The most important decision the young doctor must make is to court, pick, and win the hand of a good woman. This decision should not be made too early in life for many reasons. Medicine is a jealous mistress and calls for all of one's energy, passion, and dedication. Osler's admonition to “keep the emotions on ice” during these early years, still makes sense but is seldom heeded. Early marriage is the trend as is the premature raising of a family when study, reading, working with patients at the bedside, in their homes and the clinics and pursuit of experience should be the order of the day. No matter how much I hear in defense of early marriage, I remain convinced that the young doctor or medical student cannot serve two loves and do justice to both. I also know that this advice will fall upon deaf ears and youth will insist on pursuing its own priorities, disdaining the admonitions of senior advisers. I am reminded of the comment of an actor friend and patient who moved heaven and earth to secure a minor role in Hamlet with Richard Burton when the latter was at the height of his success. My friend called me to let me know that he had won his bit part and would let me know how it worked out. At his next visit I asked him what sort of Hamlet Richard Burton had been. He replied “Very good. But you know, no one can drink all night, make love to Elizabeth Taylor, and still play an extraordinary Hamlet, but he came pretty close to doing it.” The Richard Burtons among medical students are, in my experience, nonexistent. Osler's warnings were issued in a day when internships and residency and fellowship programs were rare, and when Board certification did not exist. However, when I was a medical student at Rochester in the 1930s, I remember very well an epidemic of medical-student marriages, usually involving a secretary or nurse at Strong Memorial Hospital. Dean Whipple, an Oslerian to the core, posted a typewritten notice on the student bulletin board to the effect that we should keep our emotions on ice as advised by Osler. Furthermore, the next medical student who married an employee could find that her job had been terminated.