hello
welcome to the eugenics podcast. I'm
Patrick Merricks.
I'm Marius Turda. Good morning, Marius.
How are you doing today? Very well
Patrick, good morning, I hope you're well.
Certainly am. So today we're talking
about
premarital certificates, their connection to
eugenic past and the role they play in
societies across the world today,
specifically drawing on some
news from the United Arab Emirates
and the Middle East generally.
But what are we
witnessing here, Marius? Well it's it's
good
you brought forward an example from a
part of the world we rarely discuss and
we know little about, particularly
regarding the history of eugenics.
Eugenicists were were fond of saying
that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure',
so what we're talking about here is that
prevention is
something that physicians can help with
and redirect some of the
energies that the state normally puts
into protecting
the health of the population towards
better outcomes. So it's good to see that
the same language that we've encountered
in other contexts related to health and
family protection
also appears in relationship to
family and premarital medical tests.
So this is what we're talking about,
how much eugenics had influenced
the discussion about premarital or
prenuptial, as they were called,
medical examination.
So something that's got a long
history
in our field. Let's start with the
United States
Yes. The United States
again features prominently because they
were very active, early on, in
defining what hereditary fitness was all
about,
in producing a vision of marriage
and family based on eugenic ideals and
they introduced early on
legislation to ban, on the one hand,
interracial marriages, on the other hand
to bar those with intellectual and
physical disabilities
from marrying. We have an early example
from Connecticut
that prohibited feeble-minded imbeciles
and
epileptic men and women under 45 from
marrying. 
By 1920s 1930s many states in the Union
prohibited those particularly with
venereal diseases from marrying
and in some cases they also made it
compulsory
that you present a health certificate
from a physician before the
wedding. So you have to be fit
to wed and you have to be fit to
reproduce.
And the American example is very
powerful because
it it it gave the world a wide range
of examples of how eugenic certificates
and premarital examination
are being used. One of the
earliest
books we have about it, written by the
Hungarian
eugenicist Géza Hoffmann. He cites
and lists in his book all the
legislation that was introduced in
America
prohibiting marriages
between people with disabilities. These
eugenic marriages, as they were called,
by 1913. So that was a very powerful
example that many eugenicists
in Europe, particularly in Germany, used
as a point of reference.
So not just America but somewhere
less familiar perhaps to
historians of eugenics: Turkey.
So what's the story here? Yeah, that's
very
important to note that the debate about
prenuptial medical examination,
whether compulsory or voluntary
really
cut across geographical divide. So
if we look at Turkey during the interwar
period, Turkey emerging as the modern
state
under Kemal Atatürk. They were very keen
to introduce
medical examination; they made it
compulsory in 1925 and the language as
you can see
is the language we've encountered in
other contexts: it is about the health of
society; it is about the future of the
race;
it is about protection. So they are very
concerned
particularly with venereal diseases and
tuberculosis,
so prenuptial medical
examination and the eugenic rationale
behind it
fit into bigger and broader aims of the
regimes, of course,
that dealt with natalism, child care
and social hygiene,
and it's good to look at some examples:
so we mentioned two eugenicists here:
Sadi Irmak and Kerim Gökay,  not only because
they were very much influenced by
debates in other parts of the world
particularly in Germany; both of them
studied in Germany
for the influence by the German debate
on eugenics, sterilization, racial hygiene
and medical examinations,  but also
because they're very important public
figures in Turkey. So
Irmak was prime minister of Turkey
between 1974-75,
and Gökay was a mayor and governor of
Istanbul
between 1949 and 1957. So they are
very important public figures. But
both of them were physicians; both
they were very keen participants in the
debate about
preventive social hygiene and medical
examination before marriage
that indeed occupied the minds of
many eugenicists during the interwar
period.
But also we have what have been
termed 'Latin' countries.
Is it is it any different in these
countries? Different focuses
or what are we looking at
in here? In many ways the Latin and the South
American
countries were influenced by uh
European examples particularly by French
and Italian. French eugenicists
were very keen early on to lobby for
the introduction of mandatory
pre-marital examinations. So that's
something that the French
eugenic movement promoted. They tried
to implement in the 1920s;
it was only in the 1940s that was
in fact introduced. But we also have
other figures within the broader eugenic
movement
and one very important example comes
from
from that from Czechoslovakia and the Czech eugenicist Haškovec was very keen to write about
the need for pre-marital examination;
early on,
he already advocated this in 1902 and
then
he made it essential to the Czech eugenic movement.
But you have across Europe other
examples: Romanian and Italian eugenicists
also supported the need for health
examination before marriage
and they endorsed what can be said to
be the sanitary control of marriage.
And so you have this powerful European
eugenic movements that are
promoting examination before marriage
particularly in those cases that
negative eugenic methods such as
sterilization were not 
favourably received.
So we have the examples of
Romania and Italy or France. So Latin
American countries, then, of course engage
in this wide debate about
premarital examinations. By 1930s many
countries in South America introduce various forms of
prenuptial examinations, but it all
varies.
So Argentina, for example, introduces it in 1936
and it's
made it compulsory but it is only made the
compulsory for men
and only apply to those with venereal
diseases. So there is a wide
degree of variations in terms of who is
affected by it
how it is being carried out and what are
the aims.
So it's important to note that variety
and diversity of options that existed
but by early 1940s we can see
a number of countries adopting
compulsory
medical examination before marriage:
France,
I mentioned already; Romania, Croatia,
Hungary
and so on.
So as we return to present day, I picked up
on an example
coming out of um of Kenya. So it's 
it's interesting to note that today
it's not always dictated by the state
but there are connections to sort of
the church to cultural movements but
still this focus on genetics and
future generations
persists. Yeah, there's an interesting
transition that happens in the 1950s
when
pre-marital examination is being
gradually replaced by genetic
screening. So genetic counselling becomes
very popular
and genetic screening for hereditary
diseases
becomes very important, so the emphasis
is being put on
voluntary medical examinations and the
voluntary
genetic screening. However, there's still
a very powerful
move towards getting a medical
certificate
before marriage in some cases like
China, for example, it was compulsory
until 2003.
So until 2003 about 20 million Chinese
marriages
happened during one year, so and they all had to have a medical certificate.
In other cases, the emphasis is put
on trying to direct the couple who
wants to wed
and reproduce towards what
eugenicists, from the very beginning, were
arguing for:
a very healthy relationship on the other
hand but at the same time looking
towards the future
healthy offspring. And so this is now
more about, you know it's less about prevention
is more about
trying to understand what can be cured
and in what way.
So we'll see this evolving even more so,
the more genetic
screening is able to afford
a number of hereditary diseases.
Now, of course, sickle cell disease is
very prevalent and it's also very
easily identifiable by genetic screening
but a number of other diseases now are
coming onto the list so we'll see this
emerging and I suppose the state
may not play a very important role
anymore
in dictating the parameters of how the
health of the family should be like.
However, individuals, I think, will still
continue to look at it through
the prism of certain
eugenic ideas that relate to health,
hygiene and
healthy offspring. A 'brave new world'! Indeed!
Well,  thanks Marius for another fascinating,
fascinating talk today and thanks to
everyone for
for watching. So once again Marius
thanks and
we'll see you next time. Thank you,
Patrick. Until next time.
 
