The modern marriage differs from the marriage of earlier centuries in direct proportion as the status of woman has changed.  The ancient marriage, and indeed the medieval one, and the marriage of our own grandmother’s time began with submission and usually ended with subjection.  But the modern marriage at its best is a spiritual and material partnership.  It is the modern marriage at its best and otherwise with which we have to do.

Half a century ago girls married at eighteen or even earlier, took charge of their households, were mothers of good-sized families at twenty-eight or thirty, and were frequently grandmothers at forty.

Nowadays early marriage is the exception.  For years the marriage age has been steadily rising, until some students profess to be alarmed at a prospect of marriage disappearing, the maternal instinct becoming lost by disuse, and the race finally becoming extinct.  However, the maximum marriage age, at least for the present, seems to have been reached, and statistics show a slight dropping within the last two or three years.

The forces operating to fix the marriage age are exceedingly complex.  The higher education of girls has undoubtedly been a large factor in the postponement of marriage.  Its effect has been wrought in a variety of ways.  The increasing years in schoolroom and lecture hall have been directly responsible in many cases.  The ambitions aroused account for many more.  The increased ability of girls to earn their own living and public acceptance of their doing so have practically removed “marriage as a trade” from the consideration of girls and their parents.  Girls no longer need to marry in order to transfer the burden of their support from father to husband.  Instead they may “go to work.”  And once at work they are often reluctant to give up a personal income for the uncertainties of sharing what a husband earns.  Then, too, the broadening effect of education makes marriage in the abstract a less absorbing, momentous subject for the girl’s thoughts.  Also the rebound toward selfishness coincident with woman’s “emancipation” leads girls to put off what they are sometimes led to consider a sacrifice of themselves.  The tragedies of the divorce courts are directly responsible for many a girlish determination not to marry, a determination which is broken only when the first zest of mature life has passed and when the woman begins to long for the home ties she has resolved to deny herself and decides to take the risk.  The increased cost of living and the ever-increasing responsibilities of rearing, educating, and launching a family of children lead many young people to postpone marriage until they can command a larger income.  The strain of modern industrial life, with its fierce competitions and its early discard of the elderly and unfit, finds many girls who would otherwise marry burdened with the care of parents who can ill spare the daughter’s help.

[Illustration:  The Halliday Historic Photograph Co.  LOUISA M. ALCOTT Miss Alcott’s lifelong devotion to the interests of her family is a well-known story.  She made a happy home for them, and at the same time attained marked success in the literary field.]