Woman Her Sex and Love Life Part 13

Feeblemindedness, in all its gradations--including idiocy, imbecility, moronism, and so on--is strongly hereditary and is one of the most dysgenic factors we have to deal with. It is the most dysgenic of all factors. It is more dysgenic than insanity. Marriage with a feebleminded person not only should be advised against, but should be prohibited by law. A feebleminded man has much fewer chances for marriage than has a feebleminded woman. Feebleminded girls, even to the extent of being morons, if pretty (as they often are) have very good chances of getting married, not infrequently getting for husbands young men of good families who themselves of course are not very strong mentally, but still are far from being considered feebleminded.

There are many cases of brilliant men--more than the public has any idea of--who married pretty, shy, demure, but withal feebleminded, girls, and the result has been in the largest percentage of cases very disastrous. In many cases all the children are feebleminded, or if not feebleminded, so weak mentally that it is impossible to make them go through any college or school. All the private tutoring is often in vain. And the brilliant father's heart breaks. It must be borne in mind that feeblemindedness or weak mentality is much more difficult to detect in a woman than it is in a man. Weakmindedness in a woman often pa.s.ses for "cuteness," and as among the conservatives a woman is not expected to be able to discuss current topics, her intellectual caliber is often not discovered by the blinded husband until some weeks after the marriage ceremony.

As any instruction in the use of contraceptives would be wasted on the feebleminded, the only way to guard the race against pollution with feebleminded stock is either to segregate or to sterilize them.

Society could have no objection against the feebleminded marrying or indulging in s.e.xual relations, provided it could be a.s.sured that they will not bring any feebleminded stock into the world. After the man and the woman have been sterilized there is no objection to their getting married.

Where a normal, able or brilliant husband finds out too late that his wife's mentality is of rather a low order he is certainly justified in using contraceptives; and if he is determined to have children he will be obliged to divorce his wife. Of course this applies also to the wife of a weak minded husband.

=Insanity=

Insanity may be briefly defined as a disease of the mind. We will not here go into a discussion as to what const.i.tutes real insanity, as to what is understood by insanity in the legal sense of the term, and so on, except to note that we have two divisions.

One is functional insanity. This may be temporary, or periodical, and is due to some external cause, is curable, and is not hereditary. For instance, a person may get insane from a severe shock, from trouble, from anxiety, from a severe accident (such as a s.h.i.+pwreck), from a sudden and total loss of his fortune, of his wife and children (by fire, earthquake, s.h.i.+pwreck or railroad accident). Such insanities are curable and are not transmissible. Another example is what is known as puerperal insanity. Some women during childbirth, due probably to some toxic infection, become insane. This insanity may be extreme and maniacal in character. Still, it often pa.s.ses away in a few days _without leaving any trace_ and may never return again, or, if it does return, it may return only during another childbirth. This kind of insanity is not transmissible.

The second division is what we call organic insanity. This expresses itself in mania and melancholy, so-called manic-depressive insanity.

This is due to a degeneration of the brain-and nerve-tissue and is hereditary.

But, our entire conception as to the hereditary transmissibility of insanity has undergone a radical change. There is hardly another disease the fear of whose hereditary character is responsible for so much anguish and torture. In former years, when there was an insane uncle or aunt or grandparent that fact weighed like a veritable incubus on the entire family. Every member of the family was tortured by the secret anguish that maybe he or she would be next to be affected by this most horrible of all diseases--disease of the mind.

If an ancestral member of the family became insane at a certain age, every member of that family was living in fear and trembling until several years had pa.s.sed _after_ that critical age, and only then would they begin to breathe freely. Indeed, many people became insane from the very fear of becoming insane. It cannot be subject to any doubt that many people do become mentally unbalanced from the fear that they will become unbalanced. Fear has a tremendous influence on the purely bodily functions, but its influence on the mental functions is incomparably greater, and a person will often get that which he fears he is going to get.

Now the hereditary character of insanity is not taken in the same absolute sense in which it was formerly. While we still consider it a dysgenic factor, yet we recognize the paramount importance of environment; and we know that by proper bringing-up, using the expression bringing-up in its broadest sense--including a proper mental and physical discipline--any hereditary taint can be counteracted. In connection with this subject, the following very recent statistics will prove of interest.

The families of 558 insane persons cared for in the London county asylums were investigated, and, according to reports received from the educational authorities, only 15 of these (less than 3 per cent) had mentally defective children. As to the time of the birth of the children, whether before or after the attack of the insanity, we find the following figures: 56 out of 573 parents had children after their first attack of insanity, and 106 children were born after the onset of insanity in the parent; while the remaining 1259 children were born before the parent became insane.

Altogether, as will be seen from a discussion of the various factors rendering marriage permissible or nonpermissible, I am inclined to consider environment a more important factor than heredity. The purely physical characteristics bear the indelible impress of heredity. But the moral and cultural characteristics, which in the modern civilized man are much more important than the physical, are almost exclusively the results of environment.

=Neuroses--Neurasthenia--Psychasthenia--Neuropathy--Psychopathy=

I will not attempt either exhaustive or concise definitions of the terms named in the caption, for the simple reason that it is impossible to give satisfactory definitions of them. The conditions which these terms designate do not const.i.tute definite disease-ent.i.ties, and many different things are understood by different people when these terms are mentioned. Only brief indications of the meaning will be given.

Neurosis is a functional disease of the nervous system.

Neurasthenia is a condition of nervous exhaustion, brought about by various causes, such as overwork, worry, fright, s.e.xual excesses, s.e.xual abstinence, and so on. The basis of neurasthenia, however, is often or even generally a hereditary taint, a nervous weakness inherited from the parents.

Psychasthenia is a neurosis or psychoneurosis similar to neurasthenia, characterized by an exhaustion of the nervous system, also by weakness of the will, overscrupulousness, fear, and a feeling of the _unreality_ of things.

Neuropathy is a disease or disorder of the nervous system. Psychopathy is a disease or disorder of the mind.

Of late years we often hear people referred to as neurotics, neurasthenics, psychasthenics, neuropaths or psychopaths. These are undoubtedly abnormal conditions, and, taken as a general thing, they are dysgenic factors.

But a dysgenic factor in an animal _is_ a dysgenic factor, and that is all there is to it. There are no two sides to the question. But if anything goes to show the difference between animals and human beings, and to demonstrate why principles of eugenics, as derived from a study of animals, can never be _fully_ applicable to human beings, it is these considerations which we now have under discussion. To repeat, neuroses, neurasthenia, psychasthenia, and the various forms of neuropathy and psychopathy are dysgenic factors. But people suffering from these conditions often are among _the world's greatest geniuses_, have done some of the world's greatest work, and, if we prevented or discouraged marriage among people who are somewhat "abnormal" or "queer," we should deprive the world of some of its greatest men and women. For insanity is allied to genius, and if we were to exterminate all mentally or nervously abnormal people we should at the same time exterminate some of the men and women that have made life worth living.

And what is true of mentally abnormal is also true of physically inferior people. An inferior horse or dog _is_ inferior. There is no compensation for the inferiority. But a man may be physically inferior, he may be, for instance, a consumptive, but still he may have given to the world some of the sweetest and most wonderful poems.

A man may be lame, or deaf, or strabismic, he may be a hunchback or a cripple and altogether physically repulsive, and yet he may be one of the world's greatest philosophers or mathematicians. A man may be s.e.xually impotent and absolutely useless for race purposes, yet may be one of the world's greatest singers or greatest discoverers.

In short, the eugenic problem in the human is not, and never will be, as simple as it is in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. If we want to strive after healthy, normal mediocrity, then the principles of animal eugenics become applicable to the human race. If, on the other hand, we want talent, if we want genius, if we want benefactors of the human race, then we must go very slow with our eugenic applications.

=Drug Addiction or Narcotism=

Addiction to drugs, whether it be opium, morphine, heroin or cocaine, is a strongly dysgenic factor. The addiction to the drug is of itself not transmissible, but the weakened const.i.tution or degeneracy which is generally responsible for the development of the drug addiction is inheritable.

A few cases of drug addiction are external; that is, the patient may have a good healthy const.i.tution, no hereditary taint, and still because during some sickness he was given morphine a number of times he may have developed an addiction to the drug. But those cases are rare. And such cases, if they are cured and if the addiction is completely overcome, may marry.

But in most cases it isn't the drug addiction that causes the degeneracy; it is the degeneracy or the neuropathic or psychopathic const.i.tution that causes the drug addiction. And such cases are bad matrimonial risks.

And it is a very risky thing for a woman to marry an addict with the idea of reforming him. As I said about the alcoholic: Let him reform first, let him stay reformed for a few years, and then the rest is not so great.

=Consanguineous Marriages=

Consanguinity means blood relations.h.i.+p, and consanguineous marriages are marriages between near blood relatives. The physician is frequently consulted as to the permissibility or danger of marriages between near relations. The question generally concerns first cousins, second cousins, uncle and niece, and nephew and aunt.

The popular idea is that consanguineous marriages are bad _per se_.

The children of near relatives, such as first cousins, are apt to be defective, deaf and dumb, blind, or feebleminded, and what not. This popular idea, as so many popular ideas are, is wrong. And still there is of course, as there always is, some foundation for it. The matter, however, is quite simple.

We know that many traits, good and bad, are transmitted by heredity.

And naturally when traits are possessed by both father and mother they stand a much greater chance of being transmitted to the offspring than if possessed by one of the parents alone. Now then, if a certain bad trait, such as epilepsy or insanity, is present in a family that trait is present in both cousins, and the likelihood of children from such a marriage inheriting that trait is much greater than when the parents are strangers, the taint being present in the family of only one of the parents. But if there be no hereditary taint in the cousins'

family, and, still more, if the family is an intelligent one, if there are geniuses in the family, then there cannot be the slightest objection to marriage between cousins, and the children of such marriages are apt to inherit in a strong degree the talents or genius of their ancestors. In short, if the family is a bad one, one below par, then marriage between cousins or between uncle and niece should be forbidden. If the family is a good one, above par, then marriage between relatives of that family should be encouraged.

The idea that the children from consanguineous marriages are apt to be deaf and dumb has no foundation in fact. Recent statistics from various asylums in Germany, for instance, have shown that only about five per cent. of the deaf and dumb children were the offspring of consanguineous marriages. If 95 per cent, of the deaf and dumb had _non_-consanguineous parents, how could one say that even in the other five per cent, the consanguinity was the cause? If it were the other way around, then of course we could blame consanguinity. As it is, we can a.s.sume even in this five per cent, a mere coincidence, and we have no right to say that consanguinity and deaf and dumbness stand in the relation to each other of cause and effect.

It is interesting to know that among the Egyptians, Persians, and Incas of Peru close consanguineous marriages were very common. The Egyptian kings generally married their sisters. This was common custom and if the children born of such unions were defectives or monstrosities the fact would have become quickly apparent and the custom would have been abolished. Evidently the offspring of very close consanguinity was normal, or even above normal, or the practice would not have been continued such a long time.

It is perhaps worth while noting that one of the world's greatest scientists, Charles Darwin, was the child of parents who were first cousins.

=h.o.m.os.e.xuality=

h.o.m.os.e.xuality (h.o.m.os--the same) is a perversion in which a person is attracted not to persons of the opposite but to persons of the same s.e.x. Thus a h.o.m.os.e.xual man does not care for women, but is attracted to men. A h.o.m.os.e.xual woman is not attracted to men; she only cares for women and may even loathe men. A h.o.m.os.e.xual, man or woman, has no right to marry. The wrong committed by a h.o.m.os.e.xual marrying is a double one: it is wrong to the partner, wrong to the children. The normal partner is bound to discover the abnormality, and if he (or she) does, then the married life is a very unhappy one. Even if the abnormal partner uses the utmost efforts to conceal the abnormality, he cannot afford any pleasure to the normal partner, because the s.e.xual act committed under loathing cannot be satisfactory. The other wrong is committed on the offspring. h.o.m.os.e.xuality is hereditary, and n.o.body has a right to bring h.o.m.os.e.xuals into the world, for there is no unhappier being than a h.o.m.os.e.xual. I know a h.o.m.os.e.xual woman, who, knowing her abnormality, married for the sake of a comfortable home.

She has been successful in hiding from her husband her abnormality, he simply considering her frigid. But each s.e.xual act costs her tortures.

So far she has succeeded in avoiding pregnancy. I also know a highly refined and educated h.o.m.os.e.xual gentleman, who married before understanding his condition. Many h.o.m.os.e.xuals, not knowing that such a thing as h.o.m.os.e.xuality even exists, do not understand their own condition; they feel a little strange, a little puzzled, but they don't know that they ought not to marry. Soon after marrying his condition became clear to him, but in the meantime his wife conceived, and he is now the father of a healthy, good-looking boy. It is possible that with proper bringing up the development of any h.o.m.os.e.xual traits will be prevented. It should be borne in mind that long s.e.xual repression is favorable to the development of h.o.m.os.e.xuality.

But to emphasize: h.o.m.os.e.xuality is a dysgenic factor, and no h.o.m.os.e.xual should marry.

=Sadism=

Sadism is a s.e.xual perversion in which the person derives pleasure only when beating, biting, striking, or otherwise inflicting pain on the person of the opposite s.e.x. The degree of cruelty varies, but all s.a.d.i.s.ts should be shunned. Unfortunately the fact that a man is a s.a.d.i.s.t is often not found out until after marriage, but as soon as the wife has found it out she should leave the man and demand a divorce.

Sadism is a sufficient ground for a separation or divorce. No person with any moral feeling in him or her should be responsible for bringing children into the world with a possible s.a.d.i.s.tic heredity.

s.a.d.i.s.tic cruelty is often of the gross, brutal, repulsive kind, but sometimes the s.a.d.i.s.t inflicts on his "beloved" object refined tortures of which only a cunning "demon" is capable. The sufferings which the wives of some s.a.d.i.s.ts have to undergo are known only to themselves and to a few--very few--physicians.

=Masochism=