ysgenic grounds of chronic inebriety,
feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, insanity or any other serious inheritable
physical, mental or moral defect.

This view of the eugenic value of divorce should not be construed as a
plea for the admission of mutual consent as a ground for divorce. It is
desirable, however, to realize that mismating is the real evil. Divorce
in such cases is merely a cure for an improper condition. Social
condemnation should stigmatize the wrong of mismating, not the undoing
of such a wrong.

Restrictions on age at marriage are almost universal. The object is to
prevent too early marriages. The objections which are commonly urged
against early marriage (in so far as they bear upon eugenics) are the
following:

1. That it results in inferior offspring. This objection is not well
supported except possibly in the most extreme cases. Physically, there
is evidence that the younger parents on the whole bear the sounder
children.

2. That a postponement of marriage provides the opportunity for better
sexual selection. This is a valid ground for discouraging the marriage
of minors.

3. The better educated classes are obliged to marry late, because a man
usually can not marry until he has finished his education and
established himself in business. A fair amount of restriction as to age
at marriage will therefore not affect these classes, but may affect the
uneducated classes. In so far as lack of education is correlated with
eugenic inferiority, some restriction of this sort is desirable, because
it will keep inferiors from reproducing too rapidly, as compared with
the superior elements of the population.

While the widespread rule that men should not marry under 21 and women
under 18 has some justification, then, an ideal law would permit
exceptions where there was adequate income and good mating.

Laws to prohibit or restrict consanguineous marriages fall within the
scope of this chapter, in so far as they are not based on dogma alone,
since their aim is popularly supposed to be to prevent marriages that
will result in undesirable offspring. Examining the laws of all the
United States, C. B. Davenport[91] found the following classes excluded
from marriage:

1. Sibs (i.e., full brothers and sisters) in all states, and half sibs
in most states.

2. Parent and child in all states, and parent and grandchild in all
states except Pennsylvania.

3. Child and parent's sibs (i.e., niece and uncle, nephew an