Præmarital

The absurdly low sentences against men convicted of assault, the utterly inadequate protection against seduction, the tolerance by society of a double standard of morals in the præmarital state, the advocacy, even by an eminent Judge, of an inequality between man and woman in the laws of divorce — these are the things which give the lie to Sir Almroth Wright’s complacent assumption that “under this covenant a full half of the programme of Christianity has been realized.”

If it is so, it is hard to understand why those people who allow præmarital freedom and do not enforce conjugal fidelity, should marry at all.