The law of sex : being an exposition of the natural law by which the sex of offspring is controlled in man and the lower animals : and giving the solution of various social problems / by George B. Starkweather.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The law of sex : being an exposition of the natural law by which the sex of offspring is controlled in man and the lower animals : and giving the solution of various social problems / by George B. Starkweather. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    This theory might be credited in the cases of small differences of age, but what shall be said when belief is asked to the statement that a man of fifty is so much more physically vigorous than a man of thu-ty-six, that if both were to marry wives of thirty, the older man would have an excess of sons in the proportion of 200 per cent., while the latter case will only produce sons in the proportion of 103 per cent. Is the man of fifty so much the superior of the man of thirty-six in physical energy ? Expe- rience must sm^ely answer this in the negative. But this theory, like many others, though not the whole truth, contains some glimpses of the truth, though in a shape not to be easily recognised. It is, in fact, as Darwin says in the passage just quoted, one important factor in the result. There are, however, many more factors, and it will be seen later on that the application even of this one has been wholly misapprehended, and the results have therefore been contradictory and whoUy unsatis- factory. A passing reference is further necessary to a theory still current among large classes—hardly as a theory perhaps, but rather as a sort of seK-evident and natural fact. I allude to the theory of Genital superiority which supposes that the more passionate parent stamps the sex of the child. It is .not strange that such preponderance of passion should be supposed to influence if not to determine the result, for it is noticeable that persons with ex- cessive passions often have children exclusively of their own sex. Here another ghmpse of the work- ings of the true law is obtained, but nothing more: