2. Subversion of Sex-relations.—There is nothing more vital to the growth, even to the very existence, of a nation than the sex-relations which it favours by its laws, customs, and preferences. Upon these depend the processes of natural selection by which the number and the power of future generations are decided through inflexible rules. If these relations, as established by the fixed natural laws of species-perpetuation, are traversed by ignorance or wilful disobedience, nothing can prevent the injury to the physical strength and mental ability of the offspring.
Such subversions of the sex-relations may be presented under five headings:
(a) Premature and delayed marriage. (b) Abnormal forms of marriage. (c) Abstention from marriage through various causes. (d) Licentiousness. Divorce. (e) Diminution of natality. Infertility.
(a) Premature and Delayed Marriage.—Mr. Galton, in one of his thoughtful works, remarks: “An enormous effect upon the average natural ability of a race may be produced by influences which retard the average age of marriage or hasten it.” He has illustrated this by abundant examples now through his many writings familiar to the public, his general thesis being that the wisest policy for a nation is to retard the age of marriage among the weak and to hasten it among the vigorous classes.
This is, of course, to be construed within physiological lines; premature relations of the sexes, too early marriages, are disastrous in every respect. Statistics of European armies show that there is a far higher mortality and much more sickness among the soldiers who have married young than among single men of the same age. Certain Australian and South American tribes force their female children of immature age into marital relations, and to this is due the rapid decrease of their numbers.
(b) Abnormal Forms of Marriage.—Among early Semitic tribes, and to-day in parts of Tibet and India, the custom prevails of “polyandry,” in which one woman is the wife of several husbands. This sometimes arose from female infanticide, sometimes, as in Tibet, where all the brothers of a family have one wife in common, in order to preserve undivided the family property.[[2]]
[2]. [An obvious gap in the manuscript occurs at this point, but one which in no way affects the general argument of the author.—Editor.]
(c) Abstention from Marriage.—Mr. Galton has pointed out with great force the injury worked by sacerdotal celibacy in the history of European civilisation. The commendation of the single life in man or woman as “the better part” has been by no means confined to certain sects of Christianity. Long before that religion started, this sacrifice was enjoined on the priests of Cybele, the virgins of Vesta, the Egyptian ministrants, and many other officials in Old World rites; while in the New World not only were there houses of “nuns” among the Quechuas of Peru and the Mayas of Yucatan, but the priests in those cults and even the “medicine men” of rude Northern tribes were frequently vowed to perpetual and absolute chastity.
In the struggle of modern life, and also in the greater facility for the pursuit of pleasure, of self-culture or devotion to some cherished pursuit, the unmarried person has an advantage, and hence it is noted that marriage is either long delayed or wholly avoided. The division of a community along narrow social, financial, or religious lines greatly aids this isolation by narrowing the selection of partners for life. War, emigration, and the love of adventure prompt the males to desert remote and quiet localities, leaving the females in the majority and imbuing the males with a distaste for domestic pursuits. During the Crusades there were considerable areas in Europe where there was only one man left to seven women.
Students of psychopathic conditions have pointed out another and apparently growing cause of indifference to marriage,—that sentiment called “homosexuality,” an inversion of the sexual instinct toward one’s own sex. This may be innocent in action and emotion, when it means merely the preference for friendship in the same gender and a congenital indifference to sexual feelings; or it may progress to any degree of monosexual devotion, such as classic tradition attributed to the characters of Sappho and Heliogabalus.