viz) DISCUSSION OF THE DATA OF STATURE, 87
The effect of Artistic Taste on marriage selection is discussed in Chapter X., and this also is shown to be small. The influence on the race of Bias in Marriage Selection will be discussed in that chapter.
I have taken much trouble at different times to determine whether Stature plays any sensible part in marriage selection. I am not yet prepared to offer complete results, but shall confine my remarks for the present to the particular cases with which we are now concerned. The shrewdest test is to proceed under the guidance of Problem 2, page 68. I find the Q of Stature among the male population to be 1.7 inch, and similarly for the transmuted statures of the female population. Consequently if the men and (transmuted) women married at random so far as stature was concerned, the Q in a group of couples, each couple consisting of a pair of summed statures, would be ,,,/2 x 1.7 inches = 2.41 inches. Therefore the Q in a group of which each element is the mean stature of a couple, would be half that amount, or 1.20 inch. This closely corresponds to what I derived from the data contained in the first and in the last column but one of Table 11. The word "Mid-Parent," in the headings to those columns, expresses an ideal person of composite sex, whose Stature is half way between the Stature of the father and the transmuted Stature of the mother. I therefore conclude that marriage selection does not pay such regard to Stature, as deserves being taken into account in the cases with which we are concerned.
I tried the question in another but ruder way, by
