Читать книгу The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother - George H. Napheys - Страница 39

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When we narrow the question of race to that of nationality, entirely new elements come in.

In speaking of the intermarriage of relatives, we showed that a certain number of such unions in healthy stocks was advantageous rather than otherwise, but that too many of them lead to deterioration. This law can be applied to nations. Historians have often observed that the most powerful states of the world arose from an amalgamation of different tribes. Rome, Greece, England, are examples of this. On the other hand, France, Russia, Spain, China, Persia, which have suffered no such crosses of blood, are either stationary, or depend for their progress on foreigners.

Physicians have contributed other curious testimony on this point, the bearing of which they themselves have not understood. Marriages between nationalities of the same race are more fertile, and the children more vigorous, than those between descendants of the same nation. For instance, it has been proved that if two descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts marry, they will probably have but three children; while, if one of them marries a foreigner, the children will number five or six.

So it is well ascertained that in the old and stationary communes of France, where the same families have possessed their small farms for generation after generation, the marriages have become gradually less and less productive, until it has seriously interfered with the quota those districts send to the army.

American women have suffered many hard words because they do not have more children. Several New England writers have accused them of very bad practices, which we shall mention hereafter. But the effect of the law of production just now laid down has been quite overlooked.

As it is best that there should be four or five children in a family in ordinary circumstances, the union of American and foreign blood is very desirable. We need to fuse in one the diverse colonies of the white race annually reaching our shores. A century should efface every trace of the German, the Irish, the Frenchman, the English, the Norwegian, and leave nothing but the American. To bring about this happy result, free intermarriage should be furthered in every possible way.