Fifty years hence: or, What may be in 1943: A prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical methodGrimshaw, Robert
Science
Fifty years hence: or, What may be in 1943: A prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method
Grimshaw, Robert
Twentieth century -- Forecasts; Utopias
“As a simple instance, this chart is devoted to the Sacredness of
the Marriage Relation, from the year one of the Christian era to the
present day. The portions to the left indicate early periods, those in
the centre, present time; those at the right, time to come; each decade
being represented by one-half inch of length of the chart. The various
strips are devoted to different geographical divisions; that given to
our own country being sub-divided into strips corresponding to its
various States and Territories. The depth of red tint shows the degree
of respect or disrespect for woman; blue tints correspond to enactments
rendering marriage more sacred, divorce more difficult, the rights of
women more general and acknowledged. Thus we see in this blood-red
quarter to the left, an indication of promiscuity in the sexual
relation. The lighter red stands for polyandry, or that state in which
the woman has several husbands, living peacefully together. This is due
to a scarcity of women, owing to the female infants being exposed at
birth or sold as slaves.
“Note that in Great Britain, in the time of Julius Caesar, this
form prevailed; and that it continues up to the present day in the
Neilgherry Hills, India, and with the Herero tribe of South Africa. It
appears in greatest perfection in some tribes of Thibet, where all the
brothers of a family have but one wife in common.
“Here among the Eskimos, Aleutians, and Kolushes of the north and
northwest coasts of America, we have still a marked red stripe, due to
the fact that among these tribes a married woman is the wife of all the
married men of the tribe, and each married man is the husband of all
the married women--which does not, however, prevent the distinctions
between the married and unmarried being rigidly observed.
“This state is followed by polygamy, indicated by a lighter shade of
red, and which accounts for this local patch in the Utah strip, nearly
down to 1890.
“Monogamy is rare among the ruder races, but this strip of paler red in
Ceylon is to represent the Veddahs, where each male takes but one wife,
and is true to her alone until separated by death.
“Almost simultaneously with the fading in the red tint, which fading
represents increasing respect for women, we have a deepening of the
blue tint lines which stand for ecclesiastical and legal protection
of the marriage relation and of the rights of woman. Thus we see the
chart changing from deep red to reddish purple, from this through
purple to bluish purple; and the future shows deep blue as indicating
the absolute recognition, formal and social, of all woman’s claims to
honor, protection, and property. See now, from the year 400 A. D. on to
the right, a sudden deepening of the blue, indicating the canonical law
pronouncing a marriage indissoluble--as is still the law in the Roman
Catholic Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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