The morning call., 1893-06-06
RESTRAINTS ON MARRIAGE.

OIL mas passed the lower mouse IN
the Legislature of Kentucky prohibiting
marriages between first cousins. Similar
prohibitions have been embodied in legis-
tive enactments in several States; but they
are generally a dead letter. No penalty is
affixed to their violation, and the parties
desiring to marry in defiance OF law gen.
orally move into another State to have the
marriage celebrated. At the present day
there are many who do not share in the
belief that the marriage of cousins is likely
to result in defective offspring. 1t Is still
held. however, that vitations of the con-
stitution. which are likely to be Identical
in persons Of the same blood, will probably
be intensified in the children. Where
both cousins are healthy and sound in
body and mind, there is no reason why
their children should not be as healthy as
other children but where there is any
bodily or mental weakness in either
cousin, it is likely to exist in the other,
and to come out in a more aggravated
shape in the children. Tables are given in
the books showing the percentage of de-
fective children among the offspring of
consanguineous marriages. Modern sci
ence does not fully confirm the Levitical
theory, but considering that the woods are
full of young men and young women who
are open to conviction on the subject of
matrimony. there is no reason why any
man should marry his cousin.
Perhaps the Kentucky Legislature
would have employed its time more use
fully if it had considered the subject of
marriages between persons in whose
blood consumption or insanity or cancer
taI
might fairly be supposed to exist. 1t is
almost demonstrated that these diseases
when inherited are aggravated in each
generation. The offspring of two persons
who are tainted with insanity will prob
ably be an idiot, and the offspring of two
idiots cannot perpetuate its race. Two
persons who are deaf and dumb may have
a child who can speak and hear. But they
are likely to have other children who in
herit their intirmity, and the child who
has been spared is more than likely to be
the parent of children who inherit from
the grandparents. So with consumption.
When a cOnsumptive marries girl with
consumptive tendencies the children are
likely to die of the family disease. If any
escape it they are apt to transmit it to their
offspring. The taint may spare one gen.
GRAFTON to reappear in the next.
Whether persons so afflicted should be
permitted to perpetuate the curse from
which they suffer is one of the most inter-
esting problems of modern social science.
1t is engaging the attention of eminent
physicians both in this country and in
Europe. And the conclusion to which
they are drifting is that persons who are
or have been infirm In mind, or who have
consumptive endencieS, or who lack one
of the senses ought not to be allowed to
perpetuate their infirmities by con tracing
marriage. A distinguished collector of
vital statistics in Germany lays down the
proposition that no man should be allowed
to marry unless he can pass medical ex-
animation to show that his children will
not be so deficient as to be likely to be-
come a charge on the community. There
is more sound philosophy in this sugges-
ton than can be found in the German law
which forblds marriage 10 the impe-
cunious.
A law forbidding the m arriage of con-
sumptives would be cruel to some amiable
and inoffenslye persons. But il rigidly
carried out it might. in the course of few
generations. extirpats disease TO which, in
our meridian. one-fourth of the current
mortality is due. That would be gain
to the many, which would compensate for
some injustice to the few. In the ideal
republic of the ancient philosopher no man
or woman was allowed to marry unless he
or she could show perfection OF mind and
body. The result was expected to produce
an ideal which the world has never be-
held. The notion was, perhaps, carrying
a sound theory to an extreme. But there
is o reason why victims of disease should
be allowed to 60 on transmitting it to pos
teritY VIII hout restraint.