Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/464

 45© THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and for raising the standard of conduct, will determine the general prog- ress of humanity. If therefore we were to suppose the blood of the races which are now most advanced to be diluted, so to speak, by that of those most backward, not only would more be lost to the former than would be gained to the latter, but there would be a loss, possibly an irreparable loss, to the world at ilarge*

Behind physical aversion to alien types there lurks an instinc- tive recognition of racial standards as a social capital that must not be dissipated by surrendering race purity. It is therefore to be expected that women, as the more conservative sex, will be found more rigorous than men in resisting social change through cross-breeding. Women dominate the intimate social standards and fix the taboos which set off social classes from each other. Miss Kingsley notes that in West Africa it is the women, "with the normal feminine dislike to innovation," who especially deplore contact with the whites and the turning of the young away from old customs.^^ Sydney Olivier says that it is among women in Jamaica and on the woman's side of life with both blacks and whites that the strongest race prejudice is found.^^ The Eura- sians of India, although allowed by "society" a rank higher than that accorded to the natives, are strictly excluded from any inti- mate social intercourse with Europeans.*^ Where, however, old standards have been broken down by long contact women of the passive races may come to choose the new and supposedly su- perior race in preference to their own discredited people. The Eskimo of certain parts of Greenland are said to have become so thoroughly demoralized by intercourse with Europeans that the women will now prefer the commonest European sailor to the very best Eskimo hunter.^ ^

For the preservation of racial purity geographical separation is the most obvious as it is, where feasible, the most efficient means. The demand in the South immediately after the Civil

" The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind (The Romanes Lecture), 1902, 36.


 * ° West African Studies, 321, 322.


 * ^ White Capital and Colored Labor, 35.


 * • Sara Jeannette Duncan, "Eurasia," Popular Science Monthly, XLII, 4.


 * • Nansen, Eskimo Life, 165.