The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-07-04
is 1T CUPID OR HEREDITY?
Facts About Marriage Set Forth by a
Geneaioqist,

"The marriages Of a family are a
good guide to go by in determining its
characteristics" said a woman, whose
business it is to hunt up pedigrees. Il
should warn any girl who has many
old-maid aunts and bachelor uncleS
not to daily with her first proposal if
she would not be an old maid herself,
Likewise, l believe that girls chances
for remarriage, If widowed early, can
be judged pretty accurately from the
annals of her family in this respect.
Just as a certain sort of eyebrow
or cheek or chin formation is to be
traced throughout an entire family SO
the attitude of the family toward mar
riage seems to be handed down.
when in the course of my work L
am in doubt about the Identity of
family 1 am guided a good deal by the
character of the marriages set down.
For these illustrate the dominant fam
lily traits, which governs as much In
love matters as in other concerns of
life.
In some families early marriages
predominant. The men invariably
marry before they are twenty five, and
the women at a correspondence early
age. Again, late marriages will be the
rule with members of either sex.
Some family trees show few second
marriages, and rarely third marriage,
no matter how soon the married state
came to an end. Other records are re-
plete with second and third and even
fourth marriages on the part of wild
ows and widowers.
"Often it occurs that in families of
nine or more brothers and sisters, only
two or three have married. and the de-
scendantS of those two or three dis
played a similar proneneSS to bachelor
hood and spinsterhood.
~ f''Our family are not great on mar
.yrying,' a girl, one of four single sisters,
remarked to me lately regarding the
family, likenesses she was showing all
grouped together on one wall panel.
% i"And I could not but feel that that
array of contented looking single enti-
flies among her kinspeople must exert
some influence on her own matrimonial
prospects.
. Some families display marked ten
sdency. to marry their kinsfolk, or the
connections or relations of their kins-
: folk. Others again seem by common
impulse to have gone as far from home
quarters as possible in search of mates.
: I'm records that go back only few
generations, there are instances of men
who have taken three sisters success
sivelyrto wife, and of women marrying
their brothers-in-law and cousins-in-
law, or their stepfathers, the same ten
dency to race utilization cropping out
again and again in the line. In other
families living in the same neighbour
hood and environment not single in
stance of marriage with relations or
relations-in-lawo occurs.
zone comes upon families in which
an unmarried member of either sex is a
great rarity and families in which
marriage seems to have come easily,
and as a foregone conclusion, and in
which none of the widows or widowers
stayed single for any length of time.
I'm studying out relationships in
quantity ld-fashioned communities
one runs upon families that seemed
bound to marry at cross purposes, as
it were, both as to- the age and stand.
ing of the mates chosen. A widower
takes for third wife his sons step
daughter, or a widow marries the son
of the man whom her daughter mar
ried. Just so there are family records
in which marriage at a very advance
ed age or with partner of lower rank
socially never occurs
Il think fortune tellers could add to
love matters If they could have the adj
vantage of scanning the family annals
of the applicants.
There is no phase Of genealogical
research SO fascinating as noting the
record implied by the marriage on a
family tree. But the genealogist of the
future will have more complicated
work in tracing out lines and traits
than exists now on account of the d.
vorces figuring in the matter"