476 INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY 



781. "Such legislation would not be an absolute novelty in 

 English speaking communities; but there is little or no reliable 

 information as to the practicable results of the tentative efforts in 

 this direction which have been made in New Jersey and elsewhere ; 

 and it is clear that such legislation however carefully restricted 

 would in effect operate less by imposing an easily enforceable 

 legal prohibition than by guiding and directing the advisory 

 functions of medical and other authorities and in other ways 

 educating public opinion to the proper consideration of a very 

 serious evil. 



782. " We are of the opinion that it would be unwise to modify 

 or supplement the existing law with respect to the marriage of 

 1 persons of unsound mind ' [i.e. lunatics]. It is perhaps unnecessary 

 to refer to other objections to any such proposal ; it is clear that 

 the limited and often temporary nature of this particular mental 

 disability renders it impossible either to prohibit permanently the 

 marriage of such persons or to set out in practically useful legislative 

 proposals the conditions under which such marriages might take 

 place. 



783. " No such obstacle, however, presents itself in the case of 

 those persons who exhibit the congenital and incurable forms of 

 mental defect [i.e. imbecility], and we believe that a legislative 

 prohibition affecting these classes would have useful direct and 

 indirect effects." * 



1 Op. cit., vol. viii. p. 185. 



