"Better than a Dog Anyhow"

Darwin’s musing on marriage:

"Reasons for not marrying: freedom to go where one liked; choice of Society & little of it. - Conversation of clever men at clubs - Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. - to have the expense & anxiety of children - perhaps quarrelling - Loss of time. - cannot read in the Evenings - fatness & idleness - Anxiety & responsibility - less money for books.

"[Reasons for marrying:] Children - (if it Please God) - Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, - object to be beloved & played with. - better than a dog anyhow."

Of course, Darwin went on to marry his first cousin, Emma Wedgewood, the kind of "consolidation of superior blood lines" later advocated by another of Darwin's cousins, Sir Francis Galton, whose work advancing the field of eugenics served as the intellectual cornerstone of the modern Kennel Club.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

A very miserable history if you know the result of inbreeding within both the Darwin family and the Kennel Club.
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