attention bestowed upon them regarding their influence on offspring that their importance deserves. A few statistics in connection with consanguineous marriages will be of interest. The Medical Press thus animadverts on the subject of deafmutes:- "With regard to deaf-mutism, statistics show, for the most part, that the closer the degree of relationship between the parents the more numerous are the number of the deaf-mute children born. For example, one marriage between an aunt and nephew produced three deaf-mutes. Four marriages between uncle and niece produced eleven deaf-mutes. Twenty-six marriages between first cousins produced thirty-eight deaf-mutes. Sixteen marriages between second cousins produced twenty-eight deaf-mutes. Fortyseven marriages between blood relations produced seventytwo deaf-mutes." In all the states of America, marriage in the limits of lineal consanguinity is forbidden, and also within the limits. of collateral consanguinity nearer than first cousins; the latter, however, are forbidden to marry within the boundaries of fourteen of the states. From this cursory glance at the hereditary tendency of the worst forms of disease, it may be gathered, how supreme, therefore, in the future interests of the race, is the necessity of full inquiry into the antecedents of persons about to contract marriage. Artificial selection has in all civilised races taken the place of natural selection in marital matters; men and women are in part recognising their several and individual responsibilities in the potential question of the continuance of the race on certain well-defined rules of health, and thus realising more fully the true function of marriage. How to pure love must be united an intelligent understanding; and the future perfect physical, intellectual, and moral development of the race be the goal towards which marriage should tend as its ultimate aim under the guidance of scientific insight and an awakened conscience. There is, however, yet much to be desired in regard to this point. I think that no measures could be made too stringent so as to ensure the health of possible progeny. Persons, entering on the responsibilities of matrimony and probable parentage, should at least take the same precautions, as they would have to incur legally under the conditions of contracting a life insurance. Hiram M. Stanley thus remarks : As a physician has sug gested to me, a certificate of health from an approved medical examiner might be required of all applicants for legal marriage. This would certainly be a strong measure of artificial selection, and would save much misery springing from ignorance and vice. In that most vital of matters, human breeding, man is far behind his progress in all other spheres of action, but it is here as elsewhere science must enter, not to destroy but to fulfil, to build up manhood and womanhood into the perfected relations which can only come from rational action illuminated by complete knowledge, and sanctioned by noblest sentiments." A step has been taken in the reform indicated in Brazil, where among families of the higher classes there exists already a self-imposed custom, not yet legalised, but all the same strictly enforced, and 'recalls to mind the Greek system of State artificial selection and supervision. A certificate from a competent physician must be furnished by the Brazilian who is contemplating marriage, to certify he is free from diseases of a certain class, and of others that are hereditary or transmissible. Besides one or more physicians must testify that, so far as they can judge, the marriage is in accordance with sanitary laws. The bridegroom may also be required to produce a certificate, stating where he has lived during the last two years previous to his engagement. Again, by law, inebriates are not allowed to marry in Waldeck, Germany, unless they can give satisfactory evidence of their reformation. When these salutary customs, based on true hygienic and scientific principles, are universally adopted, humanity will have entered on a higher plane of evolution little dreamt of at present. In America there are several societies already formed pledged to further the healthy development of the race, through the members contracting marriage only where there is no hereditary taint. In the scientific sphere the necessary knowledge is close to hand, and can at will be put to practical use, if, in striving after moral good, men will conquer their wandering inclinations in obedience to the supreme law of duty. And after all, in the search for truth, men will find the beauty and the love that will transfigure life's environment. The romance of marriage will not be lost, when its solemn obligations are undertaken with fuller knowledge and maturer judgment; for beauty and love penetrate the inmost sanctuary of the soul, wherein every lover enshrines the beloved object in a mist of idealism, exquisite and intangible. Moreover in the future, marriage will gain immeasurably by raising womanhood to the pedestal of that ideal, which from the earliest ages has been kept pure and inviolate in the heart of mankind. For, in the gradual evolution of social life, it is certain that, without any violent revolution, the equality of the sexes will be assured; though it will not be an equality of the same parts, but an equality in power of different forces, united for the attainment of a common ideal. A nobler purpose will be the incentive to the matrimonial bond; for the aim set before mankind is a high one, viz., the perfection of the universe, and of the human race in particular. Man and woman, therefore, in an ideal marriage, will co-operate as the complement of the other towards this end; each bringing out the best that is in the other eath generously acknowledging a superiority in the distinctive and individual capacities of the different sexes, so that truly each will be inter-dependent in all the relations of family, social, and political life. Even if this ideal union is in many cases beyond realisation, an approximation to this ethical standard will eventually be attained through the influence of purer morals, a wiser discrimination, and a more spiritual understanding. To every husband and wife comes at some supreme moment of their lives the mysterious call, the inspired whisper to lift up their ideal; to look beyond the bounds of their daily life to a standard fairer, nobler, truer, than ever has been seen by mortal eyes. For that glimpse of the unseen and the unattainable, no soul but is the stronger for the conflict with evil, and the more faithful in performing the duties that are at hand. Above all must there be the diffusion of a deeper sense of practical Christianity among all classes, leading them to a clearer participation in that pure and holy Love which compasseth the universe, and towards which all creation moves. "Love is Life's end-an end, but never ending, 1 "We need a new ethic of the sexes, and this not merely or even mainly as an intellectual construction, but as a discipline of life; and we need more. We need an increasing education and civism of women.' "The Evolution of Sex," Geddes and Thompson. PART IV WOMAN AS THE MOTHER THERE is no doubt that on looking back to the dim records of the past, and on tracing woman's history through all its painful and prolonged development among its varied vicissitudes, one fact repeats itself with a strange persistence, and at last impresses its grave significance upon the student's mind, viz., that from the earliest ages up to the present time, the woman, who has had the most lasting influence for good over man, has not been the wife, but has been the mother. The mother has invariably taken precedence of the wife. She has received the respect, the homage, and the devotion of humanity. She has ruled when the wife has served; she has commanded when the wife has obeyed. In motherhood the relationship itself instinctively has demanded respect from the son; in wifehood, the individual herself could only inspire it in the husband. In all ages the mother has been the sustainer, the carekeeper, the teacher of mankind. Hers has in truth been the most important part played on the stage of human history: the rocker of the cradle, unconsciously and often unwittingly, has guided the world's progress, or in ignorance retarded it by æons.1 Mother spells Home; the word stands for the nucleus round which gather the beginnings of social life, the comforts of the hearth, the first joys and pleasures of youth, the growth of ethical and spiritual faculties. The mother has been the civilising agent from savagedom to enlightenment, from barbarity to refinement. According to Professor Drummond and other physiologists, the mother was evolved to the higher ethical standard before the wife. "Is it too much to say that the one motive of organic 1 "With us rests the fate of the nations, For we make the world." -"To Mothers," Charlotte Perkins Stetson. Nature was to make Mothers? It is at least certain that this was the chief thing she did. . . . It is a fact which no human mother can regard without awe, which no man can realise without a new reverence for woman, and a new belief in the higher meaning of Nature, that the goal of the whole plant and animal kingdoms seems to have been the creation of a family, which the very naturalist has had to call Mammalia.”1 Everything springs from the egg; it is the germ of the world's life. The womb of the mother is, in truth, the real cradle of all living creatures; and the organism of offspring, the very foundations of its future destiny, are dependent on the mother's physical development-on her prescience, her solicitude, and her unselfish devotion. Wonderful indeed is the infinite love of maternity, as demonstrated throughout the whole scale of sentient life! By its influence in ever higher degrees, through the whole world of Nature, every mother develops new instincts, that prompt her unerringly to make provision for her young, for their shelter and nourishment, even at a sacrifice of herself. In the insect world, during her brief span of life, she provides them a fitting environment for their future welfare and sustenance when she herself shall have passed away. The bird mother prepares the nest with consummate skill and forethought; and for weeks, the most free and agile creature by nature, queen of air and space, remains a willing prisoner, absorbed in the cares of motherhood. Among quadrupeds the mother suckles her cubs for months, and jealously conceals them in a place of safety, giving up her life willingly in defence of theirs. Ascending the scale to mankind, the most barbarous woman hovers on the borders of a higher region of thought and feeling when she fondles her first-born son. She becomes, in spite of herself and her surroundings, more womanly, more compassionate, more tenderly heedful towards the helpless and the weak. The common bond of suffering draws her to humanity-humanises, elevates, and enriches her nature. What is more, maternity individualises her-she becomes a person. Among many savage races until a woman becomes a mother she is of no account. In some tribes the woman is supposed to have no soul till she has given birth to a child: in others motherhood bestows a certain degree of power, 1 "The Ascent of Man," Drummond. |