Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-04
LOVE-MAKING.
THE GOOD OLD WAY TO BE SET
ASIDE BY SCIENCE.
Young People Expected to Marry
According to Strict Physi-
illogical Rules.


to make marriage instead great institu-
ton for improving the physique and the
morals of the human race would have
been somewhat more scientific than 1t was
if he had been able to suggest any specific
first, for getting rid of the deep-rooted
tendency in. young people to spoil these
beautiful plans by falling in love without
paying regard to them, and next, for deter
mining what the combinations of character
should be through whose union the noblest
offspring might be expected. There is the
double difficulty in his proposals-frst,
that any young man or woman who would
avoid falling in love till all the requisite
conditions Of appro priateness for Sir
George Campbelps ends We're fulfilled
would be prig whom no one of any sense
would ever be disposed 10 marry; and
next that even If it were not so no man,
however wise, could judge of the moral
suitability of one nature to another al all
better than il is determined now by the
comparative accident either of youthful
passion or of the parental wishes just
imagine the effect on any young man or
woman possessing any spirit and any
healthy instincts of being addressed by an
anthropological papa or mamma in Ian
guage such as Sir George Campbell might
perhaps approve-thus, for example "
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 in the first place in q
wife is girl whose family doctor will as
sure you that there mas never been any
weakness of that kind III her family. Be
ginpg thig trpn ho Int
tempered as you are, you are little dis
posed to levity and too fond of amusement.
If, therefore, you would really improve
your species, and Ineed not say that | hope
that this is your most earnest desire, and
would give to the world children who
could justly boast that they are better than
their father, you must look out for a wife
of earnest and serious disposition, who al
ways postpcnes amusement to duty and
who would stay away from dance with
out a murmur to nurse a 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 consti-
tuition, and especially the freedom from
bilious tendency, be sure of the sense OF
duty to your proposed wife. If, after Sc
curing these great requisites you like to
account, there can be no objection but
with your own great sweetness of DISPOSE
tioa l think the former is Of less import
anCe. You might afford to have a wife OF
hasty temper you could not afford to have
a wife with any element of fIiyoiity in her,
with due regard to your pOsterity.
a young man who would not be driven
by such an address as that into a little scorn
for his father, aud positive determination
10 ioDOra oil eTfcb nonsense in SATISFYING
his own heart, would be a poor sort Of
creature. And the reason is obvious. If
young people are to enter into The closest
ties of life guided by such considerations
as these, they must first be in condition
of mind in which it would be all but GER
tain that they would be utterly indisposed
to enter on these closest ties at all. 1t is
quite true that there is always risk in form
ing such ties. Few young people really
know each other, or can know each other,
before marriage sufficiently to found so
close a relation as that Of husband and wife
on mere knowledge. Nay, without a strong
attraction prior to the knowledge, the
knowledge would never really come at all.
In marriage il is love which brings knowl-
edge at least ten times as often as kn0wl-
edge brings love- Conceive a man influ-
enced by the class of considerations to
which Sir George Campbell would give
prominence, and You conceive a man who
would not be in love, and who, therefore,
would probably make infinitely 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
beneficial than tie accurate vision OF more
impartial criticism.
Probably, indeed, in no country in which
mutual choice has been recognized as the
highest guarantee for the happiness OF
marriage could parental authority ever
again take its place: but still less could 1t
take its place if the parental authority
chose to ground itself ayowedly on anthro-
biological principles and to apply such
Quack tests of suitability as we have de-
scribed After all, as the rebelious youth
would say, even chemical afiuities would
never have been discovered by the chem
lists inspection of the separate elements.
No chemist could ever have discovered IN
what proportions, or under what c0ndl-
tons, hydrogen and oxygen would com
bine by merely inspecting them. 1t was
bv their actual combination, and by that
alone, that the stability or instability OF
their union became thing that could be
tested. And what is true of chemical
affinity must be infinitely truer OF the
much deeper and more subtle affinities in
human nature. 1t may easily happen that
the attractions which first SHOW themselves
do not turn out 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 nat
urally and favorably for the development
of much closer atinities, while the anthro-
pologist's notion TINT the sentiment OF love
should be dispensed with till the sanction
of sober criticism has been obtained for 1t,
would be very apt to engender an initial
mutual repulsion instead Of that great wave
of attraction which sweeps away at least
the first reticenCes and reserves, and makes
mutual knowledge easy and possible.
The great weakness of the many am
bilious sciences of modern days IS that
their devotees are so eager to substitute
the feeble lights they elicit for those great
instincts Of nature which though not
founded on theoretic knowledge at al, are
full of that unconscious guidance OF which
both our bodily and our mental life is in
very large proportion made up. Would g
child ever learn TO walk if he had to follow
accurately the directions Of the teachers Of
statistics and dynamics before he could
learn to balance and to propel himself?
Would he ever fall into the discipline OF
civilized society if he had to guide himself
by the philosophy Of that soeiety-a phi
losophy which is so far behind the soela!
art which it tries to explain 1t IS Just
the same with these empirical teachers OF
the true principles by which marriage may
be made TO subserye the improvement OF
the species. They recommend principles
which are simply impossible, because If
thew could be really followed hardly one
marriage in ten would take place at all
and because, if they were followed, ten
mistakes would be made for every one
which is made now, and probably mistakes
ten times as serious as well as ten times as
numerous London Spectator.
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