The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-07-11
IS IT CUPID OR HEREDITY.

Inc marriages OF family are a
good guide to go by in determining
its characteristics" said a woman
whose business it is to hunt up pedi-
grees. 81 should warn any girl who
has many old maid aunts and bache-
lor uncles not to daily with her first
proposal if she would not be an old
maid herself. Likewise I 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 certain sort of eyebrow
or cheek or chin formation is to be
traced throughout an entire family so
the attitude of the family toward
marriage seems to be handed down.
any Il Doubt i tts6 s66oSe eFEs EFEe dd IDENTITY 81
family I am guided a good deal by
the character Of the marriage set
down For these illustrate the domi-
nant family traits which govern as
much in love matters as in other con-
Germs of life.
In some families early marriages
predominant. The men invariably
marry before they are rs and the wo-
men at correspondingly early age.
Again, late marriages will be the
rule with members of either sex.
Some family trees show few sec
ond marriages and rarely third mar
riage no matter how soon the married
state came to an end. Other records
are replete with second and third and
even fourth marriages on the part of
widows and widowers.
''Often it occurs that in families of
nine or more brothers and sisters,
only two or three displayed similar
proneness to bachelorhood and spin
sterhood.
"'Our family are not great on
marrying girl, one of four sisters,
remarked to me lately regarding the
family likenesses she was showing all
grouped together on one wall panel.
"And could not but feel that that
array of contented-looking single en-
titles among her kinspeople must ex-
ert some influence on her own matri-
monial prospects.
"Some families display a marked
tendency to marry their kinsfolk, or
the connections or relations of their
kinsfolk. Others again seem by COM
mon impulse to have gone as far from
home quarters as possible in search
of mates.
'In records that go back only a
few generations, there are instances of |
men who have taken three sisters sue
cessively to wife, and of women mar
rying their brothers in-law and cous-
1ns-in-law, or their step-fathers, the
same tendency to race afiliation crop
ping out again again if1-the 1inesmTn-
single instance of marriage with rela-
tions or relations-in-1aw 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 widow
ers stayed single for any length of
time.
'In studying out relationships in
quantity old-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 a third wife his sons step
daughter, or widow marries the son
of the man whom her daughter mar
ried. Just so there are family records
in which marriage at very advanc-
ed age or with partner of lower rank
socially never occurs.
"I think fortune tellers could add
to the effectiveness of their prophecies
in love matters if they could have the
advantage of scanning the family an
nails of the applicants.
"There is no phase of genealogical
research so fascinating as nothing the
record implied by the marriages on
family tree. But the genealogist of
the future will have more complicated
work in tracing out lines and traits
than exist now on account of the di-
vorces figuring in the matter"