MODERN MARRIAGE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10475, 4 January 1928, Page 5

MODERN MARRIAGE

CAUSE OF FAILURE

IGNORANCE; OF SEX KNOWLEDGE PRE-NUPTIAL JNTillOt LS SI PPORTTvD EUGENTSTERGKS SUPPORT OF MELANESIAN SYSTEM

(United Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, Jan. 2. “Take a hint from the, Melanesian marriage system”, was the outstanding proposal of Captain H. L. <F. Pitt Rivers, author of various papers on ethnological, psychological and eugenic subjects, in a startling address, {‘Why Marriages - Fail”, before the Eugenic-s Society. He said that despite the supposedly scientific age many married people were mpsfc ignorant of the elementary facts of biology and psychology. In many parts ot Melanesia unnamed girls were free to receive lovers. These, pre-nuptial intriques served as an apprenticeship for marriage. Sweden had already taken the Me]) of according legal recognition of unions which were outside the marriage. “Our present marriage system might ho modified by a form of concubinage”, be continued. “Who knows? Physical training and competitive games are often advocated as a safeguard agauist sexual development as though the sexual anaesthetic is a high ideal to be attained. This depreciation and repression of female sexuality is the root of the bankruptcy of Christian monogamous marriages”. Mrs Hodson urged that emphasis should be laid, not on loyalty before marriage, but on loyalty alter marriage. An engagement should be regarded as something to lie broken.

Dame Catherine Fur,so said we must create a rare of parents able to give their children the requisite sex knowledge. At present the knowledge should be conveyed b,v schools as parents were not qualified. Miss Coles, superintendent of Middlesex Hospital Infant Welfare centre, speaking on the ideal clothing for babies, was almost as revolutionary as Captain Pitt-Rivers, She agreed with wool clothing for babies in winter, but in summer it would be better to emulate the Indians. Here Miss Coles held up a string of beads. —A. and N.Z.C.A.