ABSTRACT
Monogamous marriage is part of the genetic system of most human beings. It is extremely difficult to think of any social habit or act of legislation that has no genetic consequences. Penal, fiscal, social, moral, medical, political, or educational laws, schemes, treatments, habits or observances will all make some mark on our genetic structure. Inbreeding could be classified as a form of assortative mating. Inbreeding makes for genetic uniformity and its effect upon species like ours, genetically adapted to outbreeding, is invariably bad. Two distinct things are involved in a deliberate limitation of the size of families, and they must be kept apart. The first is a restriction of the total number of children born to a married couple; the second is a tendency which need not go with it, though it usually does – a tendency to complete a family earlier in life than would otherwise have been the case.
