490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Goring*^ considers that assortative mating is a factor of greater im- 

 portance in the upper than in the lower social classes. In his records 

 for insanity in criminals, he finds an assortative mating -\- .35 for the 

 "well-to-do and prosperous poor" while it is probably absent in the 

 " very poor and destitute." *^ 



V. Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating for Social 



Attributes 



To mark off sharply social attributes from those which are physical 

 and psychical is as impossible as it is idle. Certain traits dependent 

 on wealth, family history, education or opportunity may be, for con- 

 venience merely, designated as social. To what extent do they influ- 

 ence mating? 



Their potency is greatest in caste, royalty and peerage. Even in 

 countries which pride themselves on the absence of social strata, 

 wealth, family pride and feuds, religion and education, play their part 

 in limiting the range of choice in marriage selection. But nowhere is 

 mating within the class universal. The much-multiplied American 

 dollar plays havoc with continental pedigrees. The pure breeding of 

 the English nobility is a pretence ; " the lawyer, the farmer, the silk- 

 mercer lies perdu under the coronet, and winks to the antiquary to say 

 nothing." Some day the weight of these social forces will be deter- 

 mined, but the proper kinds of facts are not yet available. 



Alcoholism is one of those interesting cases in which direct personal 

 or social influence may supplement and reinforce the resemblance pos- 

 sibly due to assortative mating. Goring,*® dividing his material for 

 English criminals*" into three classes for social status, finds these co- 

 efficients of resemblance: 



Very poor and destitute .^. ■\- .44 



Prosperous poor -1- .58 



Well-to-do -f- .69 



All 4- .70 



*^ As a check, Goring determined the correlation between phthisis in one and 

 insanity in the other member of a wedded pair. The resemblance was found to 

 be sensibly zero. 



« Goring, Chas., "Stud. Nat. Det.," 5, p. 27. 



*° The reader in noting the high values given for alcoholism by Goring will 

 remember that the individuals studied are the parents of criminals, and that 

 there is a known association between criminality and alcoholism. From data 

 collected by Heymans and Wiersma, Schuster and Elderton {Biometrika, Vol. 5, 

 p. 468, 1908) calculated a correlation for tendency towards drink of 4- .24 to 

 -|- .36. But there are several reasons for doubting the trustworthiness of 

 these data. 



*' Goring, C, ' ' On the Inheritance of the Diathesis of Phthisis and Insanity : 

 A Statistical Study based upon the Family History of 1,500 Criminals," 

 Drapers Co. Ees. Mem., "Stud. Nat. Det.," 5, London, 1909, Dulau & Co. 



