Johnson: Marriage Selection 



107 



properly be permitted to do any work 

 they wish, not incompatible with their 

 well-being ; but greater honor and esteem 

 is due those who have not shirked the 

 paramount function and responsibili- 

 ties of motherhood. 



While waiting for separate colleges 

 to become co-cducational, as they 

 eventually will, their present dysgenic 

 tendency can probably be reduced by 

 the gradual introduction of men teach- 

 ers into the women's colleges. Women 

 professors tend to foster celibate career- 

 hunting, which, attractive as it is to 

 many j^oung women at first, in most 

 cases is eventually unsatisfying. Fur- 

 thermore, the introduction of courses 

 dealing with the home and the child 

 would give college women increased 

 interest in and eagerness for that 

 noblest profession of home-making and 

 motherhood. 



Let us not err in our efforts to teach 

 chastity by making sex appear an evil 

 thing. This is a terrible mistake and 

 all too common. One of my students, 

 referring to a widely read sex book for 

 young men, said one woiild infer from 

 it that all married men suffer a serious 

 sacrifice in health. I am confident that 

 much of the celibacy of women may be 

 blamed to ill-balanced mothers and 

 others who, in word or attitude, build 

 up an impression that sex is indecent 

 and bestial, and engender a general, 

 damaging suspicion of men. 



caution in sex education. 



It is necessary to keep our heads level 

 in the sex ethics campaign. The vene- 

 real diseases will probably, if we can con- 

 tinue our present progress in treatment 

 and prophylaxis, be brought under con- 

 trol in the course of a century, while the 

 problem of differential mating and the 



fecundity of the superior stocks will be 

 with us as long as the race lasts, which 

 we may expect to be tens of millions of 

 years. Let us not present too luridly, 

 by drama, novel, or magazine storv, 

 dramatic and highly-colored individual 

 sex histories. These often impress an 

 abnormal situation on sensitive girls so 

 strongly that aversion to marriage or 

 sex antagonism is sometimes aroused. 



The facts should be presented in a 

 more dispassionate, scientific, propor- 

 tioned, and psychologically sound way 

 — not by cynics, but by competent, ex- 

 perienced, sweet-minded persons. 



Eligible young people should have 

 their circle of acquaintances broadened. 

 Co-education,** I believe, is one of the 

 best means, as associating the best 

 groups. But many other means should 

 be encouraged. We have in this a 

 further justification of cards, dancing 

 and theatres. That these may some- 

 times be pursued intemperately need 

 not condemn them universally. These 

 and other social devices extend the 

 range of acquaintance, and also give 

 the necessary time for mutual estimates 

 and friendships. Others besides par- 

 ents shoiild feel some obligation to 

 afford these social opportunities to 

 young people. Surfeit for some indi- 

 viduals and dearth for others calls for 

 curtailment here and encouragement 

 there. 



selection can be improved. 



I now pass to the consideration of 

 the objection so frequently heard that 

 the selection of mates in man cannot 

 possibly be improved, because it is 

 wholly a personal and capricious thing. 

 But the objectors on this score ignore 

 the fact that three mental stages are 

 normally passed through in this mate- 



^The following figures by Sliinn (Marriage of college women. Century, October, 1895) show 

 the marriage rate of college women, assuming graduation at 22 years of age: 



Marriage Rate from Co-ed. Colleges in Nor. Atlan. 29.0; Mid. West .^3.6. 

 Women in general marry most frequently at 20-25 j^ears of age. 

 College women marry most frequently at 25-30 years of age. 



