The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies — John Shaqi
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better BabiesHague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Science
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
Hague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage
In order to determine the best age at which to marry, we must be guided
by certain fixed standards. We must find out from statistics the average
age of the parents of the best babies. We must determine and analyse the
qualifications of what constitutes the "best" babies, according to the
eugenic ideal. We should give heed to the fixity of temperamental
characteristics in order to determine their adaptability to conditions
that prevail at certain ages. We should select an age in advance of the
period at which science has determined individuals to have outlived any
hereditary tendencies.
We have abundant proof that the best babies are born of parents between
the twenty-third and the twenty-sixth years. We know also that the age
which responds, with the fullest degree of plasticity, to temperamental
characteristics, is in the early twenties. We know, likewise, that
inherited tendencies may be said to have been outlived at or about the
twenty-second year. The ideal marrying age, therefore, is, for both male
and female, approximately the twenty-third year.
The physical, mental and moral development of both men and women, at
this period, evidence a high degree of adaptability, and are responsive
to the institution of marriage. Their hereditary traits, if any
previously existed, assume a dormant form at this age. They have
cultivated the temperamental qualities which they will retain, with few
modifications, throughout life. On the other hand, their dispositions
are responsive to reason, and are capable of readjustment. Their
temperamental characteristics are plastic, and under favorable
conditions it is possible for both to evidence a degree of sympathy and
toleration that bespeaks future harmony and success. No marriage can
result in mutual happiness and success if one of the participants is
temperamentally incapable of changing his or her convictions. One of the
fundamental essentials to peace in the home is the quality of adaptation
to circumstances, and no other virtue will be called into existence
oftener than this quality. At this age, a man is eager to contribute to
the contentment and happiness of his partner, even if it is necessary to
sacrifice his own whims and opinions, and a woman, at this period, is
temperamentally so constituted that she will respond to the same
impulses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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