244 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



is often put off until the twenty-fifth year, or later. 

 It is inevitable that a postponement of the time of 

 marriage will decrease markedly the number of off- 

 spring produced during the lifetime of an individual, 

 and will puL a check upon reproductive capacity. 

 Indeed, it is only too evident that in the so-called 

 higher races there is growing disinclination to 

 marry. An unmarried woman among the savages is 

 hardly found. Among civilized races the number is 

 constantly increasing. In the higher classes, as well 

 as in the lower, the passions too have a large part in 

 producing race suicide, since they are tending to dis- 

 tribute the venereal diseases, the action of which 

 upon the race is disastrous; for, as is well known, 

 these diseases tend to produce sterility among those 

 who acquire them. 



A man and wife who fail to rear to maturity two 

 offspring, to take their places, utterly fail in the 

 struggle for existence, even though they be king and 

 queen of the greatest nation on earth, and are 

 accorded the highest honors of the greatest nation. 

 But the rearing of two offspring is not enough to 

 make one a success in his struggle for existence, for 

 this would only enable his family to replace the 

 father and mother, and in competition with more 

 rapidly producing families this would soon doom 

 his line to extinction. In our communities this grad- 

 ual extinction of families is always taking place. It 

 is going on constantly, but so quietly that we scarcely 

 think of it. The number of individuals in a family 

 becomes smaller and smaller, and eventually even 

 the family name disappears. If we trace back the 

 history of those living in our communities to-day, 

 we shall find them coming from a comparatively 



