r superior attitude towards unmarried friends not
unfrequently leads to friction.

We must have patience with her, for she is learning a great deal, and
has not yet had time to sort it out into proper proportions.

{102}

CHAPTER XVIII

_Mixed Marriages--Differences of Colour--Nationality and
Religion--Scotch Marriages--Marriage of Minors and Wards in Chancery._

Mixed Marriages.

Love overleaps all barriers, and it is of but little use to try and
bind it. Marriage, however, is another thing, and can be prevented
even where love exists. How far it is right or advisable to do so must
be a matter of individual judgment decided by the facts of each
separate case. To take an instance. There is a very strong feeling,
especially among medical men, against the marriage of cousins. Now
love deep and true may exist between two cousins; but, seeing the
physical deterioration that comes from the intermarrying of members of
one family, it may be a plain duty to unborn generations for these two
to abstain from marriage with each other. Where there is any
hereditary disease of mind or body it is little short of criminal to
contract such a union. In the matter of _Mixed Marriages_--namely,
those between men and women differing from each other in colour,
nationality, or religion, it is generally thought that they are
fraught with grave risks.

The Question of Colour.

This does not affect us here in England as much as it does in India
and those parts of the empire where there is a coloured native
population. To those who have lived among {103} it the question is one
of burning importance. We cannot go into it here, but, seeing that
these marriages do take place even in England, a word of warning may not
be amiss. Women who are fascinated by coloured men would do well to note
that there is not a white man, good, bad, or indifferent, who does not
abhor the idea of a white woman's marrying a coloured man. This is not
the outcome of jealousy, nor yet of ignorance, for the more the
European has travelled the more rooted is his aversion to such unions.
He knows, as man with man, what the real mental attitude of those
dusky gentlemen is towards women. He knows what lies behind the
courtly manner, the nameless grace, and sensuous charm of these
impassioned lovers. No woman can know this till after marriage, and
then the knowledge does not do her much good. Let any woman who
contemplates a marriage with a coloured man, no