3.  THE “BRIDAL TOUR” is considered by many newly married couples as a necessary introduction to a life of connubial joy.  There is, in our opinion, nothing in the custom to recommend it.  After the excitement and overwork before and accompanying a wedding, the period immediately following should be one of rest.

Again, the money expended on the ceremony and a tour of the principal cities, etc., might, in most cases, be applied to a multitude of after-life comforts of far more lasting value and importance.  To be sure, it is not pleasant for the bride, should she remain at home, to pass through the ordeal of criticism and vulgar comments of acquaintances and friends, and hence, to escape this, the young couple feel like getting away for a time.  Undoubtedly the best plan for the great majority, after this most eventful ceremony, is to enter their future home at once, and there to remain in comparative privacy until the novelty of the situation is worn off.

4.  IF THE CONVENTIONAL TOUR is taken, the husband should remember that his bride cannot stand the same amount of tramping around and sight-seeing that he can.  The female organs of generation are so easily affected by excessive exercise of the limbs which support them, that at this critical period it would be a foolish and cosily experience to drag a lady hurriedly around the country on an extensive and protracted round of sight-seeing or visiting.  Unless good common-sense is displayed in the manner of spending the “honey-moon,” it will prove very untrue to its name.  In many cases it lays the foundation for the wife’s first and life-long “backache.”

[Illustration:  THE GYPSY BRIDE.]

* * * * *

ADVICE TO NEWLY MARRIED COUPLES.

1.  “BE YE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY” is a Bible commandment which the children of men habitually obey.  However they may disagree on other subjects, all are in accord on this; the barbarous, the civilized, the high, the low, the fierce, the gentle—­all unite in the desire which finds its accomplishment in the reproduction of their kind.  Who shall quarrel with the Divinely implanted instinct, or declare it to be vulgar or unmentionable?  It is during the period of the honeymoon that the intensity of this desire, coupled with the greatest curiosity, is at its height, and the unbridled license often given the passions at this time is attended with the most dangerous consequences.

2.  CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGE.—­The first time that the husband and wife cohabit together after the ceremony has been performed is called the consummation of marriage.  Many grave errors have been committed by people in this, when one or both of the contracting parties were not physically or sexually in a condition to carry out the marriage relation.  A marriage, however, is complete without this in the eyes of the law, as it is a maxim taken from the Roman civil statutes that consent, not cohabitation, is the binding element in the ceremony.  Yet, in most States of the U.S., and in some other countries, marriage is legally declared void and of no effect where it is not possible to consummate the marriage relation.  A divorce may be obtained provided the injured party begins the suit.