Part 3

AN EXPERIMENT IN STIRPICULTURE.--Noyes was the founder of a religious 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.