Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate/Volume 3/Number 6/Preventive Check

Preventive Check.-It is the custom in Germany and Moravia, to make two distinct ceremonies necessary to constitute marriage; the betrothal and final rite. The latter precedes the former from one to four years, according to circummstances [circumstances], and is the best Malthusian plan that could be devised as Miss Martincau would acknowledge, being founded on prudence.

"It interposes a seasonable pause before young parties enter into the expenses of a family and house. It gives an opportunity of discovering any cause, such as drunken or idle habits or poverty which might make the marriage unsuitable; and perhaps, as a probationary period, is not without its good effect on the character and temper of both sexes. If we reckon the prolific age of a female at twenty two years, or from eighteen to forty; the interval of a year, (& in less opulent classes it is often several) alone reduces to the amount of between four & five per cent the increase of population"