FOUNDING A FAMILY
“The business of life is the transmission of the sacred torch of
heredity undimmed to future generations. This is the most precious of
all worths and values in the world.”
—G. STANLEY HALL.
“The young people of the next and all succeeding generations must be
taught the supreme sanctity of parenthood—that the highest profession
and privilege they can aspire to is responsible fatherhood and
motherhood.”
—C. W. SALEEBY.
=Solicitude for the Child as a Factor in Social Progress.= The
eugenic education of children is the real beginning. Parents can
give to the little children in the home true ideals of parenthood,
wholesome respect for maternity and paternity, training in the
control of desires and appetites, a controlling sense of their
personal and social responsibility, and true instruction regarding
the origin and creation of life.
So to live that their children shall be strong and happy is a motive
that a child can appreciate, and it can become the most powerful
incentive for hygienic living, for industry, education, for social
purity that is positive—noble in thought as well as restrictive
in action. Trained thus through childhood, boys and girls will be
prepared to meet with high-mindedness and moral stamina the storm and
stress of adolescence; their ideals of sweetheart and lover will have
a wholesome eugenic prejudice, and they will be prepared to discuss
with dignity, scientific spirit, and reverence this significant phase
of their future home life.
There is no essential contradiction between romantic love and
eugenics. Indeed, sincere, deep and enduring love of parents for each
other and for their children is an essential in a eugenic ideal. A
young woman knows a hundred young men, but is in love with only one
(or possibly none) because the others do not embody the ideal that
she has fashioned. Every young man and woman has such an ideal,
perhaps only vaguely defined but certainly felt, with which they are
in love, for which they search, and with which they sometimes invest
an acquaintance only to discover later their illusion. This ideal is
composed of the most alluring qualities and personalities they have
known.
What young man would be likely to fall in love with a girl,
however pretty, even charming, whom he knew could be the mother
only of sickly, peevish, stupid children to inherit his name and
perpetuate his family, or who would refuse to assume the burden
of motherhood? What normal young woman would be attracted by any
“fairy prince”, however romantic, wealthy, handsome, if she were
aware that his children, should he have any, would be doomed to
early death, weakness, or imbecility, and that she herself would
be made a sufferer for life? The widespread tendency of young
men and women of to-day to include beauty, vitality, and ability
in their romantic ideal is itself sufficient evidence. Young men
and women are generally too well balanced to marry simply from
eugenic consideration without romantic love, although this is
less reprehensible than marriage simply for title or livelihood,
for social distinction, or personal creature comfort without
consideration for either eugenics or romantic love. The prayer of
Hector, as he lifted his little child in his arms in the tower of
Troy, while the battle raged without the walls, is the prayer of the
parent heart everywhere, that the child shall be nobler and greater
than the father.
The normal biological life for every man and woman is parenthood.
The normal social relation between parents is mutual, abiding love.
Only through the development of such a love has humanity evolved from
the materialistic, individualistic stage of the animal to even the
present stage of spiritual life and social relationships.
It is mutual solicitude for the child that places the biological
relations of men and women on a wholesome, ethical, and spiritual
plane. Historically, marriage and monogamy are the result of
children. The social stigma upon illegitimacy is not artificial or
unreasonable. It is the deep appreciation by the social experience
of humanity that parental responsibility and solicitude is at the
very foundation of society; that the selfish, reckless use of this
creative power, or a cuckoo-like disregard for the child’s life,
is undermining to society as well as to the character of the man,
the woman, and their child. The far-sighted perceive, too, that
the undermining influence of physical relations without spiritual
purpose, of individualism that ignores social responsibilities, of
blind, unreasoning following of any impulse, in this, as in any phase
of life, is quite as destructive to the man, the woman, and society,
even without the penalty of the unwelcome child; that usually the man
is more blameworthy than the woman; that both are often the victims
of ignorance, lack of ideals, and of early training in responsibility
and self-control; and that similar selfish lack of solicitude for
their child is equally reprehensible within and without marriage.
The child is the equal creation, responsibility, and satisfaction
of both father and mother. The parent who willingly shirks the
responsibility for the care of his or her own child is a coward, if
not a knave or a defective. The father who would voluntarily forego
his share in the care and companionship of his child, or the mother
who would demand this, are equally lacking in parental instinct.
Celibacy, marriage without love, parenthood without marriage, are
equally undesirable. But if circumstances require a choice, celibacy
is less miserable for the individual and less detrimental to society.
It is part of the great social responsibility of parents and social
administrators to remove the causes of celibacy by:
1. Providing academic, social, and moral education that prepares
young men and women for congenial companionship and for home-making;
2. Making provision for wholesome recreational opportunities and
acquaintance, for young men and women of similar intellectual and
social interests;
3. Affording the economic opportunity for a family income for young
men by their early twenties, through vocational training, regulation
of the cost of commodities, direction of labor conditions;
4. Abolishing war, that fiendish Minotaur that not only interferes
with Nature’s provision of an equal number of men and women in any
generation, but that, more serious still, devours the ablest and
strongest of the young men, depriving millions of women of their
husbands and their children.
=The Meaning and Significance of Eugenics.= Eugenics, as defined by
Sir Francis Galton, is “the science which deals with all influences
that improve the inborn qualities of a race and that develop these
to their utmost advantage.” Wise men in former ages have perceived
something of its possibilities.
Positive eugenics is concerned with whatever will enhance the inborn
qualities of a new generation, therefore with social conditions
that promote the mating of the physically, mentally, and morally
able; with conditions that improve the quality of the germ cells
in the individual; with ideals that develop self-control and the
spiritualizing of the instinct of race preservation.
Negative eugenics is concerned with the elimination of hereditary
diseases and defects; with the prevention or correction of diseases,
defects, poisons, and practices in the parent that have a harmful
effect upon the germ cells and the unborn child; with the elimination
of social and moral conditions that endanger the life or handicap the
progress of unborn generations.
Genetics, the study of the laws of heredity, is the biological
foundation of the science of eugenics; ethics and religion are the
basis of practical eugenics.
In the past century great impetus was given to eugenic research and
ideals by Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton,
indeed, coined the word “eugenics” from two Greek words meaning
“well-born.” To quote from Galton’s own writings:
“Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the
power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I can conceive it to be
within his power to replace Natural Selection by other processes that
are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim
of eugenics. Its first object is to check the birthrate of the unfit,
instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large
numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement
of the race by furthering the productivity of the most fit by early
marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection
rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; eugenics
on bringing into the world no more individuals than can be properly
cared for and those only the best stock.”
Galton devoted his time and his fortune to the investigation of these
principles and the propaganda of eugenic ideals. He made extensive
studies of family histories, especially to ascertain what evidence
they gave of the inheritance of physical, mental, and moral traits.
He organized the Eugenics Education Society, whose leaders include
eminent scientists, sociologists, physicians, educators, and under
whose auspices the First International Eugenics Congress was held in
London in 1912.
=Present Knowledge of Heredity.= More has been learned about heredity
in the past quarter century than in all previous history. Through the
inspiration of Galton, extensive studies have been made of family
histories in many countries, and not only has the certainty of
inheritance been established, but some of the laws of heredity have
been formulated. Through the laboratory studies made possible by the
improvements in the compound microscope, important discoveries have
been made of the physiological processes and the mechanism by which
characteristics are inherited. This is the summary of our present
knowledge:
Physical and mental characteristics are inherited.
Inheritance is of definite traits, such as eye color, height, musical
genius, high or low resistance to a germ disease, for example,
tuberculosis. Research work in genetics is at the present time
especially concerned with discovering what are the unit characters
and how each is transmitted.
Special cells, called germ cells, are the carriers of heredity;
these contain the determining factors for physical and mental
characteristics. These, like all the other cells of the body, are
microscopic in size. The body of the individual is the temple in
which the sacred cells of the race are protected.
Inheritance is not directly from the parent but from the germ cells,
which may carry characteristics not found in the parent but in
some of the other ancestors. An individual does not inherit what
his parents _are_ but what is in the two germ cells, one from the
mother, one from the father, that unite to form that individual.
With the union of the two germ cells the inborn characteristics
of the individual are determined, “the gate of gifts is closed.”
Environment and training may increase the strength, or minimize the
force of inborn characteristics, or even suppress some of them, but
it cannot add to them, or increase their force beyond their inherent
limitations.
Some few characteristics are inherited only through the mother, or
only through the father, or are transmitted only to the sons or only
to the daughters; most characteristics are not thus limited, but may
be transmitted by either parent to either son or daughter.
Acquired characteristics are not inherited. If a man loses his hand
in an accident, his descendants cannot inherit one-handedness; if
he masters a foreign tongue, his descendants cannot inherit his
knowledge of that language.
No disease germ is inherited, in the genetic sense of being conveyed
in the special germ cells. A child may be infected with a disease
before its birth; this is not, strictly speaking, heredity but
congenital (or prenatal) infection. Tuberculosis is sometimes thus
conveyed from the mother, and syphilis very frequently when either
the mother or the father has this disease even in latent form.
What may be inherited is a tendency toward a disease, a weakness
of specific organs or tissues, a lack of resistance to a specific
disease.
Variations sometimes appear apparently spontaneously, as the result
of some accident to the germ plasm, or an unusual combination in the
two germ cells; such variations may be inherited.
Some characteristics are apparently persistent, and in the process
of inheritance tend to predominate over their complementary
characteristics. The former are called dominant, the latter recessive
characteristics. The law by which dominant and recessive traits are
inherited was first formulated by Mendel, an Austrian monk, less than
half a century ago. Biological research is being devoted at present
to discovering what traits of human significance are subject to this
Mendelian law, as it is called.
A characteristic found in both parents, or in both families, has a
double possibility of appearing in their descendants, and some mental
defects and abilities tend to appear with greater force and at an
earlier age, in the descendants.
Every individual is born with all the germ cells he will ever possess.
These germ cells are highly susceptible to poisons in the
circulation, especially to:
(1) alcohol, even in dilute quantities,
(2) fatigue poisons,
(3) opium, morphine, and similar drugs,
(4) lead and other poisonous metals,
(5) lack of nutrition due to anemic condition of the body.
If a germ cell is thus affected by poison at the time of the uniting
of two cells, or during the subsequent development, the child is
especially liable to:
(a) serious injury resulting in death before birth;
(b) low vitality resulting in death within a year after birth;
(c) defective development resulting in physical deformity or in
mental defect, such as feeble-mindedness or idiocy.
If either parent is infected with syphilis, the germs most frequently
attack the developing child and cause death before birth or during
the first year; or the germs may attack any tissues, crippling,
producing deformities, deafness, blindness, idiocy, manifest either
at birth or later in life. If either parent is infected with
gonorrhea, the eyes of the child will probably be infected at birth,
and blindness prevented only by immediate use of silver nitrate
solution; or the mother may be made incapable of having a child.
=Fitness for Parenthood.= Even the minimum qualifications for
parenthood are various. For the fullest welfare of the child the
following qualifications are essential:
Spiritual: a sense of the responsibility of parenthood, love of
children; love of harmony and mutual agreement between parents;
self-control, unselfishness, patience.
Social: legal marriage, good moral character.
Economic: marketable skill, energy, adaptability; ability of father
to earn a comfortable living, potential ability of mother to earn a
living, ability to use income economically.
Mental: Maturity, experience, judgment to conduct one’s share of
the family and household responsibility, ability to learn; for the
mother, knowledge of at least the elements of hygiene, child-care and
training, some experience in caring for little children.
Physical: physical and mental soundness; sound heredity, especially
freedom from neuropathic taint, alcoholism, tuberculosis, venereal
disease (syphilis or gonorrhea); freedom from poisons of alcohol,
fatigue, worry, overwork; mother not less than twenty or more than
forty-five; father not less than twenty, preferably past twenty-four;
maximum vitality and physical energy.
Blood tests recently discovered make possible the diagnosis of
tuberculosis and venereal disease in the system, even when no
symptoms are obvious. It is estimated that about twenty to thirty per
cent. of cases of venereal disease are innocently acquired, through
public drinking cups, towels, lavatories, toilets, or by infection
of the husband or wife after marriage. Infection is usually acquired
through sex immorality. The certainty of a cure can never be made
absolute; the probability requires years of persistent treatment by
a responsible physician, not a quack. The man who has “sown his wild
oats” has verily sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and is
most liable to have acquired one of these loathsome diseases, habits
of drinking, and of self-indulgence. It is dangerous to his wife and
children for him to become a father until all of these have been
overcome. A woman who contemplates marrying such a man to reform him
is inviting disease and destruction upon herself and her children.
Some individuals should never become parents because they carry
so serious an hereditary taint which some of their children would
probably inherit and carry on. This includes individuals afflicted
with the following:
Neuropathic taint: feeble-mindedness, idiocy, insanity, mania,
epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, sex perversion, alcoholism
Syphilis
Tuberculosis
Deaf-mutism
Otosclerosis (hardness of hearing due to rigid eardrum)
Catarrhal deafness
Retinitis (progressive degeneration of retina and atrophy of optic
nerve, producing blindness)
Albinism (absence of coloring in hair and eyes)
Inherent lack of physical energy; pauperism
If an individual with a family history that includes one of these
taints in hereditary form should marry an individual having a family
history with the same taint, some of their children would probably
be afflicted with the taint, and others of them would carry it on.
Marriage of blood relations, such as cousins, is subject to this
law; it is eugenically permissible, provided the same hereditary
defect does not appear in both family histories.
The most advantageous years for parenthood, for the welfare of the
children, are between twenty or twenty-five and forty years of age
for the mother and past twenty-five years for the father. An interval
of two or three years should elapse between the children, to give
ample opportunity for the mother to gain reserve vitality and to care
adequately for each child.
On the average, four children to a family are required merely to
maintain a constant population; families in which the average is less
than this are in danger of extinction.
As soon as its far-reaching significance to themselves and to their
children is generally perceived by parents and young people, men
and women who genuinely love each other will voluntarily give and
absolutely require a medical certificate before marriage. Before
undertaking the responsibility of parenthood, both mother and father
should put themselves into the best possible physical and spiritual
condition, and if necessary, go through as thorough a course of
training as that of any aspirant for an athletic prize or of any
priest for a great spiritual work. The Vedas, the sacred books of the
Hindoos, contained special prayers for those about to assume this
creative work.
Nature has provided one effective, safe, and ethical method of
limiting the birth rate in the family, a method that is entirely in
the control of parents. This method is abstinence, except for the end
to which nature implanted this instinct,—the creation of a new life.
It is conducive to the welfare of the children. This is in no wise
harmful to the physical, mental, social, or spiritual well-being of
men and women, if both are temperamentally adapted to each other,
mutually agreed, and thoroughly honest with each other; if they have
learned to transmute this instinct and energy to other activities;
and if their recreations, personal hygiene, and adjustment of daily
living are normal and wholesome, not artificially stimulating.
In conclusion, to quote from two English writers:
“By no other means than the realization of the ideal that every new
baby shall be loved and desired in anticipation—an ideal that is
perfectly practicable—can the black stain of child murder and child
torture and neglect be removed from our civilization.”
—Saleeby.
“Hitherto the development of our race has been unconscious, and we
have been allowed no responsibility for its right course. Now in
the fullness of time we are treated as children no more, and the
conscious fashioning of the human race is given into our hands. Let
us put away childish things, stand up with open eyes, and face our
responsibilities.”
—Whetham.