Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1886-10-21
MARRYING SCIENTIFICALLY.
Choosing a Wife on Anthropological Principles
"A Reform" Full of Difficulties

-
British association to supersede love-mak-
ing as a preliminary to marriage and to
make marriage instead a great institution
for improving the physique and morals
of the human race, would have been some
what more scientific than it was if he had
been able to suggest any speeifc-tirst
for getting rid of the deep rooted tenden-
cy in young people TO spoil these beauti,
full plans of falling in love, without pay
ing the least regard to them, and next,
| for determining the combinations of
character should be through whose union
the noblest offspring might be expected.
There is the double difficulty IN his pro-
! posals -trst, that any young man or wo-
man who would avoid falling in love till
/ all the requisite conditions of appropri-
ateness for Sir George Campbell's ends
were fulfilled would be prig whom no
one of any sense would ever be disposed
to marry; and next, that even if it were
not So man however wise, could Judge of
the moral suitability of one nature TO an
other at all better than it is determined
now by the comparative accident either
of youthful passion or parental wishes.
just imagine the effect on a young man
or woman possessing any spirit and any
healthy instincts, of being addressed by
an anthropological papa or mamma in
the language such as perhaps as Sir
George Campbell might approve thus
for example:
II am bound to warn you, my dear
boy, that your physique, though excellent
on the whole is weak, if at all, in liability
to sluggish liver; and what, therefore
you must look out for i'll the first place
in n wife is girl whose family doctor
will assure you that there has never been
any weakness of that kind in her family
Besides this, you must be aware that
sweet tempered as you are, you are little
disposed to leyity and too fond of amuse-
ment. If, therefore, you would really inn
prove your species, and need not say
that hope that this is your most earnest
desire, and would give to the world child
rem who could justly boast that they are
better than their father, you must look
out for wife of earnest and serious dis
position, who always postpone amusement
to duty, and who would stay away from
dance without a murmur to nurse sick
brother. Think, my dear boy, of these
things before you permit yourself to fall
IN love. Be sure that you know what the
constitution of the family is before You
allow even admiration to stir your heart.
And next to the constitution, and espec-
tally the freedom from bilious tendency
be sure of the sense of duty in your pro
posed wife. IT, after securing these great
requisites, you like TO taxi sweetness, and
temper, and beauty into account, there
can be no objection; but with your own
great sweetness of disposition | think the
former of less Importance. You might
afford to have wife of hasty temper;
you could not afford to have wife with
any element of frivolity in her. with due
regard to your posterity."
young man who would not be driven
by such an address as that into little
scorn for his father, and positive deter
mination to ignore all such nonsense in
satisfying his own beast, would be poor
sort of creature. And the reason is OBJ
vious. If young people are to enter in
to the closest ties of life guided by such
considerations as these, they must first be
in condition of mind in which il would be
certain that they would be utterly dispos-
ed to enter on these closest ties Mt all II
is quite true that there is always risk in
forming such ties. Few young people
really know each other or can know each
other, before marriage, sufficiently TO
found so close relation as husband and
wife on mere knowledge Nay, without a
strong attraction prior TO the knowledge,
the knowledge ever really comes at all.
In marriage it is love which brings knowl-
edge at least ten times as often as knowl-
edge brings love. Conceive man in
fuenced by the class of considerations to
which sir George Campbell would give
,ina nd 4.
would not be in love, and who, therefore,
would probably make inunitedly worse
blunders in trying to Judge of the woman
he thought of making his wife, without
love, than he would even have made-and
doubtless he might have made many by
falling in love first and learning the truth
about her afterward. Luckily for us,
even the mistakes of love are apt to be
more benetcent than the accurate vision
of lnore impartial criticism.
Probably, indeed, in no country in
which mutual choice has been recognized
as the highest guaranty for the happiness
of marriage could parental authority ever
again take its place; but still less could
it take its place if the parental authority
chose to ground itself avowedly IN an
thropological principles and to apply
such quack tests of suitability as we have
described. After all, as the rebellious
youth would say, even chemical affinities
would never have been discovered by the
chemists inspection of the separate ele-
ments. No chemist could ever have dis
covered in what proportions or under
what conditions hydrogen and oxygen
would combine, by merely inspecting
them. 1t was by their actual combina-
ton and by that alone, that the stability
or instability of their union became
thing that could be tested. And what il
true of chemical affinity must be infinite
ly truer of the much deeper and more
subtle af1inities in human nature. II may
easily happen that the attractions which
first show themselves do not turn ont to
be all that was hoped, or do turn out TO be
of no real stability or worth; but at least
they open the way naturally and favor
ably for the development of much closer
affinities while the anthropologist's no
ton that the sentiment of love should de
dispensed with till the sanction of sober
criticism has been obtained for it would
be very apt TO engender an initial mu-
tual repulsion instead of that great wave
of attraction which sweeps away at least
the first reticences and reserves and
hos rputr1al kunmIa1e,a aau,s ,rI ,,aa