214 



Tllli luLRXAI^ OF HKRliUlTV 



11 children, all of whom died before the 

 twentieth year, a second with 10 chil- 

 dren, eij^ht of whom died young, while 

 the other two were feeble-minded. Of 

 the 87 children included in the class 

 under discussion, 80^0 died before 

 reaching the twentieth year, 8% are 

 phthisical, and only a single one of the 

 number passed the sixtieth year. This 

 lamentable constitution of children finds 

 its explanation, with the exception of a 

 few cases, in the condition of health of 

 the parents." 



"Up to this point we have dealt with 

 the entire extinction of a whole genera- 

 tion, whether due to the production of 

 no offspring at all, or the production of 

 no fruitful offspring. It is more interest- 

 ing to consider the extinction of the 

 male line alone, since that is commonly 

 identified with the extinction of the 

 family." 



" In this connection , " say s Lorenz* , ' ' the 

 cases are particularly noteworthy where 

 the deficient production of boys is 

 balanced by an over-production of them 

 in the immediately preceding genera- 

 tions. This happens so frequently 

 that one is inclined to suspect a causal 

 relation." He cites many instances to 

 prove it, and Riffcl's tables allow a 

 striking confirmation of his remark. 

 If one groups the fathers of families 

 which consist only of girls (or at least, 

 no boys which reached more than five 

 years of age), the brothers and sisters 

 of these fathers show the following sex 

 proportion : 



197 boys to 100 girls (Huttenheim) 

 146 boys to 100 girls (Stu]jfaich) 

 149 boys to 100 girls (Herlsdorf) 

 160 boys to 100 girls, the average in 

 such cases, taking the total for the 

 three villages. 



DISPROPORTION OF BOYS. 



Since the average for the whole 

 l)o])ulation is 106 boys born, for every 

 100 girls, the disproportion of boys in 

 the generation of the father whose 

 family is about to become extinct in the 

 male line, is altogether surprising. 



"Very different, on the contrary, is the 



sex-proportion in the generation of the 

 mothers of families which consist only 

 of girls (not counting bo\'s who died in 

 infancy). Here the girl births are in the 

 majority, and in the two Riffel tables in 

 question we find a proportion of 93 

 boys to 100 girls, in place of the 106 

 boys to 100 girls which the general 

 average of births in the empire would 

 require. 



"We see, then, that extinction of the 

 male line is preceded (as a rule, and in 

 the average) by a great dispro})ortion 

 of male births in the father's generation, 

 and an overweight of female births in 

 the mother's generation. Using a 

 figure of speech, we may say : The male 

 line blooms itself to death, and the 

 excess of boys is suddenly transformed 

 to an excess of girls, through marriage 

 with a woman in whose family girl 

 births have been in excess. So long as 

 one regards such a statement merely as 

 an aid to memory of the facts, it will 

 not be misleading." 



As to the frequency of extinction of 

 male lines in the 1400 marriages now 

 being considered there "are 84 (6%), 

 among the offspring of which only 

 daughters attained marriage. Extinc- 

 tion in the male line therefore seems to 

 have about the same frequency as the 

 complete extinction of a family, since 

 there were found 3% of childless mar- 

 riages and 2.3% of marriages which 

 produced no fruitful offspring. That 

 only daughters married, in these 84 

 families, is by no means to say that 

 there were no sons in the same families ; 

 but those who existed died before the 

 age of marriage or remained celibate; 

 the latter, however, is an extremely 

 rare occurrenc-c in these \'illagcs of 

 Baden. As a matter of fact, a large 

 majority of the families, from which 

 only daughters married, also jjroduccd 

 sons— in only 20 out of the 84 were sons 

 com])lctely lacking*. In the rcsl, llie 

 sons died young. 



USUAL FORM OF KXTIXCTIOX. 



"Out of these 84 families which be- 

 came extinct in tlie niak- line l)ut con- 



*0. Lorenz, Lchrlj. dcr gesamtcn wissensch. Gcnealogie, p. 482, Brrlin, 18^8. 



*In 44 familk'S only sons married, but in only 14 of these were no (laughters horn al all. 



