MAKRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



CHAPTER I 



WHAT IS MAKRIAGE? 



It may be said generally of marriage that although 

 associated in Christian countries with a religious 

 ceremony, it is subject to the same process of develop- 

 ment as any other social or political institution, and 

 is to be judged by the same standards, namely, those of 

 usefulness and expediency. No fixed laws of morality 

 or virtue are to be found in human nature. The 

 Darwinian theory that all animal instinct is governed 

 by physical conditions may not be so confidently 

 accepted at the present day as it was a few years ago, 

 but there is nevertheless strong evidence that many 

 of the mental states of a given people — moods or 

 dispositions loosely called instinctive — are induced 



B 



