Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population

Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population by George B. Louis Arner is a provocative early-20th-century sociological study that investigates the incidence and implications of kin marriages in the United States. Grounded in the social science and history traditions of the Progressive Era, Arner assembles fragmentary census material, contemporary debates, and comparative statistics to clarify contested claims about consanguinity, heredity, and even sex determination that animated scholars like G.H. Darwin and A.G. Bell. Carefully avoiding sensationalism, the monograph evaluates available demographic evidence, critiques unreliable analogies from animal breeding, and highlights the pressing need for systematic governmental data collection. It situates consanguineous marriage within legal, public health, and eugenic conversations of its time, tracing how early statisticians and policymakers approached questions of heredity, population, and public law. Ideal for students and readers of nonfiction history, sociology, demography, and the history of science, this audiobook offers a clear window into how social researchers once measured human relationships and risk. Listen to gain historical perspective on consanguinity, early statistical methods, and the policy debates that shaped modern approaches to family, law, and public health.