anation of National Differences[114]
To decide between race and environment as the efficient cause of any
social phenomenon is a matter of singular interest at this time. A
school of sociological writers, dazzled by the recent brilliant
discoveries in European ethnology, show a decided inclination to sink
the racial explanation up to the handle in every possible phase of
social life in Europe. It must be confessed that there is provocation
for it. So persistent have the physical characteristics of the people
shown themselves that it is not surprising to find theories of a
corresponding inheritance of mental attributes in great favor.
This racial school of social philosophers derives much of its data from
French sources. For this reason, and also because our anthropological
knowledge of that country is more complete than for any other part of
Europe, we shall confine our attention primarily to France. In the
unattractive upland areas of isolation is the Alpine broad-headed race
common to central Europe. At the north, extending down in a broad belt
diagonally as far as Limoges and along the coast of Brittany, there is
intermixture with the blond, long-headed Teutonic race; while along the
southern coast, penetrating up the Rhone Valley, is found the extension
of the equally long-headed but brunet Mediterranean stock. These ethnic
facts correspond to physical ones; three areas of geographical isolation
are distinct centers of distribution of the Alpine race.
The organization of the family is the surest criterion of the stage of
social evolution attained by a people. No other phase of human
association is so many-sided, so fundamental, so pregnant for the
future. For this reason we may properly begin our study by an
examination of a phenomenon which directly concerns the stability of the
domestic institution--viz., divorce. What are the facts as to its
distribution in France? Marked variations between different districts
occur. Paris is at one extreme; Corsica, as always, at the other. Of
singular interest to us is the parallel which at once appears between
this distribution of divorce and that of head form. The areas of
isolation peopled by the Alpine race are characterized by almost
complete absence of legal severance of domestic relations between
husband and wife.
Do the facts instanced above have any ethnic significance? Do they mean
that the Alpine type, as a race, holds more tenaciously than does the
Teuton to
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