Intermarriage, or, The mode in which, and the causes why, beauty, health and intellect, result from certain unions, amd deformity, disease and insanity, from others ... / by Alexander Walker.

  • Walker, Alexander, 1779-1852.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Intermarriage, or, The mode in which, and the causes why, beauty, health and intellect, result from certain unions, amd deformity, disease and insanity, from others ... / by Alexander Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    511/524 (page 441)
    Finally, it is frightful to observe the manner in which some writers speak of insanity as a bar to marriage.—A French writer says, All agree in preventing marriage as long as the insanity pre- sents any character of decided continuance, and all recommend it, if in her lucid intervals the young girl manifests any strong desire for marriage, or any inclination to unite with the object of her choice. [Her progeny, of course, will be as prone to insanity as herself !] The effects that marriage will produce on her may be judged of by observing the nature of the agreeable impression made upon her by the announcement of the approaching union. [The man who plays so hazardous a game must be worthless.] But if she suffers a fresh attack when she first learns the certainty of her marriage, I think it would be imprudent to solem- nize it, unless her insanity assumed the character of erotic monomania, or nymphomania properly so called. [And then the man may hope that his daughters will only display their graces in furor uterinus!] With somnambulism and melancholy, it is different. These two conditions rarely present any motives for opposing the marriage of a young girl. It is more than probable that they will be removed by the new kind of excitement this organ receives in the varied and lively emotions occasioned by the