A8S0RTATIVE MATING IN MEN 489 



IV. ASSORTATIVE MATING POR PSYCHICAL CHARACTERS 



That psychical characteristics should play some part in human 

 matings seems a priori highly probable.^® Actual facts are, however, 

 few.*" Galton concluded*^ that even good and bad temper made very 

 little difference in marriage selection, but he pointed out many diffi- 

 culties of obtaining trustworthy evidence. 



Elderton^^ found for " Intelligence, Temper, Temperament "*^ and 

 success in career the values given in the accompanying table.** 



Mental Character Relationship 

 Intelligence 33 



Temper 18 



Temperament, excitable 11 



Sympathetic 15 



Eeserved 27 



Success in career 48 



For insanity, working with Pearson's " Family Eecords " and using 

 two different methods of classifying the " normal," " insane," " ner- 

 vous " and " doubtful " entries so as to get the upper and lower limits 

 for assortative mating. Miss Elderton*^ finds -\- .244 as the lower and 

 -\- .361 as the upper limit, say roughly an intensity of .30 ± .05. 



'" Theoretically, assortative mating should be absent in royalty where mar- 

 riages are contracted by persons other than those most directly concerned, or are 

 arranged in accordance with some political policy. Woods ("Mental and Moral 

 Heredity in Eoyalty, " pp. 272-273) thinks it can not be held to be entirely 

 absent. He correlated the intellectual grades of 229 couples and found r = -\- .08, 

 approximately, but with a probable error of ± .076. 



*" I have given none of the coefficient for psychical characters calculated by 

 Schuster and Elderton {Biometrika, Vol. 5, pp. 460-469, 1907) from data col- 

 lected by Heymans and Wiersma. These give results which vary widely among 

 themselves and if one takes those which seem the most likely to be trustworthily 

 determined, he opens himself to the criticism of the selection of evidence. Per- 

 sonally, I have grave doubts concerning the value of data on psychical characters 

 collected by the widespread circulation of schedules. The estimates are too much 

 subject to personal equation and family bias. When they are entrusted to espe- 

 cially trained observers who work comparatively, the ease is better. 



"Galton, r., "Good and Bad Temper in English Families," Fortnightly 

 Eev., July, 1887. Eeprinted in "Natural Inheritance." 



« Elderton, Ethel M., Draper's Co. Ees. Mem., "Stud. Nat. Det," 3, pp. 

 30-35, 1908. 



** Galton ("English Men of Science," p. 20, 1895) had only 22 cases where 

 the temperamental characteristics of the parents were marked. He considers 

 that there is a tendency for harmonious matings with respect to temperament. 



** The signs, sometimes difficult to determine in the case of non -measurable 

 characters, seem to be positive throughout, but in some cases there may be dis- 

 tinct cross currents, one tending to produce like and the other to give dissimilar 

 unions. The intensity of resemblance for "success in career" is about double 

 that for other characters, and is possibly to a large extent spurious, because 

 subjective. The "success in career" of a wife is probably largely dependent 

 on or judged by the opportunities which her husband's success gives her for 

 displaying her own abilities. 



" Elderton, Ethel M., loo. cit., p. 35. 



