Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1903-07-18
Is 1t Cupid or Heredity?

'"Ihe marriages of :. family are :: good
guide to go by in determining its charac-
teristics,' said 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 I be-
lieve that Il girls chances for remar-
riage if widowed early can be Judged
pretty accurately from the annals of her
family in this respect.
Just as Il certain sort of eyebrow or
cheek or chin formation is to be traced
throughout an entire family so the atti-
tude 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 i'll love matters
as in other concerns of life.
I'm some families early marriages pre-
dominate The men invariably marry
before they are % and the women ut Il
correspondingly early age Again, late
marriages will be the rule with mem
bers 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-
pete 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 have married. and the descend
ants of those two or three displayed 4
similar proneness to bacheiorhOod and
spinsterhood
Our family are not great on marry
ing, girl. one of four single sisters
remarked to me lately regarding the fam
lily lillenesses she was showing all
grouped together on one wall panel
And | could not but feel that that ar
ray of c0ntented-loOklng single entities
among her kinspeople must exert some in
1uence on her own matrimonial pros
gectS.
Some families display a marked ten
dency to marry their kinsfolk, or the con
nectiOns or relations of their kinsfolk
Others again seem by common impulse
TO have gone as far from home quarters
as possible in search of mates.
SIN records that go back only a few
generations, there are instances of men
who have taken three sisters successive
~ to wife, and of women marrying their
brothers-in-law and cousns-in-law. or
their step-fathers. the same tendency to
race animation cropping OUT again ana
again in the line. In other families liN-
ing in the same neighbOrhood and eiyl-
ronment not a single instance Of marriage
with relations or relationS-in-laW occurs.
One comes upon families in which an
unmarried member of either sex IS Il
great rarity, and families in which mar
rage seems to have come easily and as
foregone conclusion. and in which none
OF the widows or widowers stayed sin
gle for any length of time.
In studying out relationships III
quantity oldfaShioned communities one
rams upon families that seemed bound to
marry ut cross purposes as it were, both
as to the age and standing of the mates
CHOSEN. \ widower takes for a third
wife his sons steD-daughter, or a widow
inarrles the son of the man whom her
daughter married. just so there are fam
ily records in which n marriage at very
advanced age or with a partner of lower
rank socially never occurs.
L think fortune tellerS could add to
me effectiveness of their prophecies in
rove matters if they could have the adj
vantage of scanning the family annals Of
the applicants
There is no phase of genealogical re-
search so fascinating a noting the record
implied by the marriages on a family
tfee But the genealogist Of the future
"lH nave more complicated work in trac-
ing ont lines and traits than exists now
ca account of the divorces figuring in
iAe matter, -New York sun