Part 7 (1/2)
Time to Marry.--Physiology fixes with accuracy the earliest period at which marriage is admissible. This period is that at which the body attains complete development, which is not before twenty in the female, and twenty-four in the male. Even though the growth may be completed before these ages, ossification of the bones is not fully effected, so that development is incomplete.
Among most modern nations, the civil laws fixing the earliest date of marriage seem to have been made without any reference to physiology, or with the mistaken notion that p.u.b.erty and nubility are identical.
It is interesting to note the different ages established by different nations for the entrance of the married state. The degenerating Romans fixed the ages of legal marriage at thirteen for females, and fifteen for males. The Grecian legislator, Lycurgus, placed the ages at seventeen for the female, and thirty-seven for the male. Plato fixed the ages at twenty and thirty years. In Prussia, the respective ages are fifteen and nineteen; in Austria, sixteen and twenty; in France, sixteen and eighteen, respectively.
Says Mayer, ”In general, it may be established that the normal epoch for marriage is the twentieth year for women, and the twenty-fourth for men.”
Application of the Law of Heredity.--A moment's consideration of the physiology of heredity will disclose a sufficient reason why marriage should be deferred until the development of the body is wholly complete.
The matrimonial relation implies reproduction. Reproduction is effected through the union of the ovum with the zoosperm. These elements, as we have already seen, are complete representatives of the individuals producing them, being composed--as supposed--of minute gemmules which are destined to be developed into cells and organs in the new being, each preserving its resemblance to the cell within the parent which produced it. The perfection of the new being, then, must be largely dependent on the integrity and perfection of the s.e.xual elements. If the body is still incomplete, the reproductive elements must also be incomplete; and, in consequence, the progeny must be equally immature.
Early Marriage.--The preceding paragraph contains a sufficient reason for condemning early marriage; that is, marriage before the ages mentioned. It is probable that even the ages of twenty and twenty-four are too early for those persons whose development is uncommonly slow.
But there are other cogent reasons for discountenancing early marriages, also drawn from the physiology of reproduction, to say nothing of the many reasons which might be urged on other grounds.
1. During the development of the body, all its energies are required in perfecting the various tissues and organs. There is no material to be spared for any foreign purpose.
2. The reproductive act is the most exhaustive of all vital acts. Its effect upon an undeveloped person is to r.e.t.a.r.d growth, weaken the const.i.tution, and dwarf the intellect.
3. The effects upon the female are even worse than those upon the male; for, in addition to the exhaustion of nervous energy, she is compelled to endure the burdens and pains of child-bearing when utterly unprepared for such a task, to say nothing of her unfitness for the other duties of a mother. With so many girl-mothers in the land, is it any wonder that there are so many thousands of unfortunate individuals who never seem to get beyond childhood in their development? Many a man at forty years is as childish in mind, and as immature in judgment, as a well-developed lad of eighteen would be.
They are like withered fruit plucked before it was ripe; they can never become like the mellow and luscious fruit allowed to mature properly.
They are unalterably molded; and the saddest fact of all is that they will give to their children the same imperfections; and the children will transmit them to another generation, and so the evil will go on increasing, unless checked by extinction.
Mutual Adaptation.--Another question of very great importance is that of the mutual adaptation of the individuals. To this question we can devote but a very brief consideration, and that will be more of the nature of criticism than of a set of formal rules for governing matrimonial alliances.
A writer of some note, whose work on this and kindred subjects has had quite an extensive circulation, advocates with great emphasis the theory that parties contemplating marriage should in all cases select for partners individuals as nearly like themselves as possible. Exact duplicates would, in his opinion, make the most perfect union attainable. To make his theory practicable, he is obliged to fall back upon phrenology; and directs that a man seeking a wife, or a woman seeking a husband, should obtain a phrenological chart of his head and then send it around until a counterpart is found. If the circle of one's acquaintance is so fortunate as to contain no one cursed with the same propensities or idiosyncrasies as himself, the newspapers are to be brought into requisition as a medium of advertising.
If so strange a doctrine as this were advocated by an obscure individual in some secluded hamlet, or found only in the musty volumes of some forgotten author, it surely would be unworthy of notice; but coming as it does from a quite popular writer, and being coupled with a great amount of really valuable truth, it is sufficiently important to deserve refutation. A brief glance at the practical working of the theory will be a sufficient exposure of its falsity.
According to this rule, a man or woman of large combativeness should select a partner equally inclined to antagonism; then we should have--what? the elements of a happy, contented, harmonious life? No; instead, either a speedy lawsuit for divorce, or a continual domestic broil, the nearest approach to a mundane purgatory possible. The selfish, close-fisted, miserly money-catcher must marry a woman equally sordid and stingy. Then together they could h.o.a.rd up, for moths and rust to destroy, or for interested relatives to quarrel over, the pictorial greenback and the glittering dollar, each scrimping the other down to the finest point above starvation and freezing, and finally dying, to be forgotten as soon as dead by their fellow-men, and sent among the goats at the great a.s.sizes. A s.h.i.+ftless spendthrift must choose for a helpmeet (?) an equally slovenly, thriftless wife. A man with a crotchet should select a partner with the same morbid fancy.
A man whose whole mental composition gravitates behind his ears, must find a mate with the same animal disposition. An individual whose mental organization is sadly unbalanced, is advised to seek for a wife a woman with the same deficiencies and abnormalities.
Any one can see at a glance the domestic disasters which such a plan of proceeding would entail. Men and women of unbalanced temperaments would become more unbalanced. An individual of erroneous tendencies, instead of having the constant check of the example and admonitions of a mate of opposite tendencies, would be, by constant example, hastened onward in his sinful ways. Thus, to all but a very small proportion of humanity, the married state would be one of infelicity and degeneration.
And what would be the progeny of such unions? The peculiarities and propensities of the parents, instead of being modified and perhaps obliterated in the children by corresponding differences in character, would be doubly exaggerated. The children of selfish parents would be thieves; those of spendthrifts, beggars; those of crotchety parents, monomaniacs; those born of sensual parents, beastly debauchees. A few generations of such a degenerating process would either exterminate the race or drive it back to Darwin's ancestral ape.
It must not be inferred, from our strictures upon the theory mentioned, that we would advocate the opposite course, that is, the contraction of marriage by individuals of wholly dissimilar tastes, aims, and temperaments. Such alliances would doubtless be quite as wretched in their results as those of an opposite character. It is with this as with nearly all other subjects; the true course lies between the two extremes. Parties who are negotiating a life partners.h.i.+p should be careful to a.s.sure themselves that there exists a sufficient degree of congeniality of temperament to make such close and continued a.s.sociation agreeable.
Disparity of Age.--Both nature and custom seem to indicate that the husband should be a little older than the wife. Several reasons might be given for this; but we need not mention them. When, however, the difference of ages reaches such an extreme as thirty, forty, even fifty or more years, nature is abused, good taste is offended, and even morality is shocked. Such ill-sorted alliances are disastrous to both parties, and scarcely more to one than the other. An old man who forms a union with a young girl scarce out of her teens--or even younger--can scarcely have any very elevated motive for his action, and he certainly exposes himself to the greatest risk of sudden death, while insuring his premature decay. A king once characterized such a course as ”the pleasantest form of suicide.” It is doubtless suicidal, but we suspect there are some phases of such an unnatural union which are not very enjoyable.
One reason of the great danger of such marriages to the old is the exhaustive effects of the s.e.xual act. As previously noted, in some animals it causes immediate death. Dr. Acton makes the following pertinent remarks:--
”So serious, indeed, is the paroxysm of the nervous system produced by the s.e.xual spasm, that its immediate effect is not always unattended with danger, and men with weak hearts have died in the act. Every now and then we learn that men are found dead on the night of their wedding.”
”However exceptional these cases are, they are warnings, and should serve to show that an act which _may_ destroy the weak should not be tampered with, even by the strong.”
”There are old men who marry young wives, and who pay the penalty by becoming martyrs to paralysis, softening of the brain, and driveling idiocy.”
Dr. Gardner quotes the Abbe Maury, as follows: ”I hold as certain that after fifty years of age a man of sense ought to renounce the pleasures of love. Each time that he allows himself this gratification is _a pellet of earth thrown upon his coffin_.”
Dr. Gardner further says: ”Alliances of this sort have taken place in every epoch of humanity, from the time of the patriarchs to the present day,--alliances repugnant to nature,--between men bordering on decrepitude and poor young girls, who are sacrificed by their parents for position, or who sell themselves for gold. There is in these monstrous alliances something which we know not how to brand sufficiently energetically, in considering the reciprocal relations of the pair thus wrongfully united, and the lot of the children which may result from them. Let us admit, for an instant, that the marriage has been concluded with the full consent of the young girl, and that no external pressure has been exerted upon her will--as is generally the rule--it will none the less happen that reflection and experience will tardily bring regrets, and the sharper as the evil will be without remedy; but if compulsion, or what is often the same thing, _persuasion_, had been employed to obtain the consent which the law demands, the result would have been more prompt and vehement. From this moment the common life becomes odious to the unhappy victim, and _culpable hopes_ will arise in her desolate heart, so heavy is the chain she carries.
In fact, the love of the old man becomes ridiculous and horrid to her, and we cannot sufficiently sympathize with the unfortunate person whose duty [?] it is to submit to it. If we think of it an instant, we shall perceive a repulsion, such as is only inspired by the idea of incest....
So what do we oftenest observe? Either the woman violently breaks the cursed bands, or she resigns herself to them; and then she seeks to fill up the void in her soul by adulterous amours. Such is the somber perspective of the sacrilegious unions which set at defiance the most respectable instincts, the most n.o.ble desires, and the most legitimate hopes. Such, too, are the terrible chastis.e.m.e.nts reserved for the thoughtlessness or foolish pride of these dissolute gray-beards, who prodigalize the last breath of their life in search of depraved voluptuousness.”