HEALTH DECLARATION BEFORE MARRIAGE 225 



be a not inconsiderable improvement in the genetic qualities of the race, 

 bringing with it strength and more national happiness. There would be a 

 direct stimulus to the promotion of good health, and encouragement to 

 keep one's body clean and inviolable; and the authorities would be given 

 an admirable opportunity for watching over the physical welfare of the 

 nation. A legal health-declaration before marriage especially would signify 

 the first step towards a practical system of national hygiene. 



The largest Norwegian association of women, "The Norwegian Women's 

 National Council," took up the matter and at their congress in Stavanger, 

 after lectures by Dr. Martha Persen and Dorothea Wiik, unanimously 

 resolved to demand that a declaration of health should be made com- 

 pulsory by law. The secretary to the association, Clare Mj^en, maintained 

 that such a declaration ought not merely to state whether one or the other 

 of the parties is suffering from any of the diseases mentioned but also 

 whether he or she has previously suffered from such disease. Since one of 

 these diseases — gonorrhea — may cause sterility and another — syphilis — is 

 a disease of which the permanent cure is not certain, one of the parties will 

 be deceived if full and complete information is not given. Half the truth 

 might here easily be more disastrous than no information at all. 



The dispute about the words "is suffering or has suffered" aroused a 

 violent commotion over the whole land and became the subject of vigorous 

 discussion in the press. Doctors stood against doctors, women against 

 women. It seemed as if the old easy-going system of muddle was once 

 again about to mobilise all its forces, both the experts and the non-experts. 



Ciare Mjo'en's proposal was later on adopted by the congress of the 

 Norwegian Women's National Council, with a great majority. 



During the dispute about the health declaration Ellen Key sent a letter 

 to Clare Mjp'en in which she said: "Not until after many generations of 

 development will it become an instinct for women, an irresistibly impera- 

 tive instinct, not to make a physically or psychically degenerate or broken 

 down man the father of her children. It may be imagined that morality 

 will subsequently become so developed that further legislation can be 

 avoided, because mankind voluntarily abstain from the worst of all forms 

 of liberty — the liberty to bestow life upon incompetent offspring." 



Independent of eugenic initiative a Scandinavian commission on family 

 law was appointed, which amongst other reforms (mostly concerning rights 

 of property) also dealt with the question of health declaration. 



In this commission and in the subsequent discussion in the parliaments 

 the biological standpoints were in the first treatment disregarded, whereas 

 by a later treatment (1918) Norway as well as Sweden have adopted a 



