Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/145

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A TALE OF THE FUTURE.
141

very rare exceptions. Now we live to an average of one hundred and fifty years, while many reach two hundred. The death rate among our young people is very low. Our children remain helpless much longer than those of the ancients, rarely beginning to walk before they are three years old, greater intelligence bringing this burthen with it. A man does not arrive at maturity until he has reached thirty years, while a woman arrives at maturity about her twenty-eighth year. Our marriage laws are very strict. No man can have more than one wife during his life, to have a second wife is a terrible crime in our eyes. He must not marry until he is forty, nor can any woman marry until she is thirty-five. A woman rarely has more than three children, and never more than four.

"In the selection of husbands and wives, young people are left very much to themselves, subject to only two conditions which are, a presumed educational equality and non-relationship. Both the man and the woman must have passed the highest educational standard of their