Secret Sins of Society

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881. Excerpt: ... The purity of such a devotion might prompt a disregard for self, or the claims of society, but not the demands of posterity; they are imperative. No person has a moral right to marry another strongly predisposed to consumption. The same is true where there is a marked scrofulous diathesis. The subject of consanguineous marriages has received much attention, and has been thoroughly discussed, from a physical stand-point. There can be no doubt but the evils so frequently mentioned comes from the intensification of any existing tendency to a particular disease, on the part of the parents. Mantegazza places the dangers from these marriages in the following order of frequency: Epilepsy, idiocy, deaf-mutism, paralysis, incomplete development of the intellectual faculties, susceptibility to moral suffering, scrofulous and tuberculous diseases, diminished power of resistance to disease, feebleness in the affairs of life, etc. We admit that where there is a strong predisposition to these conditions, it is more liable to be intensified by a marriage with the same blood. But this is equally true of marriage among strangers, where there are defects in the constitutions of both parties. According to Mantegazza, the probability of these defects in the offspring is increased with the degree of nearness of maternal relationship, in the following order: Marriage between children of sisters; between the children of brother and sister; between the children of brothers. This seems very nice in theory, but it lacks confirmation. There is no more reason to fear evil results from marriage between cousins, than between strangers, provided both parties are robust and healthy. We believe the fears heretofore expressed are groundless. In England, during the ninth century, every des...