Slike strani
PDF
ePub

Methods of Improving Sexual Selection. Although methods for the improvement of sexual selection have already been suggested in the discussion of its defects, they may be reviewed in the form of a summary. The marriage of degenerates will have to be prevented by positive state action, for no indirect method of achieving the end seems possible. This subject will be treated more fully in the chapter on Genetic Selection.

Among the conditions tending to improve the mating of normal persons, the enlargement of circles of acquaintance can partly be attained, or made possible of attainment, by improved means of communication, although improvements of this kind will be of social advantage chiefly in rural districts. However, improved means of communication will not of itself accomplish the desired results. Social centers need to be established in the city as well as in the country. These should be open to both sexes and should offer facilities for the promotion of acquaintanceship and for healthy recreation. Enlargement of association as a constructive measure, while important in many cases, is not of general applicability. There are circles in which social life is already too intense, so that it interferes with serious pursuits, and does not promote marriage. In fact there are natures upon which too intense association with the opposite sex has the effect of postponing and perhaps even preventing marriage. Nevertheless better facilities for social life are needed in many districts for the promotion of normal acquaintanceship. It should be added, however, that the purpose of wide acquaintanceship is not to provide mates for all indiscriminately, for that would defeat the ends of sexual selection. The purpose is merely to improve opportunities for those who do possess desirable traits, but who are handicapped by adverse conditions, and incidentally to provide companionship for the lonely.

Healthy sex ideals are, in the last analysis, of paramount importance and should be kept at a high standard, though they influence but little the general trend of sexual selection unless the range of choice is reasonably large. Ideals of the opposite sex cannot function as a live force, if knowledge of that sex is so limited that comparisons are impossible. The sex ideals themselves can be improved by education and training, though not primarily by formal methods of instruction. I am not advocating a new course for the public schools. Emotional ideals are not formed by laboratory demonstrations, nor by memorizing the words of a text. They are suggested through the medium of art. More specifically literature and drama must be relied upon to instill desirable ideals into the young. It is of the utmost consequence therefore that fiction, and stage productions of whatever kind, should not become mere instruments of profit nor be permitted to seek support by stimulating the baser instincts. On the contrary, they should take the lead in educating the emotions and in constructing socially useful ideals.

Defects in sexual selection due to inequalities in the numbers of the sexes are difficult to counteract. When the inequality results from war many desirable women will never find mates and a racial loss will be inevitable. When, however, the inequality arises from migrations, measures can be taken for keeping up the associations and interests of emigrants with the home country and thereby increase the number of marriages within the nationality. Whenever one sex exceeds the other in numbers and is therefore inevitably subject to a stringent action of sexual selection, efforts should be made to broaden circles of acquaintance, thereby stimulating the selection of the best and the elimination of the least fit. But this end cannot be gained through the promotion of unsuitable or non-eugenic matches. The purpose in view in the suggestions offered has never been to compel or even to stimulate marriage in general, for usually those who do not wish to marry belong to the class who should not; but it has been rather to facilitate unions among the marriageable and to make certain the rejection of the unfit.

Sexual Mating. Ideal sexual mating must be combined with ideal sexual selection if the highest standards of the family are to be fulfilled. Of the three prerequisites of marriage already mentioned, - a good heredity, enduring attraction, and parental qualities, - heredity must be maintained for the most part by means of sexual selection, but the other two are preserved quite as much through the action of sexual mating as through sexual selection. If the individuals mating are physically and mentally suited for each other, the union will be likely to be permanent and will at the same time afford the best conditions for the rearing of offspring. Perfect sexual mating would imply that better mates could not be found; but, considering the size of modern society, such a goal would be rather visionary. For practical purposes the requirements of sexual mating may be said to be fulfilled if the union permits the continued development of the two parties to the marriage contract and provides a proper environment for the young.

The assumption is sometimes made that heredity should be the chief concern of sexual mating. Marriage, it is said, is altogether too serious an undertaking to be determined by chance acquaintance and by emotional impulse. Individual qualities should be analyzed by scientific methods; and mates should be selected with the purpose in view of producing a superior combination of qualities in the offspring. While the object is in itself desirable, as a dynamic marriage ideal it is both unpractical and incomplete. Our knowledge of individual characteristics and of heredity is too limited to make us certain how to obtain the best offspring. We have acquired, it is true, some knowledge of the inheritance of abnormalities; but it is obvious enough that individuals with distinctly degenerate traits should ordinarily refrain from marriage anyway. But any deliberate attempt at constructive improvement of sexual mating to influence the character of the offspring by a scientific selection and combination of individual qualities would be doomed to failure. And after all, the production of vigorous offspring is not the only purpose of marriage. Instinctive attraction between the sexes is still the best known guide to successful mating; and when this does not ensure success it is not because the basis of the choice is wrong, but rather because the conditions are imperfect. Individuals may err by failing to obey their best instincts or by over-estimating trivial qualities. The solution of the problem of sexual mating then lies in the direction of perfecting, and we may perhaps say rationalizing, the system of individual choice; but it is not obtained by ignoring the factors of individual preference nor by disparaging the value of emotional attachment.

Failures in Sexual Mating. Anyone who studies the marriage problem must be strongly impressed with the number of failures and the urgent need of improving the process of mating. In endeavoring to estimate the proportion of failures one turns at once to the divorce rate; and, while this furnishes an index by no means accurate of the extent of imperfect mating, nevertheless it possesses significance. The special study of marriage and divorce made in 1906 showed that in the United States as a whole one divorce was granted to every 12 marriages; and the divorce rate, which is a clearer method of revealing the situation, was 200 per 100,000 married population; and this rate is still on the increase. This meant one divorce to every 500 persons, or to every 250 couples. If this high rate of family dissolution represented the total number of ill-mated unions, the problem of sexual mating would not be so serious; but it greatly underestimates it, for many unhappy and unsuitable marriages never come before the divorce courts at all. On the other hand, divorces are sometimes hastily granted in cases where the union was not an entire failure, although of course in none of these cases can it be said to have been ideal. Marriage success or failure is a relative matter, and the exact degree of incompatibility constituting failure is difficult to determine. Marriage is not a sudden release from care and an entry into Elysium; it is an intimate union of life and interests of two imperfect individuals, and therefore it requires mutual consideration and adjustment. Occasional friction does not mean failure, but even minor difficulties may sometimes become so magnified that they are incapable of adjustment. While marriage cannot be expected to be

. always harmonious, since individuals are neither perfect nor perfectly adaptable, it can be greatly improved by careful mating. Many of the apparent failures of sexual mating should really be attributed to the failure of sexual selection, for some of those who patronize the divorce courts have deficiencies which ought to debar them from marriage altogether.

Assortative Mating. While no absolute standards of desirable mating can be set up, considerable evidence has been accumulated showing that individuals marry others having similar traits, though this evidence is contrary to the popular belief that persons of dissimilar or contrasting characteristics mate. This union of individuals with like characters is usually called assortative mating, and it is sometimes the result of choice and sometimes it is casual or accidental. Accidental similarities may be due to correlation of the similar characters with those traits which were the real objects of choice; or they may be due to the natural association of similar individuals, as is the case with defectives. It would be desirable to distinguish the different causes of assortative mating, but statistically it is impossible to do so. The figures merely record the facts. Assortative mating throws no light on sex ideals, except in those cases in which the character compared is the direct object of choice, although of course all forms of assortative mating have an influence on the family and on inheritance.

An illustration of assortative mating involving choice is found in the well-known study of a Swiss scientist, Herman Fol. He compared the photographs of 250 couples, 198 of them being young couples and 53 old, and found an appreciable resemblance in 66% of the young couples and in 71% of the old couples. His conclusion was that couples unite in accordance with the rules of conformities, and not in accordance with those of contrast; and inasmuch as the similarity in evidence was approximately the same for old and for young couples the resemblance was not, as had been suggested, the result of common life and association. Such a study has the disadvantage of being rather general in nature, dependent upon individual judgment and therefore liable to error; but it has the advantage of comparing general types of individuals rather than specific physical characters, and types are more likely to be the objects of selection.

Both Galton and Pearson have tried to ascertain the existence of assortative mating for certain measurable traits, and both found an appreciable degree of resemblance in couples for eye color and for stature. And Pearson found a somewhat smaller resemblance for span and length of forearm. These last would not of course be significant in themselves, but might represent a trait which was the object of selection, such as size. The tendency of persons of similar stature to marry was brought out also in Davenport's study of the inheritance of stature. Out of 869

« PrejšnjaNaprej »