OF A CERTAIN PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY. 95 



the wider range it afforded for marriage selection. To appreciate its 

 full significance, we have only to turn to the conditions which obtain 

 with the inferior lines in the two communities where are concentrated 

 most of the defective and degenerate members of Lines D and E. Here 

 a definite social stigma attaches to the name Rufer. The course of 

 inquiry has more than once elicited the comment, ''There is something 

 wrong with anyone who will marry into that family; its history is so 

 bad and it appears to be getting worse." 



There have thus been well-defined eugenic conceptions operating 

 here to limit selection and give direction to the evolution of the 

 inferior lines. The few able and aggressive members feeling this 

 stigma deliberately get out and seek settlement where their family is 

 not so unfavorably known. This leaves the inert and inefficient 

 behind to found a marriage on momentary impulse, or put up with 

 anyone they can get, which, in nearly every instance, is a consort 

 equally defectiv^e. A striking illustration of this is furnished by III-3S, 

 Line D, who, after living some years in the West, returned for a time 

 to his birthplace. He was greatly superior to the other members of 

 his fraternity. He became discouraged in his attempts to secure a 

 wife and a place in the esteem of his fellow-townsmen. He is reported 

 as saying: "Here I am only a damned Rufer; I will go back West, 

 where I am as good as anybody." He did so, made a good marriage, 

 now has a promising son, and is a man of means and influence. His 

 feeble-minded brother, on the contrary, although he consorted wdth 

 several bad women, remained unappropriated until recently, when at 

 56 he has made a marriage with an erratic, profligate harlot, whose 

 chief intent is to secure a protection against the effects of her sexual 

 laxity. 



Without attempting to give consideration to other factors which 

 necessarily enter into the selection of mates, we may safely say that 

 the possession of such traits as aggressiveness and perseverance has, 

 in one way or another, resulted in a greater range, and consequently 

 a better type, of marriage selection. In most cases the superior 

 endowment operated to secure removal from sections where the stigma 

 attached to the family name prevented the selection of desirable 

 mates. That done, it insured a fair livelihood and commanded the 

 respect of the adopted community, and directly secured a better con- 

 sort. Often, too, those with superior traits actively sought alliance 

 with better families. This condition, in a state of society where all 

 must earn their living, again meant superior efficiency of the family 

 and strain selected, and subsequent advance in the combination of 

 traits carried by the offspring. 



While these positive factors have operated to increase the range of 

 selection for the better endowed, and have resulted in the improve- 



