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And starting marriage untaught has its hazards as we have seen. While the sessions are long enough and continuous enough—the trouble is that the tutors do not know the subject which they are undertaking to teach. The mistakes have been many and serious, and it is not difficult to under stand the ill results that so often follow.

Married life, from every angle, is a process of adjustment, coöperation and mutual consideration. The sexual relations, signifying a physical, emotional and spiritual communion in the consummation of love, are the key-stone of the matrimonial arch. It stands or falls on the success or failure of these relations.

The Bridal Night. In the preceding chapter, I have spoken of the rôle of the man as the wooer in the preliminaries to the sex act. There are other important problems involved, including the procedure in the initial act of copulation, usually the desirability of controlling conception, and other questions upon which enlightenment is required.

The sexual initiation, or the bridal night, is often the most important event in the whole life of the bride. Upon the result of this experience depends in a large measure her whole physical and mental reaction to future sex relations, either for a long time to come, or even permanently. It is necessary to generalize in discussing this subject, or any normal phase of the sex question. This is somewhat unsatisfactory, as there are many types of women, representing widely different degrees of sexual sensitiveness, vitality, curiosity and enlightenment.

Women who have been informed upon the subject and have had their curiosity aroused so that they are prepared, and perhaps anxious to participate in the consummation of the marriage, offer no problem in this instance. By their