MAKRIAGE COUNSELLING 211 



to marry, as to whether they should or should not have children. But 

 again such advice would usually be too late, and at best only a few couples 

 could be affected in this way. While any gain is useful, it is futile to hope 

 that the problem of eugenics can be affected materially by such trivial 

 procedures. It will be solved only by mass-measures, so to speak, dealing 

 with the five great factors that make or break a nation : war, immigration, 

 contraception, higher education, and charity. 



If young people can be educated to seek advice before they fall in love, 

 some good can be done in a few cases. We get such inquiries, but we classify 

 them not as "premarital" (since they are not definitely planning to marry 

 any definite person) but as problems of heredity. Most of these inquirers 

 seek light on the probable consequences to offspring of a situation in their 

 kinship — for instance, an uncle with dementia praecox, or a sister with 

 epilepsy. 



In counselling such persons, it is necessary to balance the probabilities. 

 Our advice, when called for, is based on a consideration of whether the indi- 

 vidual has anything of great value to transmit to posterity, to offset the 

 handicap mentioned. If his children probably have ^ chance to be well- 

 endowed physically and mentally and to make a real contribution to civili- 

 zation, it might be considered to offset ^ chance of developing dementia 

 praecox. If the chance of dementia praecox, on the other hand, is \ , and 

 that of good endowment otherwise only yq, the person may well be urged at 

 least to undergo sterilization before marriage. 



On the negative side, then, I think the value of marriage advice is usually 

 overestimated. On the positive side a good deal can be done to promote 

 successful marriage. This will, in general, result in more children than will 

 unsuccessful marriage, — indeed, a recent statistician has calculated that 

 the couple with one child has nine times as great a likelihood of avoiding 

 divorce, as does the childless couple; and that each additional child reduces 

 by one-half the remaining chance of a break-up. 



To prepare young people for successful marriage is therefore a real contri- 

 bution, eugenically. The counsellor is greatly aided here by the fact that 

 those who come for premarital conference are far above the average of the 

 population in intelligence and altruism, and therefore likely to use success- 

 fully any information given them. After a study of the personal and family 

 history, our client is given a list of books, all of which are available for him 

 in the Los Angeles Public Library, and which present the subject from dif- 

 ferent points of view, through the eyes of a number of different authors. 

 There are many useful books in this field, and a selection from them repre- 



