5o 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



are more apt to marry protestants; similarly in Prussia (population, 

 63.29 per cent, protestant and 35.14 per cent, catholic), the catholics 

 have 27.07 per cent, of marriages with protestants as against only 

 13.78 per cent, of marriages of protestants with catholics. In Berlin, 

 where the population consists of 84.18 per cent, protestants and only 

 9.98 per cent, catholics, there were in 1904 only 19.93 mixed marriages 

 of protestants to catholics, as against 323.81 per cent, of catholics to 

 protestants, while in Bavaria, having a majority of catholic popula- 

 tion, 70.65 per cent., and only 28.32 per cent, of protestants, it is the 

 protestants who have a higher proportion of mixed marriages, 37.03 

 per cent., as against only 14.45 per cent, among the catholics. The 

 powerful influence of the majority and its tendency to absorb the 

 minority are thus demonstrated. The immediate cause is, of course, 

 to be sought in the fact that there is often some difficulty to find a 

 suitable partner among the minority, and when one is found among the 

 followers of a different creed, all religious scruples are laid aside. 10 



Intermarriage between persons of different creeds is a recent phe- 

 nomenon, only one hundred years ago it was quite rare. " In no 

 respect has modern civilization acted more beneficently than as pro- 

 moter of religious toleration," says Westermarck. " In our time dif- 

 ference of faith discourages sympathy to a much less extent than it 

 did in former ages." " In Prussia the number of mixed marriages 

 has quadrupled within the last fifty years, while the number of mar- 

 riages in general has increased only 70 per cent, during that period. 

 In Bavaria the increase has been more pronounced. During the first 

 half of the nineteenth century they constituted less than three per cent, 

 of the total number of marriages, while to-day one in ten marriages is 

 contracted between persons of different faiths. 



All these facts and figures emphasize that it was not any racial 

 antipathy between the so-called Semite and Aryan which kept the 

 Jews of former days from marrying with christians. There were prac- 

 tically no mixed marriages among persons of any religion during 

 medieval days. The same prevails to-day in Eussia, where mixed 

 marriages are prohibited by law. With the progress of religious toler- 



10 A somewhat similar phenomenon has been noted among the immigrant 

 population in the United States. The Tenth Census made the interesting deduc- 

 tion that in those portions of the country where a single nationality was numer- 

 ously represented, as, for instance, the Irish in New York City, there was little 

 intermarriage with other nationalities. But where the nationality was not 

 numerously represented, as the Irish in St. Louis, there was a greater tendency 

 among the men to marry native-born women, or women of other nationality. 

 (R. Mayo-Smith, ' Statistics and Sociology,' pp. 111-112.) The same is 1 true of 

 the Jews in the United States: Very few marry christians in New York City, 

 while in the western and southern states intermarriage is common. 



11 Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, p. 376. 



