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THE INTERESTS OF POSTERITY
175
unmarried women are invaluable in devoting their services
in private and public life. There are many professions
where single-women workers are particularly efficient owing
to the fact that they have no family ties. But as useful
as they be to the community, their status, which is contrary
to nature’s laws, can only be recognised as an exception,
confirming the general social rule that every able-bodied
man or woman should be married. Children should be
taught that it is their duty to prepare for married life in
every w^ay conducive to that end, and that for a man it
is a shame to remain unmarried. In Japan public opinion
regards an unmarried man to be immoral.
One of the stumbling-blocks towards the promotion of
eugenic marriages is the financial question. Many cannot
marry from sheer lack of means, and often partners for
life are chosen out of considerations of a financial nature.
Here the State should step in : a beginning has already
been made by granting " bonuses " to mothers to help
them over their term of confinement. Further legislation
in this direction may be expected in the form of dowry
allowances and premiums in the case of the birth of children,
with further allowances for their education.
In order to facilitate eugenic marriages it is also of
importance to provide young people with adequate chances for
finding suitable partners who, from the point of view of
character, education, and physical development, would be
fit comrades for life. Up to the present, considerations
which have nothing to do with eugenics have too often
interfered with the choice which would otherwise be made.
Herein lies a deep problem to be solved, which has its roots
in the distribution of wealth and the way it is acquired.
In an ideal social community differences of wealth should
be only the result of merit and capacity, and could not
militate against eugenics. However, in the present state
of human affairs there are many wrays of acquiring wealth
which belong to the partie honteuse of our civilisation, as,
for instance, gambling, all sorts of speculation, and
innumerable methods of dishonesty. Eugenics, in this respect.
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