CHAPTER XXV MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE MARRIAGE QUESTIONS Connected with the selection of mates in marriage have already been dealt with; but so far no mention has been made of the legal precautions which should surround the marriage contract. Though we are here considering all these questions mainly from the eugenic point of view, yet in attempting to forecast the advantages and disadvantages likely to result from any proposed reform, the immediate effects should in fact always receive full consideration. In regard to checks on marriage, it must never be forgotten that marriage is natural, that marriage makes for happiness, and that bars to marriage encourage immorality. Here, then, are strong arguments in favour of great caution being exercised in introducing any changes in the laws or customs affecting marriage. But against this plea for caution it must be remembered that any legislation which tended to delay or diminish marriages amongst the inferior types to a greater extent than amongst the superior types would in the long run be beneficial to the race. We are here dealing with a difficult balancing of good and evil effects. In regard to the feeble-in-mind and the insane, we have already come to the conclusion that they ought not to become parents; and as regards those who have been duly certified as belonging to either of these categories it seems, therefore, rational that in their case marriage should be legally prohibited. In Chapter XII it has already been suggested that the Mental Deficiency Act should be amended so as to make it a misdemeanour knowingly to marry or to promote or connive at the marriage of a person certified as being mentally defective; and similar provisions should be made applicable to all whilst certified as being insane. Here we should be dealing with persons already selected under carefully safeguarded legal provisions designed to prevent those who are not definitely mentally defective or insane from ever being certified. These suggested amendments to the existing laws would no doubt be effective in very few cases, and they would be chiefly beneficial from their educative influence. There are other classes of persons who ought not to become parents, but in whose case the legal enforcement of provisions preventing marriage would be attended with almost insuperable difficulties. That the tuberculous, the epileptic and the habitual criminal should have no offspring is a conclusion which will receive wide approval, but when we come to look into details, we find that in each case we should be dealing with a class so difficult to define accurately that the fact of a person being described as belonging to it could not well be made the basis of legal decisions. In Sweden the marriage of epileptics has been for long forbidden by law, but I believe that few if any cases have actually come before the law courts in consequence of this enactment. Epilepsy is a term which covers a wide diversity of ailments, some of them being of so mild a nature as to be detected with difficulty; and it is probably this fact which has made this Swedish legislation inoperative. Somewhat the same difficulties would be felt in making tubercular diseases a bar to marriage; for if all those who were infected with the microbe in question were to be classed as tuberculous, immense numbers when young would be included in this category. A conclusion arrived at in a previous chapter, namely that the tuberculous should not marry, was intended only to apply to those persons in whom the disease is in an active and progressive stage, and to decide when this is the case is not always an easy matter. Then, again, there are cases where persons affected by these ailments, or who have been insane, might rightly marry provided that no children were to be forthcoming; and to make marriage legal and parenthood illegal would place MEDICAL CERTIFICATES 459 a severe strain on the skill of the parliamentary draughtsman. Then as to the man who constantly commits small offences against the law, it would be most desirable that he should not marry; but as marriage in his case might be a stepping-stone to better things, it is doubtful if public opinion would ever allow it to be actually prohibited. The marriage of neither the tuberculous, nor the epileptic, nor the habitual criminal, can now, it is feared, be legally prohibited. In order to overcome some of the above-mentioned difficulties, it has often been proposed that the deposit of a medical certificate should be a necessary preliminary to the issue of a marriage licence; but even this proposal is open to various objections. It is with regard to venereal diseases that this suggestion has most often been made, and in this connexion it is no doubt worthy of careful consideration. The points at issue concerning these diseases will not, however, here be discussed in detail, both because I am not an expert, and because I prefer to limit the scope of my observations to such effects on future generations as are due to natural inheritance and not to infection. I will content myself with remarking that, as far as I am able to judge, the detection of the presence of gonorrhoeal infection is surrounded with so much doubt and difficulty that it could not be made the basis of any legal prohibition or penalty. The strongest objection to making it necessary to obtain a medical certificate as a pre-requisite to obtaining a marriage certificate is, however, in my opinion, that it would place too much power in the hands of the medical profession. In the case of insanity or mental defect, a certificate permitting a person to be confined can no doubt be signed by two medical men, if endorsed by a magistrate; and, to say the least, equal precautions would be necessary as regards the issue of any certificate which was necessary in order to obtain a marriage licence. Decisions in regard to insanity are frequently revised, and in the same way, after the necessary medical certificate had been refused, another application might be permitted after a few months' interval. But a first failure to obtain a certificate would in many cases break off an engagement; it would often be an irremediable injury to the party concerned; and a corresponding responsibility would be thrown on the medical man who had refused to sign it. Then as regards tuberculosis, epilepsy, insanity and other diseases, all the difficulties mentioned above in reference to where the line should be drawn when deciding whether to sign a clean certificate of health would be felt to the full by the medical man on whom this duty fell. Lastly, a marriage might be justifiable when it was decided that no children would be forthcoming, or after the woman in question had passed the period of child-birth, even if objectionable when progeny might be forthcoming; and the decision as to when parenthood might be prevented by contraceptives or had become an impossibility would often raise great difficulties. We must here again, I think, come to the conclusion that no actual legal prohibition could be based upon such doubtful foundations. In promoting eugenic reforms it would often be best to try to link them up with reforms which, by producing immediate benefits, would be more likely to attract the attention of the public. No couple should be tied together until separated by death or divorce unless each is acquainted with certain facts concerning the other, and further legal safeguards might well be introduced to prevent anyone from marrying a lunatic, a criminal or an habitual drunkard in ignorance of what they were doing. With this object in view, and also to reap certain obvious concurrent racial advantages, the following proposals are suggested for consideration :-Each party should be obliged before the issue of a marriage licence to sign a certificate in a prescribed form, and this certificate should be handed to the other party by the authority dealing with these matters some time before the issue of the licence. This certificate should contain a declaration of belief that he or she is not suffering from certain noncontagious diseases or certain contagious diseases in a form which might injure the other party or the children of the proposed union, the diseases in question, including insanity, epilepsy, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, and DECLARATION BEFORE MARRIAGE 461 possibly others, being set forth in the printed form of certificate. The certificate should also include a declaration that he or she had never been confined in a prison, lunatic asylum, or home for inebriates, or had been certified either as a lunatic or as a mentally defective person, or had been convicted of any offence, or previously married or divorced. When any such statement could not be truthfully made, full particulars should be given of the facts which made this impossible. The name and address of a doctor who had been consulted should be stated, with a definite request to that doctor to answer any inquiries made by the other party, or by his or her parents or guardians. A knowingly false declaration, with intention to deceive, should be punished with imprisonment of specified length and without option of fine; and it should moreover, generally speaking, be made a sufficient ground for the annulment of the marriage. By means of such an enactment, considerable immediate and racial advantages would be obtained. In certain countries the relationship, if any, existing between the parties has to be declared before marriage; but if consanguineous unions are, as I hold, more likely to benefit than to injure the race, this precaution would have no advantages from the purely racial point of view. In fact it might be injurious in spreading false beliefs as to the evil effects of cousin marriages. There are, in fact, no reasons known to me which make it desirable that the English laws in regard to this point should be altered, and the same applies to those regulations affecting the age at marriage. It has been suggested that, in the absence of any such suggested system of certificates, it would be well that a demand should be made by the woman's relatives that the man should insure his life; for in this way it would be made necessary for him to obtain a medical certificate. On consideration it appears, however, that though the woman might be in some degree thus safeguarded, the racial effects would be, to say the least, of doubtful value. Trouble would certainly arise with reference to the value of the insurance, with the result that more marriages would |