It also
conduces to temperance not to marry too soon; for women who marry
early are apt to be wanton; and in men too the bodily frame is stunted
if they marry while the seed is growing (for there is a time when
the growth of the seed, also, ceases, or continues to but a slight
extent). Women should marry when they are about eighteen years of age,
and men at seven and thirty; then they are in the prime of life, and
the decline in the powers of both will coincide. Further, the
children, if their birth takes place soon, as may reasonably be
expected, will succeed in the beginning of their prime, when the
fathers are already in the decline of life, and have nearly reached
their term of three-score years and ten.
Thus much of the age proper for marriage: the season of the year
should also be considered; according to our present custom, people
generally limit marriage to the season of winter, and they are right.
The precepts of physicians and natural philosophers about generation
should also be studied by the parents themselves; the physicians give
good advice about the favorable conditions of the body, and the
natural philosophers about the winds; of which they prefer the north
to the south.
What constitution in the parent is most advantageous to the
offspring is a subject which we will consider more carefully when we
speak of the education of children, and we will only make a few
general remarks at present.
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