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Show THE MARRIAGE OF NEAR KIN. j An English author, Alfred Hom y j Huth, has just published a work in which is considered the question of the marriage of near kin, with reference refer-ence to Lhc laws of nations, tho results ot experience and the teachings of biology. bi-ology. Wo find in the last Westminster Westmin-ster Review an article devoted to the subject, in which the writer is endorsed en-dorsed as familiar with tho topic to the btudy which he has devoted much time. He has investigated the question ques-tion of consanguinous marriages in the most poetical manner poisiuie, uy observations of the results of Buch unions upon communities which have lor long periods interbred among themselves. Tho belief that interbreeding inter-breeding is contrary to souud physi-logical physi-logical principles and to the laws of nature has prevailed for ages and has1 been sustained mainly by religious influences and churchly authority. Incestuous marriages having been practiced in many countries and for lng periods, having been followed up with the view of keeping families free from the contamination of the blood of other families, not only disproves the mivcrsality of the horror of sucn unions, which was said lo exist, but it affords a strong presumption that no evil results, in so far as the 00-spring 00-spring were concerned, were tho direct di-rect consequence of theso unions. Another objection to these marriages mar-riages has been that they were for tho most part barren; that when children were barn to them, they were generally so weak that they either died in childhood, or, if they lived to mature years, they were frequently either physically deformed or mentally defective. Mr. Huth shows, however, that tho statistics do not make out a single case against cousin marriages. In no case has any one oi me uisenses mosi ire-quently ire-quently referred to close marriages been conclusively traced to that circumstance cir-cumstance as a cause. Says Mr. Huth : Not one of the many reasons rea-sons which have been advanced why marriages between near kin should be prohibited by the state can stand inquiry. The Review, however, thinks that the marriages of persons nearer of kin, such as brothers and sisters, lathers and daughters, mothers and sons, ought, both upon physiological grounds and upon grounds of social expediency, to be discouraged. We havo given some prominence to this idea for the purpose of showing show-ing how possible it is to find an array (of facts and circumstances to dispute any theory, however apparently well established, and also to note the temerity of the scientific tendencies of the age, which take nothing for granted Bimp'y on account of its array of high authorities or the antiquity an-tiquity of its acceptance. These circumstances, cir-cumstances, in fact, have come to be regarded as warranting suspicions of the scientific truth of almost any theory, which the modern scientist must work out for himself by methods unknown to the ancient world, and untrammelcd by the mysticisms of supernatural ism. In the light of evolutionary science there is very little of ancient knowledge that does not bid fair to undergo revision, much of it to be cost among the rubbish of the past. Whether this materialistic tendency will become a permanent feature of the world's progress, or whether it in its turn will be cast aside, we have no means of deciding. |
