Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/460

 446 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

disproved. ^^ The idea probably originated in the fact that when EngHshmen took native women to Hve with them after the Eng- Hsh fashion such unions were barren or only slightly fertile. When unions occur under conditions which allow the retention of the native mode of life they are often as fruitful as others.'*' But diversity in habitual mode of living is not the sole cause of relative sterility in mixed unions. Lack of harmony in the inti- mate matters of the personal life reacts unfavorably on fecundity. Walcker shows that in Germany the average number of children born to Christian families is 4.35 and to Jewish families 4.21, but the average number in families where the father is a Christian and the mother a Jewess is 1.58. This variation is clearly attributable to psychological rather than physiological causes. Inability to enter sympathetically into each other's inner life breeds disappointment and ultimately discord.'^

Absence of cultural homogeneity may also account for the incapacity for type-perpetuation among the offspring of widely differing stocks. The Chinese half-breeds in the Philippines are said to preserve the distinctive characters of the type and to constitute a permanent class, whereas the descendants of Span- iards and natives rapidly sink back into the general mass.'^ In apparent contrast, however, should be mentioned the Griquas of South Africa, descended chiefly from Dutch colonists and Hot- tentots. They have prospered, while the pure Hottentots have become so nearly extinct that Ratzel believes that the Hottentot race will ultimately survive only in its half-breeds.^' The British West Indies have, in the past two centuries, witnessed a rapid

{History of Human Marriages, 285, 287). Topinard cites the case of English seal hunters of Bass Strait who in 1800-5 took native women as concubines and produced a numerous progeny: Anthropology, 375, 376.
 * • See the testimony collected by Westermarck from English missionaries

•*Rink believes that marriages of European men with Eskimo women in Greenland are more fertile than those of natives with natives : Danish Green- land, 163.

"Walcker, Grundriss der Statistik, cited by Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, 192.

"Foreman. The Philippine Islands, 192, 193. " The History of Mankind, II, 281.