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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Athlete Makixg Standing High Jump. 



LEGAL LIMITATIONS OF MAE- 

 RIAGE 



A Pennsylvania law became opera- 

 tive in August, requiring those wishing 

 to marry to appear at the license bu- 

 reau and answer under oath some fifty 

 questions. It is rather absurd to swear 

 that one is not an imbecile, and a 

 physician 's certificate, as required by a 

 law passed by the last Colorado legis- 

 lature, is a better guard against com- 

 municable disease than a statement of 

 the patient. Still such a law may be of 

 use, though not so much in punishment 

 following its violation as in the reflec- 

 tions and precautions which it may oc- 

 casion in those who propose to marry. 

 The laws of the different states limit- 

 ing marriage relations have recently 

 been summarized in a bulletin pre- 

 pared by Dr. Charles B. Davenport and 

 issued by the Eugenics Record Office. 

 They are more numerous and compli- 

 cated than most people suppose. 



Marriages of idiots and the insane 

 are illegal in about half the st.ntes and 

 those marriages are presumably in- 

 valid everywhere, as such persons can 

 not make contracts. On similar 

 grounds in three states a marriage is 

 invalid when one of the parties is in- 



toxicated. Only five states forbid the 

 marriage of those suffering from ven- 

 ereal disease. It should surely be 

 made as serious a crime to communicate 

 j diseases as to commit larceny or as- 

 ' sault and battery, and public sentiment 

 would probably uphold legislation to 

 this effect. In only a few cases have 

 laws been passed with direct reference 

 to the eugenic aspect of the case. Con- 

 necticut and Kentucky forbid illicit 

 union with imbeciles, the latter state 

 under penalty of twenty years' im- 

 prisonment. In Delaware a child of a 

 parent insane before it was born can 

 not marry. In Utah, an epileptic wo- 

 man may marry after the age of forty- 

 five, but not before. 



Laws limiting closeness of relation- 

 ship in marriage are based on social 

 rather than on biological considerations. 

 Indeed we have no scientific knowledge 

 that would enable us to prescribe limits 

 of consanguinity within which mar- 

 riage is undesirable from the point of 

 view of heredity or eugenics. The 

 marriage of first cousins is illegal in 

 about half of the states, including 

 Pennsylvania and Illinois, yet such 

 marriages have been and are common in 

 all classes of society. The most dis- 

 tinguished familv known to the writer 



