In extreme cases, it would be
proper for society to take adequate steps to insure that the dysgenic
party could neither remarry nor have offspring outside marriage. The
time-honored justifiable grounds for divorce,--adultery, sterility,
impotence, venereal infection, desertion, non-support, habitual
cruelty,--appear to us to be no more worthy of legal recognition
than the more purely dysgenic grounds of chronic inebriety,
feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, insanity or any other serious inheritable
physical, mental or moral defect.
This view of the eugenic value of divorce should not be construed as a
plea for the admission of mutual consent as a ground for divorce. It is
desirable, however, to realize that mismating is the real evil. Divorce
in such cases is merely a cure for an improper condition. Social
condemnation should stigmatize the wrong of mismating, not the undoing
of such a wrong.
Restrictions on age at marriage are almost universal. The object is to
prevent too early marriages. The objections which are commonly urged
against early marriage (in so far as they bear upon eugenics) are the
following:
1. That it results in inferior offspring. This objection is not well
supported except possibly in the most extreme cases.
Pages:
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338