The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-06-21
lis IT CUPID OR HEREDlTY?
FACTS ABOUT MARRIAGES SET
FORTH ny A GENEALOGIST.
sbe Thinks Faanjiy Traits Have Moro In.
nuence in Shaping Matrimonial Desti.
niles Than love HAs-Unusuai WidOws'
Marriages That Run In Families.

Sbo Thinks FolnlIy Traits Havo Moro In
nucnce in Shaping Matrimonial Destl.
niles Than love HAs-Unusuai Wid0ws'
Marriages That Run In Families.
THE marriages OF family are a good
guide to 60 by in determining its chsrac-
teristics,' said woman whose business
1t 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 II she would not be an old maid
herself. Likewise ] believe that a girls
chances for remarriage II widowed early
can be judged pretty accurately from the
annals Of her family in khis respect.
Just As q certain sort Of eyebrow or
chee or chin formation il to be traced
throughout an entire family 80 the attitude
Of the family toward marriage seems to
be handed down.
when in the course Of my work am in
doubt about the identity OF a family am
guided good deal by the character of the
marriages set down. For these illustrate
the dominant family traits which govern
as much in love matters as in other CON-
Germs Of life.
In some families early marriages pre-
dominate. The men invariably marry
before they arc Is and the women at cor
respondingly early age. Again. late mar
riages will be the rule with members of either
sex.
Some family trees show few second
marriages and rarely a third marriage
no matter how soon the married state came
to an end. Other records are replete with
second and third and even fourth mar
riages on the part Of widows and widowers.
'Often II occurs that in families Of nine or
moro brothers and sisters. only two or
three have married. and the descendants
Of those two or three displayed a similar
proneness to bachelorhood and spinster-
Our family arc not great on marrying
TO mo lately regarding the family likenesses
she, was showing all grouped together on
sAnd could not but feel that that array
Of notwithstanding single entities among
on her own matrimonial prospects.
Some families display marked tendency
to marry their kinsfolk, or the connections
or relations Of their kinsfolk. Others
gone as far from home quarters as possible
In search Of mates.
In records that 60 back only few gen.
erations. there are instances of men who
have taken three sisters 6ucCe6Slvely to
wife, and Of women marrying their brothers
in-law and cousins-in-law, or their step
fathers, the same tendency to race af6lia-
ton cropping out again and again In the
line. In other families living in the same
neighborhood and environment not a
single instance Of marriage with relations
or relations-in-aw occurs.
@One comes upon families In which an I'M
married member of either sex is a great
rarity and families in which marriage
seems to have come easily and as foregone
conclusion, and in which none Of the widows
or widowers stayed single for any length Of
time.
an studying out relationships in quantity
old-fashioned communities one runs upon
families that seemed bound to marry at
Cross purpose, as 1t were, both as to the age
and standing of the mates chosen. A
widower takes for a third wife his sons
stepdaughter, or q widow marries the son
Of the man whom her daughter married.
Just so there are family records in which
q marriage at q very advanced age or with
a partner Of lower rank socially never
occurs.
Il think fortune tellers could add to the
effectiveness of their prophecies in love
matters If they could have the advantage
OF scanning the family annals Of the appl-
cants.
There is no phase Of genealogical re-
search 80 fascinating as noting 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 exists now on account OF
the divorces figuring in the matter