Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/106

 92 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

position which permits him every day several hours of repose from nervous fatigue.

MARRIAGE.

Marriage is another important point in the question of preventing insanity. How many young people, consulting merely their own feelings, permit themselves to glide into a union without dreaming of the consequences ! They consult neither their parents, family, nor physician! And if their views are asked, often it is too late ; the counsels are not heeded ; and views opposed to their own are received with bad grace.

It would be an error to believe that one must dissuade from marriage everyone who counts an insane person in the family. We should affirm that there is serious reason for consideration, and ij; is important in such circumstances that an intelligent physician, accustomed to make psychical examinations, should be informed of the case and express his personal opinion. It too often happens that nervous persons incline to select those who have the same temperament, and that they pfefer members of their own family to strangers, whom they do not dare to approach. The danger increases when cousins have parents who have become insane.

A member of a neuropathic family ought to enjoy good health, and should marry a person in strong health, and one whose family has given no reason to suspect any trace of mental disturbance or degeneration. A neuropathic girl should not marry any man who has not a good position and resources sufificient to exclude from the future all reasons for anxiety which might prejudice the material life. The obligation of duty to care for material interests of existence depresses a man who could easily have endured the struggle for life if he could have lived continually in normal circumstances. In addition to all the moral trouble and all the emotions so frequent with mar- ried people who are nervous, it is necessary to add another cause of debilitation with women — that is, the too rapid succession of births, which induces physical and mental weakness, and conse- quently a strong tendency to mental alienation. This is not