The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-08
THE SANITARY MARRIAGE.
Boston Globe.

Boston Globe.
 The day when true sanitary mar riage will become the rule is long way of. The need must be made more plainly evident. In this country we are developing, from the amalgama- ton of many strains, race wholly new to the world. Our immigrants, as they intermarry with those who have preceded them, produce descend. ants of quicker and more aggressive mental type than their own, and it is noted by Darwin that the bodies and limbs of these descendants are very noticeably longer than those of their ancestors. During our civil war the uniforms manufactured to fit the av- craze American soldier-including those of foreign descent, though born here-were found, as a rule, to be much too long for foreigners just ar- rived.
 When we shall have learned, and learned to apply, the laws of proper selection in marriage, our race ought to be second to none in health and physical development; and that means also intellectual advancement. A wide step towards the needed reform has been taken by us as people, for far more than ever before are we inter- ested in physical culture, upon which health so clearly depends. There is a promise that it will yet have the high place in the curriculum of education that it deserves.
 Our schools now, on account of the absence of proper system of physical culture, are constantly sending out into the world young men and young women who, by reason of their infrm- ities, never ought to marry.
 And again, our ill-ventilated count ing rooms and factories are generating an army, the offspring of which must present every phase of bodily imper- lection. The remedy for this is phys ical culture, and the sooner it is rec- ognized by all, and particularly by our educators, the better. Social re- formers and philanthropists have here wide field for cultivation. Let them impress upon our growing youth the importance of healthful bodies, har- moniously developed by proper exer- else.
 Young women, perhaps even more than young men, need encouragement to strive to secure bodily perfection by proper exercise. They must real ize that mere beauty of face, while it attracts and possibly excltes the ad- miration of some, does not alone con- stitute true beauty, which can only be founded on perfect health.
 Another thing young ladies must remember: No matter how richly na- ture has endowed them with outward charms they can retain them only as long as they enjoy good health. They may also be assured that beauty founded on perfect health continues even to old age. No one desires to see Spartanism revived in these times, but we may learn valuable lessons from it. The Spartans worshipped the beauti- ful and useful, and they took means to secure them. Bodily perfection was attained by enforced, well-appointed exercise. There were but few sickly men and women among them. None sickly were allowed to marry, and all in health were compelled to do SO; if they refused they were punished. Bachelors after certain age were shut out of the society of women, and once year were shamed in public. Nsifher boys nor girls were allowed toMarry before maturity was reachednsFhis Spartan system of marriage, purely for the welfare of the state, continued for five hundred years, and during that time there were produced suc- cession of the strongest and bravest men and the most healthy and beauti- ful women that the world has ever known.
 There is remarkable and self-im- posed family law which popularly prevails, we are told, throughout Bra gil in relation to lnatrimony. It is recognized among all the higher classes. The man who is about to marry is required to furnish certifi- cate from one or more physicians that he is free from disease of a certain character, and that he is free also from all signs of any of the diseases which are liable to be transmitted to the off, spring. Not only that, but the phy- sicians consulted must testify that as far as they can learn there exists no reason to believe that the union will be other than in accord with the laws of sanitation.
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