قراءة كتاب The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4) A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4) A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
MEDICINE EVIL (continued)
How patent medicine firms and quacks dispose of the confidential letters sent to them. Patent medicine concerns and letter brokers—The patent medicine conspiracy against the freedom of the press—How the patent medicine trust crushes honest effort ... PAGE 481
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PATENT MEDICINE EVIL (continued)
The patent medicine evil and the duty of the mothers of the race—"Blood money"—The people must be the reformers—Mothers' resolutions ... PAGE 489
CHAPTER XXIV
"The achievement of an object is dependent upon our determination. Effort is a matter of will. Failure is a product of misdirected determination."
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD
The Best Age at Which to Marry—Incompatibility of Temperament—A Happy Marriage Need Not Be a Successful One—The Evils of Early Marriage—The Wedding Night, its Medical Aspect—The Honeymoon—When Marital Relations are Painful—Times when Marital Relations Should be Suspended—The First Weeks and Months of Wifehood—The Formative Period—A True Marriage—A Wife's True Position in the Household—Only Five Per Cent. of Happy Marriages—Period of Adaptation—Differences of Opinion—Differences of Principle—The Attainment of Success—Arguing Trifles—You Must Know What You Want—The Right Kind of Wife—Contributing to Her Husband's Efficiency—What Are the Requisites of Efficiency—Good Health—Thoroughly Cooked Meals—Rest at Night—Having a System—Enough Exercise—Freedom from Worry—Do Your Part—The First Quarrel—Fault Finding—The Husband's Efficiency Depends Upon the Wife—Work Must be Interesting—The Wife's Part.
THE BEST AGE AT WHICH TO MARRY
In order to determine the best age at which to marry, we must be guided by certain fixed standards. We must find out from statistics the average age of the parents of the best babies. We must determine and analyse the qualifications of what constitutes the "best" babies, according to the eugenic ideal. We should give heed to the fixity of temperamental characteristics in order to determine their adaptability to conditions that prevail at certain ages. We should select an age in advance of the period at which science has determined individuals to have outlived any hereditary tendencies.
We have abundant proof that the best babies are born of parents between the twenty-third and the twenty-sixth years. We know also that the age which responds, with the fullest degree of plasticity, to temperamental characteristics, is in the early twenties. We know, likewise, that inherited tendencies may be said to have been outlived at or about the twenty-second year. The ideal marrying age, therefore, is, for both male and female, approximately the twenty-third year.
The physical, mental and moral development of both men and women, at this period, evidence a high degree of adaptability, and are responsive to the institution of marriage. Their hereditary traits, if any previously existed, assume a dormant form at this age. They have cultivated the temperamental qualities which they will retain, with few modifications, throughout life. On the other hand, their dispositions are responsive to reason, and are capable of readjustment. Their temperamental characteristics are plastic, and under favorable conditions it is possible for both to evidence a degree of sympathy and toleration that bespeaks future harmony and success. No marriage can result in mutual happiness and success if one of the participants is temperamentally incapable of changing his or her convictions. One of the fundamental essentials to peace in the home is the quality of adaptation to circumstances, and no other virtue will be called into existence oftener than this quality. At this age, a man is eager to contribute to the contentment and happiness of his partner, even if it is necessary to sacrifice his own whims and opinions, and a woman, at this period, is temperamentally so constituted that she will respond to the same impulses.
Incompatibility of temperament simply implies that two individuals are so constituted that they cannot, or will not, adapt themselves to the temperamental characteristics of each other. This condition is one of the most prolific causes of unfortunate marriages. Age has a great deal to do with this situation. Men over thirty have unconsciously developed habits of judgment and are too set in their opinions and ways to accommodate themselves easily, or without friction, to the temperamental differences that will undoubtedly exist in their wives. The spirit of adaptation, which is a characteristic of younger years, is lacking, and a mental readjustment is scarcely to be expected. We, therefore, frequently observe in the marriage relations of certain individuals a spirit of friendship existing rather than that of companionship which should be the quality that binds them together. Statistics prove that "affinities" creep into the lives of those who marry early, or in those who marry after thirty. This form of domestic infelicity may be rightly regarded as a product of "incompatibility of temperament."
A happy marriage need not be a successful one. Some couples attain happiness through sorrow, grief, and failure. The so-called happy marriage, like happiness itself, is only a myth, made up of anticipation and memory. You have only to look into the calm and wrinkled faces of old women, and talk to them to discover that the outcome of unselfishness and abnegation forms the nearest approach to happiness in married life or out of it. It is the bearing of the burdens of life that constitutes its happiness.
The Evils of Early Marriage.—No woman has the vitality to stand the strain of maternity before the twenty-third year. If a girl marries at eighteen years of age she gives the world children totally unfit to struggle with its problems. At about twenty-two years she may give one child of value to the world, but all others following will be increasingly unfit. In early marriages children are apt to come too frequently, and this is one cause of infant mortality. Statistics show that children born with an interval between them of only one year have a mortality of one hundred per cent, higher rating than those born with an interval of two years. And if these children are the progeny of very young mothers the percentage is even greater. The percentage of children who are malformed and idiotic is greater among those born of too young parents. It has been shown that the child can only inherit what the parents possess. If the parents are not of an age when all the powers are at their highest, the child is robbed of just this amount of growth and force lacking; no amount of education or training can supply this loss.
There is another feature of early marriages that should receive serious consideration. A girl of eighteen or twenty has not reached that period of growth where certain inherited tendencies will show. If she has inherited a predisposition to consumption she may outgrow this period provided she is permitted to reach her full growth without subjecting her constitution to any strenuous physical or mental strain. If, however, this girl marries and becomes a mother, the incident effect upon her health will most likely weaken her to the extent of bringing to the surface