Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - Professor J. Vilhelm Hultkrantz, Uppsala and Doctor Emanuel Bergman, Uppsala, The Struggle for Race-improvement in Sweden
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In the old marriage act of 1734 which was in force down to 1915 it was
expressly enacted that epilepsy was an impediment to marriage, but in prac«
tice such mental affections as entailed incapacity to enter into a legal agree«
ment, were also an impediment to marriage. On the other hand it was enacted
that »incurably infectious disease» was sufficient ground for invalidating a marriage,
whereby in all likelihood venereal disease in an infectious stage was meant.
In the meanwhile at the beginning of this century more and more voices
were raised emphasizing the duty of society to provide for the mental and bodily
health of the race, demanding legislative measures preventing the marriage of
persons who in medical and eugenical respects are not suitable for it. For this
purpose motions were raised which, among other things, insisted upon obligatory
medical examination before marriage was entered upon. These were rejected by
Parliament, but when the marriage law must be revised owing to other reasons,
the Faculty of Medicine in Uppsala was consulted respecting its opinion as to
what ought to be the ground for the new law from a medical point of view.
The opinion of the Faculty of Medicine, with which the Medical Board agreed
on the whole, can be looked upon as a good expression of the position taken
at that time (1911) by Swedish medical science towards eugenical questions. We
shall therefore give an account of what it chiefly contains. The Faculty pointed
out to begin with, that as the legislative measures, which from a medical direction
must be insisted on in regard to the eugenical importance of marriage, are in a
greater or less degree intended to reduce the already low percentage of marriages,
they must on that account be proposed with great care and restricted to fit the
circumstances where they are most needed. Great care is urged in taking measur«
es, both by the difficulties of applying them practically, as well as by the
possibility that they can be avoided by means of illegitimate sexual relations
when marriage is not allowed. In certain cases it might be made possible to
obtain a dispensation to marry, as in the case where there are already children
who could thus be made legitimate, and when from one or the other cause it is
quite certain that reproduction is precluded.
The Faculty proposed that it should be enacted that the following might be
taken as forming an impediment to marriage: 1) falling sickness, when not caused
by external reasons, 2) mental disease and mental debility actually present, men«
tal disease in the past, not caused by external reasons, also mental and moral
defects in a severe degree from which specially great danger might be anticipated
for the mental development of the posterity, and, 3) venereal disease in an in«
fectious stage. In the meanwhile in the two first mentioned cases it ought to be
possible, after the presentation of a certificate from a qualified medical man to
obtain a dispensation in certain cases. Anyone who is, or can with reason be
suspected of being affected by any form of falling sickness, as also anyone who
has been mentally deranged or whom there is good reason to suspect of being
afflicted with mental disease, mental debility or any other psychical abnormality
of the kind just stated and also those who have been condemned for greater
crimes, for repeated offences or convicted of vagrancy, ought not to be allowed
to marry without the production of a medical certificate, accepted by the Med«
ical Board, showing that he must not be considered to be affected by any such
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