sect, the members of which, owing to their desire for freedom from sin,
were called Perfectionists. Holiness was the first principle of their
creed, and Noyes thought to transmit that condition from one generation
to another by a process of stirpiculture. To overcome the "selfishness"
of monogamic marriage he devised a "system of regulated promiscuity,
beginning at earliest puberty, and by a method of his own invention he
separated the amative from the propagative functions." Its first
principle was that of a judicious in and in breeding, with occasional
mingling of foreign blood, as in stock-raising. The second principle
adopted was that of "careful selection of individuals for breeding
purposes. Genealogies were studied and medical histories compiled." A
committee, headed by Noyes, selected the holiest members who were free
from physical defects, intellectual and other considerations being given
less weight at first, although in later years they received more
consideration. The parents were of all ages, but the father was always
older than the mother. Some sympathy between the persons mated was
always required; and if a proposition for union came from two
individuals it was allowed if no objections were found. Noyes held that
uncle and niece are as much related as father and daughter, because
brothers have identical blood, and that cousins are in the same relation
to each other as half brothers. In the Oneida Community uncles and
nieces twice paired, and it is noticeable that a considerable proportion
of the children had Noyes' blood on one or both sides. The founder
himself had nine children in the Community, to which belonged also his
brother, his two sisters and their children. As to the care of the
children, this belonged exclusively to the mothers for the first nine
months, after which for a further nine months they took charge of their
offspring at night only. When eighteen months old, the children were
transferred to a separate department which was managed by those who had
shown themselves specially fitted for the work.
Let us see what was the result of Noyes' experiment. Of the sixty[39:A]
children born, five died at or near childbirth from unforeseen causes
depending upon the mother. All the others were alive at the date of Mrs.
McGee's communication, except a boy who was reared in spite of weakness,
and died from a trifling malady when about sixteen years of age. All the
children were strong and healthy, the boys being tall--several over six
feet--broad-shouldered and finely proportioned; the girls robust and
well-built. It is remarkable, that among the children between five and
nine years of age, thirteen were boys and six only were girls. With
reference to their intellectual ability, it is stated by Mrs. McGee
that, of the oldest sixteen boys, ten were in business, chiefly employed
as clerks, foremen, etc., in the manufactories of the joint stock
company. The eleventh was a musician of repute; another a medical
student; one passed through college and studied law; one was a college
senior, and one entered college after winning State and local
scholarships, and gave great mathematical promise. The sixteenth boy was
a mechanic, and the only one employed in manual labor. Of the six girls
between eighteen and twenty-two years, three are said by Mrs. McGee to
be especially intellectual. The mothers of these children usually
belonged to the classes employed in manual labor, while the fathers,
with the exception of the Noyes family and half a dozen lawyers, doctors
and clergymen, were all farmers and mechanics. It is noteworthy that, as
a rule, the fathers were the intellectual superiors of their mates, "and
enquiry develops the fact, known in the Community, that in these cases
the children are markedly superior to the maternal stock."
When this system of complex marriage had been in operation twenty years,
the desire to return to the old system of monogamy arose, and it became
so strong in the Community that its founder retired from it, and on
August 26, 1879, complex marriage was renounced, although nominally "in
deference to public sentiment." Twenty-five couples who had been married
before entering the Community again became husband and wife, and twenty
marriages between other individuals took place within four months after
the abandonment of the stirpicultural experiment. There were then in the
Community two hundred and sixteen adults and eighty-three children under
twenty years of age.
So far as the real object which the founder of the Oneida Community had
in view in his marriage system, it was undoubtedly a failure, as of the
offspring, in spite of their early doctrinal training, only a very few
are church members, and but one is a Perfectionist. This is the son of
an uncle and a niece, both of Noyes' blood. From a physical and
intellectual standpoint the experiment would seem to have given promise
of success, but it continued too short a time to be of much scientific
value. The result may be stated in the words of Mrs. McGee, who says
that the complete failure to perpetuate the church through stirpiculture
"would seem to indicate that, while our race would doubtless be greatly
benefited by more attention to laws of breeding, yet to attempt
promulgation of a belief by this means alone is only to court defeat. In
spite of the energy and magnetism of so remarkable a man as Noyes, in
spite of his long-continued efforts, and just when success seemed within
his grasp, his one misjudgment of human nature bore fruit, the neglected
instinct of monogamy arose in its might and crushed to nothing the whole
structure, and he, the builder, went last of all. With the close of his
life, April 13, 1886, ended a unique and interesting history."
INTERMARRIAGE.--We have seen that the founder of the Oneida Community
permitted the intermarriage of uncle and niece, although he considered
them related as nearly as father and daughter. This question of the
intermarriage of near blood relations is an important one in its bearing
on the question of stirpiculture, and as already mentioned, it has
engaged the attention of nearly all the lower races of mankind. It has,
indeed, been provided against by the marriage restrictions of most
uncultured peoples, and their systems of relationship clearly point out
what persons are within the permitted limits of marriage. It appears to
be the general rule that the children of two brothers or of two sisters,
whether own or tribal, cannot intermarry, but that the children of a
brother and those of a sister may be thus united, although sometimes
this is not allowed where own brother and sister are concerned.[42:A]
The question of the effect on offspring of consanguineous marriages was
some time ago particularly enquired into by Mr. A. H. Huth, who, after a
consideration of all the information available, came, in his work, "The
Marriage of Near Kin," to the following conclusions:
"1--That any deterioration through the marriage of near kin, _per se_,
even if there be such a thing in the lower animals, is impossible in
man, owing to the slow propagation of the species.
"2--That any deterioration through the chance accumulation of an
idiosyncrasy, though more likely to occur in families where the marriage
of blood relations was habitual, practically does not occur oftener than
in other marriages, or it would be more easily demonstrated.
"3--That, seeing the doubt, to say the least of it, which exists
concerning the effect for harm of marriages between near kin, and on the
other hand the certainty that whenever and wherever marriage is impeded
a direct and proportionate impulse is given to the practice of
immorality, it is advisable not to extend the prohibition against
marriage beyond the third collateral degree, and to permit all marriages
of affinity excepting those in the direct ascending or descending line."
There appears to be no doubt that what are regarded among Christian
peoples as incestuous marriages are not desirable. How far marriage
unions between first cousins are advisable depends, as appears from Mr.
Huth's remarks, on considerations which affect the question generally.
If there are any serious physical, intellectual or moral defects on
either side, no marriage should take place.
WOMAN'S SELECTIVE ACTION.--Apart from the question of consanguinity, the
principles which should govern all marriages is that of sexual
selection, which should have reference, however, not merely to physical
characters, but also to mental and moral characteristics. In applying
this principle, it must be remembered that while man, like the male of
all animals, does the courting, woman, like all females, makes the
selection; at least this is the general rule among the most cultured
peoples. Thus it is evident that woman possesses the power of largely
influencing the improvement of the human race, and in this fact we may
see the possibility of this being effected by the operation of general
social causes, without having recourse to individual experiments, such
as that undertaken by Noyes, which are necessarily limited in their
action, and may, after all, have like practical result. _If all women
could be induced to combine for that end they could probably bring about
the desired improvement by their own efforts._
On this subject the well-known naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, has some
judicious remarks in an article on "Human Progress, Past and Future," in
_The Arena_ for January, 1892. Mr. Wallace, who accepts the views of
Weismann as to the non-inheritance of acquired characters, thinks that
the physical and moral evils and degradation attendant on the conditions
of modern city life will have no permanent effects, when a more rational
and elevating system of social organization is brought about. The most
important agency in this social regeneration will be the selective
action of woman, under the influence of her newly acquired freedom and
higher education. Says Mr. Wallace: "When such social changes have been
effected that no woman will be compelled, either by hunger, isolation or
social compulsion, to sell herself, whether in or out of wedlock, and
when all women alike shall feel the refining influence of a true
harmonizing education, of beautiful and elevating surroundings, and of a
public opinion which shall be founded on the highest aspirations of
their age and country, the result will be a form of human selection
which will bring about a continuous advance in the average status of the
race. Under such conditions, all who are deformed either in body or
mind, though they may be able to lead happy and contented lives, will,
as a rule, leave no children to inherit their deformity. Even now we
find many women who do not marry because they have never found the man
of their ideal. When no woman will be compelled to marry for a bare
living or for a comfortable home, those who remain unmarried from their
own free choice will certainly increase in number, while many others,
having no inducement to an early marriage, will wait until they meet
with a partner who is really congenial to them. In such a reformed
society the vicious man, the man of degraded taste or of feeble
intellect, will have little chance of finding a wife, and his bad
qualities will die out with himself. The most perfect and beautiful in
body and mind will, on the other hand, be most sought and therefore be
most likely to marry early, the less highly endowed later, and the least
gifted in any way the latest of all; and this will be the case with both
sexes. From this varying age of marriage, as Mr. Galton has shown, there
will result a more rapid increase of the former than of the latter, and
this cause continuing at work for successive generations will at length
bring the average man to be the equal of those who are now among the
more advanced of the race."
We have here the application of the principle of sexual selection in its
highest sense, although limited in action to women, and it is
undoubtedly the phase of stirpiculture which will become operative when
the "emancipation of women" is completed. There is one feature of modern
society which may retard its operation, and which was referred to by
Darwin as interfering with the physical effect of sexual selection in
the past. Wealth is now, more than ever before, an important factor in
society, and not only man's but woman's choice in matrimony is often
governed by money considerations. The possession of wealth may be
evidence of mental astuteness, but not necessarily of high morality, and
until it ceases to be sought after in marriage it will seriously
interfere with the improvement of the race on its higher planes.
The sexual selection which Mr. Wallace so ably advocates is to be
exercised by woman, and hence its efficiency will depend on the fitness
of woman, not only to choose proper partners in marriage, but to
communicate the highest physical and mental characters to her offspring.
She can transmit only what she herself possesses, and she will choose
that which is in sympathy with her own feelings and desires, so that if
she is to affect the race beneficially, she must seek first her own
perfection. Hence the great importance of the woman's movement of the
present day, the basis of which is the better development of her
physical, mental and moral faculties, without which she cannot expect to
have the increased social privileges to which she may aspire. The
greatest social privilege women can have is to be the chief agent in the
improvement of the race, and through it the regeneration of society
itself. Lady May Jeune, in reply to those who think that the present
relations between mothers and daughters threaten family disruption,
observes, "That woman was created for the purpose of being the wife and
mother of mankind no one can deny, and that none of the discoveries of
science or any attempt to solve the mysteries of life have brought her
one bit nearer the knowledge of how to unburden herself of these
responsibilities, is also a fact." This must be true if the race is to
be continued; for without wives there can be no mothers. Being possible
mothers, therefore, it is necessary, if the race and society are to be
improved, that women shall acquire the highest physical, intellectual
and moral education they are capable of, and if they require the same
qualities in their husbands, the problem we are considering will be
solved.
MAN'S AND WOMAN'S CO-OPERATION.--We have here the central idea of the
New Hedonism advocated by Mr. Grant Allen, whose views necessitate the
active agency of man as well as of woman. This is only reasonable,
seeing that offspring depend on the co-operation of two factors, and
that if either of them is defective the offspring must share in the
defect. "Self-development is an aim of all," says Mr. Grant Allen, "an
aim which will make all stronger and braver, and wiser, and better. It
will make each in the end more helpful to humanity. To be sound in wind
and limb; to be healthy of body and mind; to be educated, to be
emancipated, to be free, to be beautiful--these things are ends towards
which all should strive, and by attaining which all are happier in
themselves, and more useful to others." Hence the New Hedonism teaches
that "to prepare ourselves for the duties of paternity and maternity, by
making ourselves as vigorous and healthful as we can be is a duty we owe
to all our children unborn and to one another." This applies as well to
"the body spiritual, intellectual and esthetic" as to the physical
body. Mr. Grant Allen thinks the theory he advocates will introduce a
new system, which "will not include the selling of self into loveless
union for a night or for a lifetime; the bearing of children by a mother
to a man she despises or loathes or shrinks from; the production by
force, sanctified by law, of hereditary drunkards, hereditary
epileptics, hereditary consumptives, hereditary criminals. We shall
expect in the future a purer and truer relation between father and
mother, parent and child. We shall expect some sanctity to attach to the
idea of paternity, some thought and care to be given beforehand to the
duties of motherhood. We will not admit that the chance union of two
unfit persons, who ought never to have made themselves parents at all,
or ought never to have made themselves parents with one another, can be
rendered holy and harmless by the hands of a priest extended to bless a
bought love, or a bargain of impure marriage. In one word, for the first
time in the history of the race, we shall evolve the totally new idea of
responsibility in parentage. _And as part of this responsibility we
shall include the two antithetical, but correlative, doctrines of a
moral abstinence from fatherhood and motherhood on the part of the
unfit, and a moral obligation to fatherhood and motherhood on the part
of the noblest, the purest, the sanest, the healthiest, the most able
among us. We will not doom to forced celibacy half our finest mothers._"
THE INDIVIDUAL'S RIGHTS.--From the racial standpoint these views are
just and cannot be controverted, but something must be allowed to the
individual. The relative position and rights of the race and the
individual are in a dispute, which has become intensified since the
development of the theory of evolution. _But the individual is the
beginning of the race and he should be its end._ Therefore, in seeking
to improve the race, violence must not be done to the highest sentiments
of the individual. It is a fact that many highly cultured individuals
have a repugnance to certain aspects of married life, and this
repugnance appears to be justified by the further fact that a high state
of refinement is often attended with loss of physical productiveness.
One of the most curious results of Galton's enquiries into heredity was
that wealthy families have a tendency to die out in heiresses, which is
partly, but not wholly, dependent on the fact that childbearing is more
often the accompaniment of poverty than of luxurious living.
The personal disinclination to marry attendant on intellectual
refinement is still more likely to be possessed by those of high
spirituality. This is quite natural, notwithstanding the statement of
Mr. Grant Allen, which is undoubtedly true, that the origin and basis
of all that is best and highest within us is to be found in the
sex-instinct. Love may have begotten "all higher arts and all higher
customs," and yet love may in the process itself become sexless, as it
is when it assumes the noblest form, that of divine charity for our
fellowmen. As well might we continue to perpetuate in our highest
actions the nature of the ape-man because we are descendants of this
creature, as let the idea of sex always rule our thoughts. With the
individual the physical influence of sex is weakened and finally ceases,
although it ever remains constant in the race, and hence the influence
of the idea of sex over the mind of the individual should be similarly
affected. "In Heaven," said the founder of Christianity, "there is
neither marrying nor giving in marriage," and in that highest mental
condition, which is heaven on earth, the sense of sex has ceased to be
operative, having given place to the spiritual sense which is the
noblest attribute of man because the last to be developed.
We have here, however, a question between the individual and the race,
and it does not affect the main contention that the improvement of the
race, which includes that of the individual, is to be found in the
application of the principle of selection. This must necessarily be
chiefly in the hands of women, although both men and women must
co-operate to bring about the best results, by seeking first of all to
improve their own natures by physical, intellectual and moral culture.
The statement of the case according to that principle, and the aim to be
attained, exhibit the dignity and importance of the subject of
stirpiculture. Theoretically this is admitted on all hands, and as soon
as the conditions of the subject are clearly understood there will be no
practical difficulty in carrying the principle into effect, so that it
may have its legitimate consequences.
What parents have to realize is the necessity of so training and
instructing their children that they may become capable of being the
parents of perfect offspring. The good tree only can bear good fruit.
But this is not the real starting point of stirpiculture. An essential
factor, and one that is seldom thought of, is the spirit in which the
inception of offspring is undertaken. Marriage was to the ancients a
sacred state, because it was associated with the religion of the
domestic altar, and because the perpetuation of the family, which was
its aim, was required by the necessity of having a son to perform the
sacred rites at that altar after the death of his father. The
perpetuation of the family was thus a sacred duty, and the consummation
of marriage partook of this character. According to the ancient Persian
religion, the union of man and woman is the act most agreeable to God,
and the act of consummation is directed to be sanctified, and a prayer
directed to God that He would bless it. Marriage must be conducted in
this spirit, rather than as a means of gratifying the passions, if the
happiest results are to be obtained from the application of the
principle of sexual selection.
SPIRITUAL SYMPATHY IN MARRIAGE.--That supposes, however, the existence
of spiritual sympathy between those who are united in marriage, and this
sympathy must form the true basis of all improvements in the race. It
was the neglect of this feature, the want of which must render any
attempt to carry out Plato's ideas on the subject of marriage futile,
that put a stop to the experiments undertaken by his latest imitator,
Noyes. His adherents simply made a return to the monogamy which is the
heritage of all the Aryan peoples, and which is based on the union of
two hearts, and not merely of two persons. This is the first application
of the principle of sexual selection above the animal plane, and it must
be continued notwithstanding that the range of selection is extended so
as to embrace also the intellectual and moral planes.
How far the State may ultimately be called on to aid in the improvement
of the race, in accordance with the ideas we have been considering, is
doubtful. It can aid very materially in placing restraints on too early
marriage, and by insisting on the attainment of a proper standard of
physical training and of mental culture before marriage is entered on.
There is no reason, moreover, why the State should not interfere to
prevent the marriage of those who are too near of kin, or who by reason
of physical or mental ailment, or by their moral defects are not fit
subjects for the propagation of the race. The objection to this
interference with personal liberty is so strong, however, that even so
rational a procedure as preventing the spread, through marriage
alliances, of disease and crime cannot yet obtain the sanction of public
opinion. This will be educated with the general improvement of the race
that must gradually take place through other agencies, and then the
State will have merely to carry into effect the decrees of the people,
which will be expressed in no uncertain language when woman has attained
to the influence to which her own perfected condition will entitle her.
FOOTNOTES:
[21:A] Mr. Darwin accepted this view at first; but in a note to the
second edition of his "Descent of Man" he says: "C. Staniland Wake
argues strongly against the views held by these three writers on the
former prevalence of almost promiscuous intercourse." See "Development
of Kinship and Marriage." Redway, London. 1888.
[28:A] The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago. 1892.
[39:A] It should be sixty-one.
[42:A] See Lorimer Fison, in "The Journal of the Anthropological
Institute," May, 1895, page 361. The whole subject is exhaustively
treated by C. Staniland Wake, in his "Development of Kinship and
Marriage."
PRENATAL CULTURE.
In the last preceding chapter we have considered the subject of the
improvement of the race, especially through the action of sexual
selection, or, as it may be expressed, selective action in the pairing
of individuals, whether brought about compulsorily by the controlling
influence of the State or some other external authority, or by the
actual choice of one or both of the individuals immediately concerned.
We have now to deal with the subject of the influence over offspring of
affections of the individual organisms from whose union such offspring
is derived.
JACOB'S FLOCKS.--The story of Jacob dealing with the flocks of Laban,
given in Genesis xxx, is usually alluded to in corroboration of the
belief that offspring may be physically affected before birth, by
anything which strongly influences the imagination of the mother. Jacob
is represented as making an agreement with Laban, his father-in-law,
that Jacob should receive as his hire all the ringstreaked and spotted
he-goats and all the black she-goats, and also those that were speckled
and spotted. When this arrangement had been made, Laban sought to
benefit by it by removing from the flock all the goats that answered to
that description, and giving them into the care of his sons, leaving the
rest of the flock in Jacob's charge. This was undoubtedly an attempt on
the part of Laban to cheat his son-in-law out of his wages, but the
latter was not to be so cheated, and he adopted a plan which gave him
the pick of the flock, leaving the feeble goats to his less wily parent.