5Q2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE JEWS: A STUDY OF EACE AND ENVIEONMENT. III. 



BY Dr. MAURICE FISHBERG 



NEW YORK CITY 



Mixed Marriages between Persons of Different Christian 



Denominations 



rr^ HE assumption that Jews and christians refrain from intermarriage 

 -*- because of an inherent racial antipathy existing between the 

 Aryan and the Semite is disproved by the large number of mixed mar- 

 riages in western Europe and America. All the facts go far to prove 

 that the only reason why they have not intermarried during the middle 

 ages and even as far as the first half of the nineteenth century was the 

 difference of religious belief. It was both the church and the syna- 

 gogue which discouraged intermarriage between Jews and christians. 

 Not only has the church prohibited intermarriage with Jews, moham- 

 medans and heathens, but even the adherents of the different christian 

 denominations have been thus enjoined. In the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century intermarriage between catholics and protestants 

 was comparatively rare in Europe and America. With the change of 

 conditions characteristic of our age, a spirit of toleration has become 

 dominant, and mixed marriages are to-day more or less common. In 

 some countries in Europe denominational statistics have been compiled, 

 and these are of considerable interest in this connection. In Hungary, 

 where many religious confessions are represented, the following are the 

 rates of intermarriage: To 100 marriages contracted in 1903 between 

 persons of the same creed there are mixed marriages among unitarians, 

 167.73; protestants, 49.39; reformed church, 48.52; Greek catholic, 

 42.79; Greek oriental, 16.88; Jews, 7.21. Here we find a connection 

 between the degree of religious toleration and the proportion of mixed 

 marriages. The unitarian church, which does not prohibit its adherents 

 to marry outside of their faith, shows the highest proportion of mixed 

 marriages of all the other denominations. In fact, there were more 

 mixed than pure marriages. Next come the evangelical and reformed 

 denominations, with nearly 50 mixed to 100 pure marriages. The 

 large proportion of mixed marriages among the Greek catholics is due 

 to intermarriage with adherents of the Eoman catholic and Greek 

 oriental churches; comparatively few marry protestants. The Jews 

 and the Eoman catholics have the lowest percentage of mixed mar- 



