Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/122

The opinion is widely prevalent that consanguineous marriage, even when the contracting parties are in excellent health, will quite inevitably result in children that are physically and mentally inferior, deformed, feeble-minded, pre-disposed to disease, or otherwise defective; if, indeed, the union will not be barren.

This opinion, which is based on popular fallacies and misinformation, undoubtedly received its currency from the quite universal prejudice against incest, or sexual intercourse between close relatives.

Extensive investigation, however, indicates that consanguineous marriage is not in itself injurious to offspring; that if both parties are healthy and vigorous, and have no objectionable hereditary strain, the children of such a union should be just as healthy and bright as those of any other healthy parents. As a matter of fact, if the blood-related parents are exceptionally strong and gifted, the chances are that their offspring will possess these desirable qualities in an enhanced measure. The reason for this is that hereditary strains in the children of blood relatives tend to become intensified.

Therefore, if the parents have a certain hereditary taint, or predisposition to disease or abnormality of any kind, even though it be latent or unnoticeable in either of them, this undesirable trait may become dominant in their children, or at least in a certain proportion of their children.

The same thing may be said of children of parents not blood related, if they happen to combine hereditary strains that have a similar pathological predisposition. For instance, it is decidedly inadvisable for people to marry, even when not blood related, if there is on both sides, a similar unfavorable hereditary strain, such as unsoundness of mind,