A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles

by Jane Hume Clapperton

This theory I hold to be one-sided, and the policy misleading and to some extent false. Mr. Galton ignores the fundamental principle of social life, viz., that the happiness of all, at all times, should be the aim and object of rational man, and he mistakes the quality of human nature in highly civilized man. To demand celibacy of men and women whose defective organisms it is not desirable to perpetuate, would be in hundreds and thousands of instances to sacrifice unnecessarily present happiness to future gain—to build up the comfort and enjoyment of coming generations at the expense of the comfort and enjoyment of our own generation. The sentiment of justice repudiates this action as well as condemns the reverse position of a reckless self-indulgent procreating to the deterioration of the human stock, whilst reason distinctly shows that individual liberty, in respect of marriage, is a social necessity perfectly compatible with the well-being of all. Physical regeneration of race will not be achieved by an overstrained morality that does violence to the emotional human nature of the normal and average man.

Mr. Galton’s system of social reform accords in some respects with that which it is the purpose of this work to set forth. Both systems premise teaching that it is man’s duty and within his power to improve the physical, intellectual and moral structure of his race. He may, in part, achieve this by intelligent forethought and careful action in exercising the function of propagating his kind. Population must not be kept up by consumptives or persons whose pedigree is tainted by any disease known to be hereditary, and public opinion must enforce the necessary restraints. (Temporary illness ought also to be considered. It is when parents are in their best state of health only that they are morally justified in bringing children into the world.)

Of these, celibacy is a restraint commended and advised by Mr. Galton, whilst scientific meliorism deliberately rejects it, for celibacy is a vital evil, destroying individual happiness and tending obviously to social disorder. Wherever love in its highest form exists between two individuals, union is eminently desirable; but if either or both be afflicted by disease or hereditary taint, the sacrifice demanded of them is to carefully abstain from giving birth to children. Whether the means adopted be those of natural self-control or of artificial aids to self-control will depend on the views of the individuals immediately concerned, and in this matter society has no right of interference.

It is the business, however, of society to sweep away ignorance and make it possible for the poor as well as the rich to enter on the right path voluntarily, and where, from physical or moral degeneracy, self-regulation is impossible, society must exercise authority and coercively restrain the vital social force of propagation. It will not be by means of the lonely lives celibacy entails that civilized men and women will refrain from having children disqualified for useful citizenship. We shall, to quote the late poet laureate’s words, “move upward, working out the beast, and let the ape and tiger die,” by other means more worthy of humanity, i.e. by socialized freedom and sex equality; by intelligent self-control voluntarily practised (with or without artificial appliance), and by control, enforced wherever necessary by the State in fulfilment of its responsible duty—the careful guardianship of the congenital blood of future generations.

In the savage epoch of our history, the force of natural selection produced survival of the fittest. From that epoch we have long since passed into a semi-civilized epoch in which the force of sympathetic selection produces a miserable state of indiscriminate survival; we have now to pass forward to the epoch in which the rational force of a wise, intelligent selection will systematically secure the birth of the physically fit.

CHAPTER IV
MARRIAGE

Marriage is that union of the sexes which is most in accordance with the moral and physical necessities of human beings and which harmonizes best with their other relations of life.—Richard Harte.

It is of vast importance to bear clearly in mind that all the great social institutions that confront us to-day are of genetic origin and evolution. They have not been devised by man to bring about the true end of all intelligent effort—namely, happiness. They are simply the undesigned, unforeseen results of various natural and social forces of the past. They survive through their tendency to maintain the existence of the race. They subserve life, not happiness. It is not my intention to treat marriage historically and trace back the various forms of it to their social origins. It is sufficient to bear in mind the fact of the natural, undevised origin of every form, including that form of monogamy which prevails in the most civilized countries of to-day. A priori, we should have expected that monogamy, being the ideal sex-union of the civilized races of Western Europe, would have been everywhere the last form to appear; that, in short, its fitness to survive all other forms would be shown by lateness of development as well as by superior qualifications for satisfying the needs of a highly developed humanity. This is not so, however. Mr. Herbert Spencer gives reasons for believing that monogamy dates as far back as any other marital relation. “Indeed, certain modes of life necessitating wide dispersion such as are pursued by the lowest forest tribes in Brazil and the interior of Borneo—modes of life which in earlier stages of human evolution must have been commoner than now—hinder other relations of the sexes.” (Sociology, vol. i. p. 698.) Two of the lowest tribes of savages existing, the Wood-Veddahs of Ceylon and the Bushmen of South Africa, are customarily monogamous. It is plain, therefore, that if monogamy is to be reckoned the final form of sexual relations, no argument can be based on any theory of its recent date in evolution. The opinion must seek to rest upon different ground—upon the quality of the institution, its fitness and adequateness, not only to human needs in the present system of society, but in the reformed system of the future.

While a number of primitive tribes are monogamous, as also are certain monkeys and birds, many civilized peoples have adopted polygamy, sometimes openly, at other times in a masked form. Polyandry is also a form of marriage not uncommon among semi-civilized peoples, as the Nairs of Malabar, the Kandyans of Ceylon and the Tibetans.

The Nairs are especially interesting because there is among them a regulated system of complex marriage which will compare in its results very favourably with the monogamous marriage of Western nations. The rule of the Matriarchate prevails, “inheritance is from mother to daughter and from the uncle to the children of the eldest sister; the household is directed by the mother or the eldest girl; polyandry and polygamy exist side by side or are inextricably mixed. Thus each woman is the wife of several men, each of whom has in turn several wives.” (Elisee Reclus, Primitive Folk, p. 162.) The men are under well-understood obligations to assist in the support of the domestic establishments, while the children look up to their mothers and uncles as their special protectors. The result of these customs on the status of women is most remarkable. It is said that “in no country are women more influential and respected than in Malabar.” (Ibid. p. 156.) The Nair lady may possess property, choose her own husbands and rule her own children. Marriage is not, as elsewhere, the taking possession of a woman by the man, but is really her emancipation from male thraldom. It puts her as nearly on a footing of social equality with the man as is possible in a semi-militant community. What is it that has decided the selection or unconscious choice—if we may call it so—of matrimonial usage among the various races of mankind, since no special form is necessarily connected with the degree of general civilization? The conditions and exigencies of social life; and as those conditions and exigencies change in the future, matrimonial usages will also change. As a matter of fact, every possible method, speaking generally, has been adopted. Sometimes a regulated promiscuity—for each man claimed his rights—sometimes the mixed polyandric and polygamic household; occasionally simple polyandry or polygamy; at other times monogamy; marriage experimental also, as with the Redskins of Canada, who pair and unite for a few days, then quit each other if the trial has not proved satisfactory to both parties; or temporary marriage as in the case of the Jews in Morocco, who unite for three or six months according to agreement; or free marriages as those of the Hottentots and Abyssinians, who marry, part, and remarry at will; or partial, as the marriages of the Assanyeh Arabs, which only bind the parties for certain days of the week. Every possible general method, I repeat, has been tried, and when the practice hit upon has served human needs and also promoted the solidarity and increase of the group, it has tended to persist.