The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-28
is 1T CUPID OR HEREDITY?

"The maria ges of a family are
good guide to go by in determining its
! characteristics" said a woman whose
business, to the New York sun, it is
| to hunt up pedigrees. 81 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 be-
| lieve that girls chances for remar-
rarriage If widowed early can be
! judged pretty accurately from the an
nails 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
| rage seems to be handed down.
when in the course of my work
am in doubt about the identity of a
| family I am guided a good deal by
| the character of the marriages set
down. For these illustrate the domi-
nant family traits which govern as
| much in love matters as in other con-
Germs in life.
"In some families early marriages
| predominant. The men invariably
marry before they are rs and the wom-
en- at a correspondingly early age.
Again, late marriages will be the rule
| with members OF either sex.
Some family trees show few second
marriages and rarely a third mar
riage no matter how soon the mar
red state came to an end. other
records are replete with second and
Ithird 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 have married, and the
descendants of those two or three dis
played a similar proneness to bachelor
hood and spinsterhood.
''Our family are not great on mar
| rying,' a girl, one of four single sis
tiers, remarked to me lately regarding
! the family likenesses she was showing
all grouped together on one wall panel.
| "And 1 could not but feel that that
array of notwithstanding single en-
titles among her kinspeople must exert
some influence on her own matrimonial
prospects.
Some families display a marked ten
dency 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 a few
generations, there are instances of men
|
| sively to wife, and of women marry
ing their brothers-in-law and cousins
| in-law, or their step-fathers the same
| tendency to race affiliation cropping
out again and again in the line. In
other families living in the same neigh
| borhood and environment not a single
instance of marriage with relations or
| relationsin-law occurs.
"One comes upon families in which
| 1.ria6 of al -
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 of widow
ers stayed single for any length of
| time.
I'm studying our relationships in
quantity old-fashioned communities one
runs upon families that seem bound to
marry at cross purposes, as it were,
both as to the age and standing of the
mates chosen. A widower takes for a
third wife his son'ss stepdaughter, or
a widow marries the son of the man
whom her daughter married. Just so
there are family records in which a
marriage at a 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 an
mails of the applicants.
There is no phase of genealogical
research so fascinating as noting the
record implied by the marriages on n
family tree. But the genealogist of
the future will have more complicat-
ed work in tracing out lines and traits
| IMAM exists now on account of the
divorces hguring in the matter"