Very unfavourable to the offspring is the atrophy of the female breasts,
and the consequent incapacity for lactation, a matter to which Mensinga,
G. von Bunge, G. Hirth, Emil Abderhalden, A. Hegar, (*) and others, have
referred, and which exercises a very unfavourable influence upon the
offspring, since natural lactation cannot be adequately replaced by
artificial feeding.
(*) Mensinga, "Incapacity for Lactation, and its Cure" (Berlin and
Neuwied, 1888). - G. von Bunge, "The Increasing Incapacity of Women
to Suckle their Children " (Munich, 1903) - G. Hirth, "The Maternal
Breast: its Indispensability and its Education for the Restoration of its
Primitive Forces," published in "Ways to Love," pp. 1-57 - Emil
Abderhalden, "The Question of the Incapacity of Mothers to Suckle
their Children," published in Medizinische Klinik, 1906, No. 45. -
A. Hegar, "Atrophy of the Mammary Glands and the Incapacity for
Lactation," published in the Archives for Racial and Social Hygiene,
1905. vol. ii pp. 830-844.
According to Bunge, alcoholism, tuberculosis,
syphilis, and mental disorders of the ancestry are the principal causes of
atrophy of the mammary glands. Whether atrophy of the mammary glands is
really on the increase, and whether it is hereditary, are matters
demanding, as Abderhalden insists, more careful critical investigation.
Marriage at an age too youthful (below twenty on the part of the woman)
below twenty-four on the part of the man) and at too advanced an age (above
forty on the part of the woman, above fifty on the part of the man) is also
disadvantageous to
[p.716]
the offspring, as manifested by higher mortality of the infants, by the
more frequent occurrence of malformations, idiocy, rickets, etc. Equally
disadvantageous is too close relationship by blood, 1 since in this way any
unfavourable tendencies are greatly strengthened. Upon a certain degree of
inbreeding, or, rather, upon an approximation to inbreeding, depends the
formation of every race. The "racial problem" in this sense is a kind of
exaltation of the inbreeding principle, for the very idea of race implies a
more or less close relationship between all the members of a definite
stock. Thus the entire absence of fresh blood does not necessarily give
rise to any degeneration; but it is certain that long-continued close
in-and-in breeding on the part of near blood-relatives in the same family
results in a progressive tendency to degeneration, because, among those who
unite in marriage, the same morbid tendencies are present, and accumulate
in consequence of the inbreeding. This is shown very clearly by some
statistics collected by Morris (published by
Gruber, op. cit., p. 32).
Marriage between uncle and niece, or between aunt and nephew, and the,
unfortunately, far too frequent marriages between first cousins, are
therefore to be condemned.
The greatest value is to be placed, in
love's choice, upon intellectual
qualities. Intelligent persons, and those full of character, are to be
preferred. Precisely in relation to the breeding of talents, Nietzsche
recommended ("Posthumous Works," vol. xii., p. 188 ; Leipzig, 1901)
polygamy for men or women of predominant intellectual capacity, so that
they might have the opportunity of reproducing their kind in intercourse
with several persons of the opposite sex, and in this way, since the later
children of the same women are not so powerful nor of such striking
capacity as the first-born, they might have the possibility of being the
parents of several talented and distinguished individuals. In relation to
the woman's question, the breeding of women well endowed with talent is a
matter of especial interest. Charles Darwin2 writes :
" In order that woman should reach the same standard as man, she ought,
when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perseverance, and to have
her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point; then she would
probably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult daughters. All
women, however, could not be thus raised,
[p.717] unless during many
generations those who excelled in the above robust virtues were married,
and produced offspring in larger numbers than other women."
1 Cf. F. Kraus, " Blood-Relationship in Marriage and its Consequences to
the Offspring," published in Senator-Kaminer, " Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage and the Married State," p 79 (London, Rebman Limited,
1906).
2 Charles Darwin, " The Descent of Man," vol. ii., pp. 354, 355 (London,
1898).
In a valuable work W. Schallmayer1 has recently discussed the great
importance of the offspring of talented persons in the improvement of the
race, and has considered the details of psychical inheritance.
As in the entire animal world, so also in the human race, the feminine
nature has a more conservative character, one more disinclined to
variations, whether favourable or unfavourable, as contrasted with the more
variable nature of the male, which is also more prone to submit to
degenerative influences. For this reason, in declining races, we meet many
more women free from degeneration than men. Carl Vogt, in a passage which
appears to be very little known, writes on this subject in the following
terms :2
"
"It is the women, my friend, who maintain the race, who for the longest
time safeguard the type of the people in body and spirit, and for this
reason they form the mirror at once of the future and of the past which are
allotted to that people. You will no doubt have noticed how, in many races,
there exists a disharmony between men and women, so that in one race the
male and in another the female stands behind the other in physical beauty
and in mental development. This relationship between the two sexes is
precisely that from which we are able to learn the past and the future of
the nation. Good and bad, advance and retrogression, are first undertaken
by the man, and by him passed to the woman, whose conservative nature much
more gradually yields to strange influences. But since the stages of mental
culture through which a race passes are not only reflected in its bodily
development, but actually depend upon this development, it is easy to
understand that in a nature which is striving upwards, which we see in the
process of advance towards better things, the men possess the advantage in
the matter of beauty and of intellectual capacity; whereas when the race is
a declining one, the advantages in these respects will lie with woman. If
you find a race in which the women are beautiful, but as a rule the men are
ugly and badly formed, you can with certainty conclude that this race has
long since passed its culminating point in development, and has long been
undergoing a process of decline."
1 W. Schallmayer, " The Sociological Importance of the Offspring of
Talented Persons, and Psychical Inheritance," published in the Archives of
Racial and Social Biology, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 38-75. Cf. also S. R.
Steinmetz, " The Offspring of Talented Persons," published in the
Zeitschrift fur Sozialwissenschaft, 1904, No. 1.
2 Carl Vogt, " The Ocean and the Mediterranean : Letters of Travel," vol.
ii., PP- 203, 204 (Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1848).
For racial biology it is at least equally important, if not even more
important, that healthy, vigorous, and talented men
[p.718]
should reproduce their kind, rather than that in love's choice the
corresponding qualities in women should be regarded as determinative.
Racial biology, if it really wishes to obtain success in the breeding of
humanity, is compelled to demand the abolition of the present evil coercive
marriage morality, and, according to the suggestions of Nietzsche, von
Ehrenfels, and others, will not hesitate, in certain cases, to regard
polygamy as desirable, if only from this standpoint - that coercive
marriage is the sole cause of the domination of " mammonism " in the sexual
life; to the deleterious influence of which we have before alluded.1
Mammonism is dangerous if for this alone, because it involves the
annihilation of the sense of sexual responsibility, and in consequence of
this, natural love is rejected on one side, and all considerations of a
racial hygienic nature are cast away on the other. The lack of both is the
cause of degeneration.
1 Alexander von Humboldt (" Journey in Tropical Regions," vol. ii., p. 17)
remarks that in Europe a greatly deformed or hideous girl, if only she
possesses property, can marry, and that the children frequently inherit the
malformations of the mother; whereas among savage races there exists a
natural disinclination to such marriages - a disinclination which money is
not able to overcome.
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