The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother Part 6

SHALL COUSINS MARRY?

Hardly any point has been more warmly debated by medical men. It has been said that in such marriages the woman is more apt to be sterile; that if she have children, they are peculiarly liable to be born with some defect of body or mind,--deafness, blindness, idiocy, or lameness; that they die early; and that they are subject, beyond others, to fatal hereditary diseases, as cancer, consumption, scrofula, etc.

An ardent physician persuaded himself so thoroughly of these evils resulting from marriage of relatives, that he induced the Legislature of Kentucky to pa.s.s a law prohibiting it within certain degrees of consanguinity. Many a married couple have been rendered miserable by the information that they had unwittingly violated one of nature's most positive laws. Though their children may be numerous and blooming, they live in constant dread of some terrible outbreak of disease. Many a young and loving couple have sadly severed an engagement, which would have been a prelude to a happy marriage, when they were informed of these disastrous results.

For all such we have a word of consolation. We speak it authoritatively, and not without a full knowledge of the responsibility we a.s.sume.

The risk of marrying a cousin, even a first cousin, is greatly diminished, provided there is no decided hereditary taint in the family.

And when such hereditary taint does exist, the danger is little more than in marrying into any other family where it is also found. Indeed, a certain German author has urged the propriety of such unions, where the family has traits of mental or physical excellence, as a means of preserving and developing them!

So far as sterility is concerned, an examination of records shows, that whereas in the average of unions one women in _eight_ is barren, in those between relatives but one in _ten_ is so. And as for the early deaths of children, while, on an average, fifteen children in a hundred die under seven years, in the families of nearly-related parents but twelve in a hundred is the mortality as shown by French statistics.

The investigations about idiotic and defective children are by no means satisfactory, and are considered by some of the most careful writers as not at all proving a greater tendency to such misfortunes in the offspring of cousins. Among a thousand idiotic children recently examined in Paris, not one was descended from a healthy consanguinity.

But as few families are wholly without some lurking predisposition to disease, it is not well, as a rule, to run the risk of developing this by too repeated unions. Stock-breeders find that the best specimens of the lower animals are produced by crossing nearly-related individuals a certain number of times; but that, carried beyond this, such unions lead to degeneracy and sterility. Such, also, has been the experience of many human families.

How slight a cause even of that most insidious disease, consumption, such marriages are, may be judged from the fact, that of a thousand cases inquired into by Dr. Edward Smith, in only six was there consanguinity of parents.

THE MIXTURE OF RACES.

Mankind, say the school geographies, is divided into five races, each distinguished by its own color. They are the white, the black, the red, the yellow, and the brown races. In this country, practically, we have to do with but the white and black races; and the question is constantly asked, Shall we approve of marriages between them? Shall a white woman choose a black man to be her husband?

We are at the more pains to answer this, because recently a writer--and this writer a woman, and this woman one of the most widely known in our land--has written a novel intended to advocate the affirmative of this question. Moreover, it is constantly mooted in certain political circles, and is one of the social problems of the day.

The very fact that it is so much discussed, shows that such a union runs counter to a strong prejudice. Such aversions are often voices of nature, acting as warnings against acts injurious to the species. In this instance it is not of modern origin, created by peculiar inst.i.tutions. Three centuries ago, Shakspeare, who had probably never seen a score of negroes in his life, with the divination of genius, felt the repugnance which a refined woman would feel to accepting one as her husband. The plot of one of his plays turns on it. He makes Iago say of Desdemona:

'Not to affect many proposed matches Of her own clime, complexion, and degree; Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends: Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank, Foul disproportions, thoughts unnatural.'

It is, indeed, 'nature erring from itself' which prompts to these marriages. They are not sterile, but the children are sickly and short-lived. Very few mulattoes reach an old age.

Then it is well known that the black race cannot survive a northern climate. Dr. Snow, of Providence, Rhode Island, who has given great attention to the study of statistics, says emphatically that, in New England, the colored population inevitably perish in a few generations, if left to themselves. This debility no woman should wish to give to her children.

A mental inferiority is likewise apparent. Friends of the negro are ready to confess this, but attribute it to his long and recent period of servitude. We deal with facts only. The inferiority is there, whatever be its cause; and she who would willingly curse her offspring with it, manifests indeed 'thoughts unnatural.'

The children born of a union of the black and red race, negroes and Indians, are on the contrary, remarkable for their physical vigor and mental acuteness; though, of course, the latter is limited to the demands of a semi-barbarous life.

SHOULD NATIVE WOMEN MARRY FOREIGNERS?

When we narrow the question of race to that of nationality, entirely new elements come in.

In speaking of the intermarriage of relatives, we showed that a certain number of such unions in healthy stocks was advantageous rather than otherwise, but that too many of them lead to deterioration. This law can be applied to nations. Historians have often observed that the most powerful states of the world arose from an amalgamation of different tribes. Rome, Greece, England, are examples of this. On the other hand, France, Russia, Spain, China, Persia, which have suffered no such crosses of blood, are either stationary, or depend for their progress on foreigners.

Physicians have contributed other curious testimony on this point, the bearing of which they themselves have not understood. Marriages between nationalities of the same race are more fertile, and the children more vigorous, than those between descendants of the same nation. For instance, it has been proved that if two descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers in Ma.s.sachusetts marry, they will probably have but three children; while, if one of them marries a foreigner, the children will number five or six.

So it is well ascertained that in the old and stationary communes of France, where the same families have possessed their small farms for generation after generation, the marriages have become gradually less and less productive, until it has seriously interfered with the quota those districts send to the army.

American women have suffered many hard words because they do not have more children. Several New England writers have accused them of very bad practices, which we shall mention hereafter. But the effect of the law of production just now laid down has been quite overlooked.

As it is best that there should be four or five children in a family in ordinary circ.u.mstances, the union of American and foreign blood is very desirable. We need to fuse in one the diverse colonies of the white race annually reaching our sh.o.r.es. A century should efface every trace of the German, the Irish, the Frenchman, the English, the Norwegian, and leave nothing but the American. To bring about this happy result, free intermarriage should be furthered in every possible way.

THE AGE OF THE HUSBAND.

The epoch of p.u.b.erty comes to a boy at about the same age as it does to a girl,--fourteen or fifteen years. And an even greater period pa.s.ses between this epoch and the age it is proper for a man to marry,--his age of nubility.

Not only has he a more complete education to obtain, not only a profession or trade to learn, and some property to acc.u.mulate, some position to acquire, ere he is ready to take a wife, but his physical powers ripen more slowly than those of woman. He is more tardy in completing his growth, and early indulgence more readily saps his const.i.tution.

We have placed the best age for woman to marry between twenty and twenty-five years; for similar reasons, man is best qualified to become a husband between twenty-three and thirty-three years.

Previous to the twenty-third year, many a man is incapable of producing healthy children. If he does not destroy his health by premature indulgence, he may destroy his happiness by witnessing his children a prey to debility and deformity. An old German proverb says, 'Give a boy a wife, and a child a bird, and death will soon knock at the door.' Even an author so old as Aristotle warns young men against early marriage, under penalty of disease and puny offspring.

From the age of thirty-three to fifty years, men who carefully observe the laws of health do not feel any weight of years. Nevertheless, they are past their prime. Then, also, with advancing years, the chances of life diminish, and the probability increases that they will leave a young family with no natural protector. The half-century once turned, their vigor rapidly diminishes. The marriages they then contract are either sterile, or yield but few and sickly children. Many an old man has shortened his life by late nuptials; and the records of medicine contain accounts of several who perished on the very night of marriage.

The relative age of man and wife is next to be considered. Nature fits woman earlier for marriage, and hints thereby that she should, as a rule, be younger than her husband. So, too, the bard of nature speaks:

'Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart.'

The woman who risks her happiness with a man many years younger than herself, violates a precept of life; and when her husband grows indifferent, or taunts her with her years, or seeks companions of more suitable age, she is reaping a harvest sown by her own hand.

So commonly do such matches turn out badly, that in 1828 the kingdom of Wurtemberg prohibited unions where the woman was more than twelve years the senior, except by special dispensation.

After forty-five years, most women cannot hope for children. A marriage subsequent to this period can at best be regarded as a close friends.h.i.+p.

Marriage in its full meaning has no longer an existence.

The relative age of man and wife has another influence, and quite a curious one. It influences the s.e.x of the children. But this point we reserve for discussion on a later page.

The folly of joining a young girl to an old man is happily not so common in America as in Europe. It would be hard to devise any step more certain to bring the laws of nature and morality into conflict.

'What can a young la.s.sie do wi' an auld man?'

What advice can we give to a woman who barters her youthful charms for the fortune of an aged husband? Shall we be cynical enough to agree with 'auld Auntie Katie?'

'My auld Auntie Katie upon me takes pity; I'll do my endeavor to follow her plan: I'll cross him, and rack him, until I heart-break him, And then his auld bra.s.s will buy me a new pan.'

No! She has willingly accepted a responsibility. It is her duty to bear it loyally, faithfully, uncomplainingly to the end.

Let us sum up with the maxim, that the husband should be the senior, but that the difference of age should not be more than ten years.

WHAT SHOULD BE HIS TEMPERAMENT?

It is often hard to make out what doctors mean by _temperaments_. It is supposed that our mental and physical characters depend somehow on the predominance of some organ or system which controls the rest. Thus a person who is nervous, quick, sensitive to impressions, is said to have a _nervous_ temperament; one who is stout, full-blooded, red-faced, has a _sanguine_ temperament; a thin, dark-featured, reticent person, is of a _bilious_ temperament; while a pale, fat, sluggish nature, is called _phlegmatic_, or _lymphatic._

In a general way these distinctions are valuable, but they will not bear very exact applications. They reveal in outline the const.i.tution of mind and body; and what is to our present purpose, they are of more than usual importance in the question of selecting a husband.

Nature, hating incongruity, yet loves variety. She preserves the limits of species, but within those limits she seeks fidelity to one type.

Therefore it is that in marriage a person inclines strongly to one of a different temperament--to a person quite unlike himself.