The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1894-07-14
Will the Coming Woman Propose

VIII the COmlng woman proposes
Professor Alfred X. Wallsce is one of
England's greatest scientists. He had
elaborated the theory of evolution, and
had it ready to publish, when he
learned that Darwin was just about to
do the same. They left it to friends to
decide which should publish, and the
choice fell on Darwin. The following
is from Wallace's late article in the
London Chronicle:
81 believe that improvement will be
effected through the agency of female
choice in marriage. As things are,
women are constantly forced into
marriage for bare living or COM
Portable home. They have practically
no choice in the selection of their
partners and the fathers of their chill
dren, and so long as this economic
necessity for marriage presses upon
the great bulk of women, men who are
vicious, degraded, of feeble intellect,
and unsound bodies, will secure wives,
and thus often perpetuate their in
firmities and evil habits. But in q re-
formed society, the vicious man, the
man of degraded taste, or of feeble
intellect, will have little chance OF
finding q wife, and his bad qualities
will die out with himself. On the other
hand, the most perfect and beautiful
il body and mind, the men of spotless
character and reputation, will secure
wives first, the less commendablt
later, and the least :ommendable last
of all. As natural consequence, the
best men and women will marry the
earliest, and probably have the larges,
families. The result will be moIS
rapid increase Of the good than tn.
bad, and this state of things contin'
uing to work for successive genera
tions, will at length bring the averag,
man up to the level of those who ar,
now the more advanced of the race.
..On the whole, then, it is probabl,
that in the society of the future, tn,
mortality of males will be less, OWN,
to preventive measures in connection
with dangerous and injurious occupa
tiOns, so that the number of marriage
able men will be equal to that o
women; add to this that there will b,
an increasing proportion of womel
who will prefer not to marry, and it il
clear that men desiring wives will b.
in excess of women wanting husbands
This will greatly increase the iniluenc
of women in the improvement of tn
race. Being in the minority, they will
be more sought after, and will have
real choice in marriage, which is rarel
the case now.
"Broadly speaking, think we ma,
trust the cultivated minds and pnr
instincts of the women of the future i
, the choice of partners. The idle an
selfish would be almost UNIVERSAL
rejected. The coarse and sensua
man, the diseased, or the weak i
intellect, those having a tendency t
insanity, or hereditary disease, or VIII
: possess any cOngenital deformity, woul
rarely find partners, because the er
lightened woman would know that sll
WAS committing an offence again.
> society, against humanity at large,
choosing a husband who might be tn
means of transmitting disease of bod
: or of mind to his offspring. Thus
will come about that the lower types {
men, morally, and the physically di
eased will remain permanently M
married, and will leave no descendant
and the advance of the race in ever
good quality will be ensured"