenient, the most logical and
the most moral system of sexual intercourse, naturally, is polygamy.

But the economic subdues the natural. Who proposes to have five wives