HUMAN CONSERVATION 251 



bidding the marriage of epileptics, the insane, habit- 

 ual drunkards, paupers, idiots, feeble-minded, and 

 those afflicted with venereal diseases. It would be 

 well if such laws were not only more uniform and 

 widespread, but also more rigidly enforced. 



It is quite true that marriage laws in themselves 

 do not necessarily control human reproduction, for 

 illegitimacy is a factor that must always be reckoned 

 with ; nevertheless such laws do have an important 

 influence in regulating marriage and consequent 

 reproduction. 



Marriage laws may, however, sometimes bring 

 about a deplorable result eugenically, as in the case 

 of forced marriage of sexual offenders in order to 

 legalize the offense and "save the woman's honor." 

 To compel, under the guise of legality, two defective 

 streams of germplasm to combine repeatedly and 

 thereby result in defective offspring just because 

 the unfortunate event happened once illegitimately, 

 is fundamentally a mistake. Darwin says : "Except 

 in the case of man himself hardly any one is so 

 ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed." 



c. An Educated Sentiment 



A far more effective means of restricting bad 

 germplasm than placing elaborate marriage laws 

 upon our statute-books is to educate public sentiment 

 and to foster a popular eugenic conscience, in the 

 absence of which the safeguards of the law must 

 forever be largely without avail. 



Such a sentiment already generally exists to a 



