This brief survey is enough to prove that the best educated young women
(and to a less extent young men) of the United States, who for many
reasons may be considered superior, are in many cases avoiding marriage
altogether, and in other cases postponing it longer than is desirable.
The women in the separate colleges of the East have the worst record in
this respect, but that of the women graduates of some of the
coeducational schools leaves much to be desired.
It is difficult to separate the causes which result in a postponement of
marriage, from those that result in a total avoidance of marriage. To a
large extent the causes are the same, and the result differs only in
degree. The effect of absolute celibacy of superior people, from a
eugenic point of view, is of course obvious to all, but the racial
effect of postponement of marriage, even for a few years, is not always
so clearly realized. The diagram in Fig. 36 may give a clearer
appreciation of this situation.
Francis Galton clearly perceived the importance of this point, and
attempted in several ways to arrive at a just idea of it. One of the
most striking of his investigations is based on Dr. Duncan's statistics
from a maternity hospital.
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