Nothing really arrests intermarriage except physical repulsion, and physical repulsion exists only where there is a marked difference in physical aspect, and especially in colour[1]. Roughly speaking (and subject to certain exceptions to be hereafter noted), we may say that while all the races of the same, or a similar, colour intermarry freely, those of one colour intermarry very little with those of another.
This is most marked as between the white and the black races. The various white races are, however, by no means equally averse to such unions. Among Arabs and Turks the sense of repulsion from negroes is weakest, partly no doubt owing to the influence of Islam, on which a word must be said hereafter. The South European races, though disinclined to such unions, do not wholly eschew them. In the ancient world we hear little of any repugnance in the Roman Empire to the dark-skinned Africans, for the contemptuous references to Egyptians seem to spring from dislike rather to the character and religion than to the colour of that singular people. In modern times the Spanish settlers in the Antilles and South America, and the Portuguese in Brazil, as well as on the East and West coasts of Africa, have formed many unions with negro women, as the Spaniards have done with the Malayan Tagals in the Philippines, and the Portuguese with the Hindus in Malabar. There is
- ↑ Where other conspicuous physical dissimilarities are found there is always a difference, and usually a marked difference, in colour also.
