The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-09-06
LOVING ONES COUSIN.
ADVICE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE
MARRIAGE OF RELATIVES.

The Philosophy of Love and Affection.
Mere Brotheriy or sisterly Feeling Should
Not BE COMPOUNDED with the Subtle and
Inspiring Emotion.
Here is question which has been often
answered; but as our correspondent says,
its discussion Is always interesting and is
of deep concern to many young people;
u love my cousin, and she loves me, but
my mother is opposed because she does not
believe in mixing blood, etc. Now, this is
question which interests great number
and more than you can ever imagine. Your
answer toit would be of service to me.n
1t is easily explainable why so many
young fellows fall in love with their pretty
cousins. The relationship promotes the in
innate association which breeds the tender
passion. They start out with the affection
of kinship, and thus come together on
terms provocative Of the love that leads to
the desire for marriage. In childhood they
may have been to one another almost as
brother and sister, but when they have
reached manhood and womanhood they
find that there has grown up in them nat
ural sentiment radically different from fra
ternal attachment. 1t is possible for them
to marry, and the consciousness of this
generates the desire to marry.
When man permits himself to entertain
such thoughts regarding woman, more
especially in the romantic period of his life,
they soon get the mastery over him. In his
eyes she alone among women has irresisti-
BILE attraction. His fidelity to her is abso-
lutte, because for the time no other feminine
influence is powerful enough to divert the
general love of man for woman which he
4
He may have been devoted son, yet new
even his mother will lose his confidence I'M
less she accords with his will. He may have
been a reasonable boy, but now he is driven
by the force of impulsive sentiment only.
A fixed idea has gained possession of him,
and opposition serves only to intensity his
passion. His fate seems to him to be deter
mined beyond the power of human influ-
ence to alter it. In all the world, he thinks,
there is only one woman whom he can
marry without outraging the sanctity of
wedloek or booming himself to lifelong
misery.
If parents wish to control the direction
which this passionate and unreasonable
feeling takes, they must take precautions
in advance Of the appearance of the first
symptoms of the sweet disease. They must
foresee its inevitable coming and make
the tumultuous current follow, or they
must stand by powerless to divert its tend
ency from channel of its own choosing
that is, they must look out that the init
macy of young people which is stimulative
of love shall be confined to those whom
they think proper for mating, proceeding
on the sound assumption that love may be
exclusive when once it has found particu-
lar proyocation, but that in essence it is a
general sentiment whose concentration de-
ponds on fortuitous circumstances associa-
tions and opportunities. 1t is highly in
hammable material, quick to blaze up
when the spark reaches it. This spark may
need to be special fascination, but it is Il
fascination which may be exercised by any
one Of many under favoring conditions. IL
is not peculiar to an individual, as the en-
amored imagine, though 1t may belong
only to n class of temperaments.
The very fact that young man and a
young girl are ''madly in love" with each
other suggests the need Of caution as to
their marriage. They should get in their
right senses before venturing to take step
SO momentous in both its practical and
sentimental consequences 1t is better for
the passion to cool off before marriage than
after. 1t is better for them to get their
eyes open before rather than afterward.
The test of the feeling, whether it is mere
instructive and evanescent excitement or
real and enduring affection, should be made
before they go to the altar, since at one
time or the other it is bound to be made
All this seems to be far away from the
question of our correspondent, but in truth
It is pertinent to it. Simply because he
loves his cousin and she loves him in re-
turn is no sufficient reason why they
should get married. They can love each
other without being married, and the best
way they can express and prove their
mutual love may be in not getting married.
If the objections of our correspondents
mother to their union be well founded,
each should look ON their marriage as a
selfish qualification at the expense of the
other.
Cousinship Is not necessarily a bar to
marriage for fear of injury to the offspring
of the union, but the collateral consanguin-
ity dictates special caution about entering
into wedlock. Where there is a common
inheritance of tendencies to physical or
mental defect or weakness, it is dangerous,
for the hereditary disposition may be inten-
sified by tho breeding in, but so, too, these
tendencies may be common to a pair not
thus related.
Some of the current social reformers
want a board of physiological and anthro-
poluPical experts legally empowered to
regulate marriages in strict accordance
with scientific theories of breeding, but
under such system the whole institution
of marriage would be destroyed. Mating
would take the place of marrying, and the
sentiment which gives life its greatest
beauty would be extinguished. Society
would be turned into a human stock farm,
and men and women would be degraded to
the level of brutes. Moreover, under such
physiological restraints there would be lit
tie mating. Not one marriage in hundred
would stand such test of its fitness, SO
general is the inheritance which might be
described as defective, so mixed up is the
blood of the human race. Nor can the
qualities most desirable for preservation in
men be perpetuated by the methods used
in breeding horses and cattle.
Hence we can lay down no absolute rule
for the guidance of our enamored friends.
Many cousins have married without evil
consequences to their offspring. In many
other cases the results have been deplor-
able Each case must be decided by itself
in view of possible chances and probable
fruit A wise physician acquainted with
the family history would be the best adj
tser for our anxious correspondent since
the only objections urged against the mar
riage seem to come within the special prov
ince OF such an expert New York Sun.