This following passage I took from a book called Family and Society published in 1914. I dare say, this book pretty well sums up the beliefs of many people of the time.
My gosh, as if it wasn’t hard enough finding a mate! And as if Marriage wasn’t all about money, at that time.
Today, of course, we have those ‘scientific’ studies that are often published in the press about how men are attracted to women with ‘certain proportions’ and women like men who are honest, or something like that. It’s just as much BS as the bit below, but we buy into it and then, of course, female anxiety is ratcheted up and the wheels of commerce go round and round.
Still, reading these Nicholson letters, I can see that some personality traits seem to be passed down. But criminality, how funny, as Herb Nicholson stole from the bank.
Reading this bit from the 1914, I can’t help but think of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth. She worked as a VAD at the front in WWI and she describes the patients as once superb examples of young male humanity, all mutilated and disfigured and crippled. Well, her words are finer.
“Intelligent selection, however, on the part of would-be parents may accomplish much both positively and negatively for the improvement of the human race. As a positive matter, the woman or man desiring to mate has the power to choose a mate who has the characteristics of a good race stock.
If mates are selected that have the advantage of size, strength, freedom from abnormalites in form and physiognomy, and of mental ability, the assurance is warranted that the offspring that may issue from this mating will be adequate for the undertaking of life.
On the other hand, security for the offspring may be obtained negatively by avoiding mating with persons having diseased, abnormal or undesireable characteristics. Most character traits are transmitted directly from parents to offspring… It is fairly certain that feeble-mindedness, narcotism, syphilis, and of criminality are inheritable…Nothing short of a bill of health based upon physical examination is sufficient to protect the integrity of the race from the scourges which now afflict humanity.”
