Consanguineous Marriages in the American PopulationArner, George B. Louis (George Byron Louis)
Science
Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population
Arner, George B. Louis (George Byron Louis)
Consanguinity -- United States
Mr. Dugdale makes the following "tentative inductions." 1. Boys
preponderate in the illegitimate lines. 2. Girls preponderate in the
intermarried branches. 3. Lines of intermarriage between Jukes show a
minimum of crime. 4. Pauperism preponderates in the consanguineous
lines. 5. In the main, crime begins in progeny where Juke blood
crosses X blood. (Anyone not descended from a Juke, is of "X blood").
6. The illegitimate lines have chiefly married into X.[56] The third
and fourth inductions might indicate that a lowered vitality of the
consanguineous lines changed a tendency toward crime into the less
strenuous channel of pauperism, but I cannot find in Mr. Dugdale's
charts any sufficient basis for the induction. It is true that the
most distinctively pauper line is consanguineous, but it is less
closely inbred than the "semi-successful" branch. As to the fifth
induction, a close examination of the data shows clearly that in
nearly every case where an X marriage occurred, it was with a person
of a distinctly immoral or criminal type. Cousin marriage has also
been frequent in the middle western counterpart of the Jukes, the
"Tribe of Ishmael."[57]
[Footnote 56: Dugdale, op. cit., p. 16.]
[Footnote 57: McCulloch, _Tribe of Ishmael_.]
A more recent study of hereditary degeneracy is that of the "Zero
Family" in Switzerland.[58] Here the first degenerate was the product
of two successive consanguineous marriages, both with a branch tainted
_with insanity_. In spite of his bad ancestry he lived to the age of
106 years. He married an Italian woman of questionable antecedents,
and was the father of a large family. Three hundred and ten of his
descendants are mentioned, of whom many are still young. Of these 310,
74 died in early childhood, 55 are or were vagabonds, 58 were
weak-minded or idiotic and 23 were criminals. Fifty-two were of
illegitimate birth. Although some are counted in more than one
category, the record is appalling. In this family however, the
marriages were nearly all with foreign women, and the effect of
consanguinity was only the intensification of the neurosis in the
first two generations.
[Footnote 58: Joerger, "Die Familie Zero." Reviewed by Gertrude C.
Davenport, in the _American Journal of Sociology_, Nov., 1907.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account