The eugenic interests of society, of course, are equally safeguarded by
either alternative. All the other interests of society appear to us to
be better safeguarded by marriage than by celibacy. Adding the interests
of the individual, which will doubtless be for marriage, it seems to us
that there is good reason for holding such a childless marriage
ethically correct, in the relatively small number of cases where it
might seem desirable.
Though such unions may be ethically justifiable, yet they would often be
impracticable; the limits will be discussed in the next chapter.
It is constantly alleged that the state can not interfere with an
individual matter of this sort: "It is an intolerable invasion of
personal liberty; it is reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard;
it is impossible to put artificial restraints on the relations between
the sexes, founded as they are on such strong and primal feelings."
The doctrine of personal liberty, in this extreme form, was enunciated
and is maintained by people who are ignorant of biology and
evolution;[79] people who are ignorant of the world as it is, and deal
only with the world as they think it ought to be. Nature reveals no such
extreme "law of personal liberty," and the race that tries to carry such
a supposed law to its logical conclusion will soon find, in the supreme
test of competition with other races, that the interests of the
individual are much less important to nature than the interests of the
race.
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