Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/35

 STUDIES IN EUGENICS 1 9

7. Celibacy. The dictates of religion in respect to the oppo- site duties of leading celibate lives, and of continuing families, have been contradictory. In many nations it is and has been considered a disgrace to bear no children, and in other nations celibacy has been raised to the rank of a virtue of the highest order. The ascetic character of the African portion of the early Christian church, as already remarked, introduced the merits of celibate life into its teaching. During the fifty or so generations that have elapsed since the establishment of Christianity, the nunneries and monasteries, and the celibate lives of Catholic priests, have had vast social effects, how far for good and how far for evil need not be discussed here. The point I wish to enforce is not only the potency of the religious sense in aiding or deterring marriage, but more especially the influence and authority of ministers of religion in enforcing celibacy. They have notoriously used it when aid has been invoked by members of the family on grounds that are not religious at all, but merely of family expediency. Thus, at some times and in some Christian nations, every girl who did not marry while still young was practically compelled to enter a nunnery, from which escape was afterward impossible.

It is easy to let the imagination run wild on the supposition of a whole-hearted acceptance of eugenics as a national religion ; that is, of the thorough conviction by a nation that no worthier object exists for man than the improvement of his own race; and when efforts as great as those by which nunneries and monasteries were endowed and maintained should be directed to fulfil an opposite purpose. I will not enter further into this. Suffice it to say that the history of conventual life affords abundant evidence, on a very large scale, of the power of reli- gious authority in directing and withstanding the tendencies of human nature toward freedom in marriage.

Conclusion. Seven different subjects have now been touched upon. They are monogamy, endogamy, exogamy, Australian marriages, taboo, prohibited degrees, and celibacy. It has been shown under each of these heads how powerful are the various combinations of immaterial motives upon marriage selection;