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This book presents clearly the origin and nature of a few of the dysgenic factors now operative in society. That the situation is an acute one is indicated by Bertrand Russell's statement that in England the parents of children are on the whole more lacking in desirable qualities than the population in general. In other words, the individuals—both men and women—best fitted for reproduction of the species, prefer not to accept the rigid conditions imposed as a prelude, and for this and other reasons, economic and egotistic, choose celibacy. The three authors have indicated some of the reasons for this state of affairs.
In the first part Dr. Knight has reviewed the present knowledge of biology as applied to human heredity. The gynecocentric theory, so universally paraphrased, is disposed of in this part and the dysgenic influence of the “moral” control of reproduction clearly shown. Dr. Knight has also shown the danger of the highest type of female turning away from reproduction, as a course which must result inevitably in the triumph of the primitive rather than the civilized society.
In the most interesting part of the book Dr. Peters has traced the modern attitude towards woman back to its earliest recorded origin in ancient peoples and cited analogues in savage races. Then through the ages she has followed this reaction through all of its phases: the unclean and the sacred women, the witch-woman, the “Lady,” the “model woman” and the modern woman. With some of her assumptions we are inclined to quarrel. Thus, that the marriage ritual had its origin in a desire to countenance a breach of taboo (p. 168). Or that the avoidance of pregnant women by savage races is caused by a fear of sympathetic magic (p. 147) and is “an intensification of the feeling which he has toward her at all times” (p. 153). Much the same emotional reaction is seen in animals who can hardly have any