description of one stage of civilization is not true of another,
although the great discoverer, who, with his admirable many-sidedness,
had investigated the law of population in and throughout all the stages
of civilization, had, as a rule, himself given due weight to all of
this. The objection of unwarranted generalization applies to Malthus
much less than to the majority of his opponents. Since, for instance, in
young colonies, even the natural forces, which are in themselves limited
or exhaustible, afford a wide field of operation for a long time; many
American writers have supposed that labor alone was the source of
wealth, and that, to say the least, wealth should increase in the same
ratio as mankind; and even in a still greater ratio, since the division
of labor grows easier as population increases in density.[243-2] But
here it is forgotten that in every instance of economic production,
there are many factors engaged, each one of which can take the place of
another only up to a certain point. There are others, especially Grahame
and Carey,[243-3] who allude to the possibility of emigration, which is
still so far from being exhausted. But Malthus had nothing to say of the
impossibility of emigration. He spoke only of the great difficulties in
its way. (III. ch. 4.) There are many writers who would wish simply to
ship emigrants off, like a great many doctors who send their patients
away to die! (§ 259 ff.) When Sadler says that human prolificacy,
circumstances remaining the same, is inversely as the density of
population, he uses, to say the least, a very inaccurate mode of
expression.[243-4] The grain of truth hidden in this assertion does
certainly not come from Gray's theory, that in the higher stages of
civilization, the better living usual is a hinderance to the increase of
population, and that the prevailing influence of large cities increases
mortality;[243-5] but from influences, or, to speak more correctly, from
free human considerations, on which no one has thrown so much light as
Malthus. And indeed, where is the man who has better understood or more
warmly recommended the "aristocratic" impulse which should, in well
ordered civil society, hold the sexual instinct in equilibrium?[243-6]
Malthus himself pleasantly derides his opponents, who, to explain how
the same rifle, charged with the same powder and provided with the same
ball, produces an effect varying with the nature of the object at which
it is fired, prefer, instead of calculating the force of resistance of
the latter, to take refuge in a mysterious faculty by virtue of which
the powder has a different explosive force, according to the greater or
less resistance the ball meets when it strikes.[243-7] The peculiarity
of Godwin's polemics may be inferred from the fact that he considered it
very doubtful whether the population of England had increased during the
four preceding generations; and that he traces the increase of the
population of the United States to the influence of emigration almost
exclusively, and allows the desertion of whole English regiments in 1812
ff. to play a part in accounting for that increase.[243-8]
Malthus has been accused of rejoicing over the evils which are wont to
decimate surplus population; but the same charge might be brought
against those physicians who trace the diseases back to the causes that
produce them. He has also been branded as the enemy of the lower
classes, spite of the fact that he is the very first who took a
scientific interest in their prosperity.[243-9] As John Stuart Mill has
said, the idea that all human progress must at last end in misery was so
far from Malthus' mind, that it can be thoroughly combated only by
carrying Malthus' principles into practice.[243-10]
[Footnote 243-1: _J. S. Mill_, Principles I, ch. 10.]
[Footnote 243-2: _Everett_, New ideas on population, with
remarks on the theories of Malthus and Goodwin, 1823.
Similarly _Carey_, Principles of Social Science, I, 88 ff.,
who, with a "natural philosophical" generalization, shows
that the more the matter existing on the earth takes the
form of men, the greater becomes the power of the latter to
give direction to natural forces with an ever accelerated
movement. So also _Fontenay_, in the Journal des
Economistes, Oct., 1850, says: _un nombre de travailleurs
doublé produit plus du double et ne consomme pas le double
de ce que produisaient et consommaient les travailleurs de
l'époque précédente_. Even _Bastiat_ inclines to the same
over-estimation of one factor of production. He promises in
the introduction to his Harmonies économiques to prove the
proposition: _toutes choses égales d'ailleurs, la densité
croissante de population équivaut à une facilité croissante
de production_. (Absolutely it is true, but whether
relatively, quære.)]
[Footnote 243-3: _Grahame_, Inquiry into the Principle of
Population, 1816; _Carey_, Rate of Wages, 236 ff.]
[Footnote 243-4: Varies inversely as their numbers: _M. Th.
Sadler_, The Law of Population, a treatise in Disproof of
the Superfecundity of human Beings, and developing the real
Principles of their Increase, III, 1830. There were, for
instance--
===================================================
| _Inhabitants_ | _Number of_
| _per English_ | _children to a_
| _sq. mile_ | _marriage_
------------------+---------------+----------------
The Cape | 1 | 5.48
The United States | 4 | 5.22
Russia in Europe | 23 | 4.94
Denmark | 73 | 4.98
Prussia | 100 | 4.70
France | 150 | 4.22
England | 160 | 3.66
===================================================
Most of these figures are very uncertain; and even if they
were true, they would afford a very bad proof of his
assertion. Besides, _Sadler_ was one of those extreme tories
who resorted almost to Jacobin measures in opposition to the
reforms advocated by Huskisson, Peel and Wellington. Like
Sadler, _A. Guillard_, Eléments de Statistique humaine ou
Démographie comparée, 1855. But, for instance, in Saxony,
population has for a long time increased most rapidly, in
those places where it is already densest. Compare _Engel,_
loc. cit. The five German kingdoms and Mecklenburg-Strelitz
hold the same relative rank, on a ten-year average, in
relation to the number of births that they do to density of
population, (_v. Viehbahn_, Statistik des Z. V., II, 321
seq.)]
[Footnote 243-5: _Gray_, The Happiness of States, or an
Inquiry concerning Population, 1875. _Weyland_, Principles
of Population and Production, 1816, had already ascribed to
industry in itself a tendency to make the increase of
Population less rapid!]
[Footnote 243-6: Compare _Rossi_, Cours d'Economie
politique, I, 303 ff.]
[Footnote 243-7: _Malthus_, Principle of Population, V, ch.
3. Thus _J. B. Say_ asks those population-mystics: if in
thickly populated countries the power of procreation
diminishes of itself, how comes it that even here the
extraordinary voids made by pestilence, etc. are so rapidly
filled up?]
[Footnote 243-8: _Godwin_, Inquiry concerning the Power of
Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, III, 1821; III, ch. IV.
Compare the same socialistic writer's essay: Inquiry
concerning public Justice (II, 1793), which in part provoked
Malthus' book. _David Booth_ (in Godwin's first book) had
the misfortune to ridicule Malthus by comparing his law with
the law of gravitation, which he said did not freely operate
in nature and was undemonstrable in space void of air! From
a better point of view, Bastiat says of Malthus' traducers,
that they might as well blame Newton when they were injured
by a fall.]
[Footnote 243-9: Principle of Population, III, ch. 13. His
moral severity in other respects is apparent especially in
IV, ch. 13, towards the end.]
[Footnote 243-10: Every good family takes care of their
children even before their birth. How far from practical is
the view that the means of subsistence come as a matter of
course, provided only that men are here before them!]
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.
SECTION CCXLIV.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.--UNCIVILIZED TIMES.
In the case of those wild tribes which can only use the forces of nature
by way of occupation, the small extent of the field of food is filled up
by even a very sparse population. And the principal means by which
population is there limited are the following: the overburthening and
ill treatment of the women,[244-1] by which the simultaneous rearing of
several small children is rendered impossible;[244-2] the inordinately
long time that children are kept at the breast;[244-3] the wide-spread
practice of abortion;[244-4] numerous cases of murder, especially of the
old and weak;[244-5] everlasting war carried on by hunting nations to
extend their hunting territory, found in conjunction with cannibalism in
many tribes.[244-6] Besides, nations of hunters are frequently decimated
by famine and pestilence, the latter generally a consequence of
never-ending alternation between gluttony and famine.[244-7]
Most negro nations live in such a state of legal insecurity that it is
impossible for a higher civilization with its attendant increase of the
means of subsistence to take root among them. At the same time, their
sexual impulses are very strong.[244-8] Here the slave-trade constituted
the chief preventive of over-population. If this traffic were suppressed
simply and no care taken through the instrumentality of commerce and of
missions to improve the moral and economical condition of the negroes,
the only probable but questionable gain would be that the prisoners made
in the numberless wars generated by famine would be murdered instead of
being sold.
Nomadic races, with their universal chivalry, are wont to treat their
women well enough to enable them bear children without any great
hardship.[244-9] But the mere use of natural pasturage can never be
carried to great intensity. The transition to agriculture with its
greater yield of food but with the diminished freedom by which it is
accompanied is a thing to which these warlike men are so averse that it
directs the surplus population by the way of emigration into neighboring
civilized countries, where they either obtain victory, booty and
supremacy, or are rapidly subjugated. Such migrations are a standing
chapter in the history of all Asiatic kingdoms; they for a long time
disturb declining civilized states, finally conquering them, and begin
the same cycle in the new kingdom.[244-10] Where nomadic races see
themselves cut off from such migrations their marriages are wont to be
unfruitful.[244-11]
[Footnote 244-1: In New Holland they are beaten by their
husbands even on the day of their confinement. Their heads
are sometimes covered with countless scars. _Collins_ says
that for mere pity one might wish a young woman there death
rather than marriage. (Account of N. S. Wales, 560 ff.)
South American Indian women actually kill their daughters,
with a view of improving the condition of women. (_Azara_,
Reisen in S. Amerika, II, 63.) How the women among the
aboriginal inhabitants of North America were oppressed is
best illustrated by the absence of ornaments among the
women, while the men were very gaudily decked, and carried
small hand-mirrors with them. (_Prinz Neuwied_, N. A. Reise,
II, 108 seq.) The early decay of female beauty among all
barbarous nations is related to the ill-treatment they
receive.]
[Footnote 244-2: The custom of killing one of twins
immediately after birth or of burying a child at the breast
with its mother, prevails extensively among savage nations.
On New Holland, see _Collins_, 362; on North America,
Lettres édifiantes, IX, 140; on the Hottentots, _Kolb_, I,
144.]
[Footnote 244-3: In many Indian tribes, children are kept at
the breast until their fifth year. (_Klemm_,
Kulturgeschichte I, 236; II, 85.) Among the Greenlanders,
until the third or fourth year (_Klemm_, I, 208); among the
Laplanders and Tonguses, likewise (_Klemm_, III, 57); among
the Mongols and Kalmucks, longer yet. (_Klemm_, III, 171.)]
[Footnote 244-4: The New Hollanders have a special word to
express the killing of the foetus by pressure.
(_Collins._) Among certain of the Brazilian tribes, this is
performed by every woman until her 30th year; and in many
more the custom prevails for a woman when she becomes
pregnant to fast, or to be frequently bled. (_Spix und
Martius_, Reise, I, 261.) Compare _Azara._, II, 79.]
[Footnote 244-5: On the Bushmen, see _Barrow_, Journey in
Africa, 379 ff.; on the Hottentots, among whom even the
wealthy aged are killed by exposure, see _Kolb_, Caput bonæ
Spei, 1719, I, 321; on the Scandinavian, old Germans,
Wendes, Prussians, _Grimm_, D. Rechtsalterthümer, 486 ff.;
on the most ancient Romans, _Cicero_, pro Rosc. Amer, 35,
and Festus v. Depontani, Sexagenarios; on Ceos, _Strabo_, X,
486; on the ancient Indians, _Herodot._, III, 38, 99; on the
Massagetes, _Herodot._, I, 216; on the Caspians, _Strabo_,
XI, 517, 520. Touching picture of an old man abandoned in
the desert, unable to follow his tribe compelled to emigrate
for want of food: _Catlin_, N. American Indians, I, 216 ff.
We here see how the killing of helpless old people may be
considered a blessing among many nations. Death is also
sometimes desired by reason of superstition. For instance,
the Figians think that after death they will continue to
live of the same age as that at which they died.
(_Williams_, Figi and the Figians, I, 183.) The Germans who
died of disease did not get to Walhalla! (_W. Wackernagel_,
Kl. Schriften, I, 16.)]
[Footnote 244-6: On the frightful cannibalism practiced on
the upper Nile, see _Schweinfurth_ in _Petermann's_ geogr.
Mettheilungen, IV, 138, seq. Australian women seldom outlive
their 30th year. _Lubbock_, Prehistoric Times, 449. Many are
eaten by the men as soon as they begin to get old.
(Transactions of the Ethnolog. Society, New Series, III,
248.) A chief of Figi Islands who died recently had eaten
872 men in his lifetime. _Lawry_, Visit to the Friendly and
Fejee Islands, 1850. Even the more highly civilized Mexicans
had preserved this abomination. According to _Gomara_,
Cronica de la N. Espana, 229, there were here from 20,000 to
25,000 human sacrifices a year; according to _Torquemada_,
Indiana, VII, 21, even 20,000 children a year. _B. Diaz_, on
the other hand, puts the number down at 2,500 only. Compare
_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, V, 103, 207, 216.]
[Footnote 244-7: The usual coldness, so much spoken of, of
the Indians, seems to have an economic rather than a
physiological cause. At least, it has also been observed
among the Hottentots. (_Levillant_, Voyage, I, 12 seq.), and
under favorable economic conditions the Indians have
sometimes increased very rapidly. (Lettres édifiantes, VIII,
243.) Whether the practice in vogue among the Botocuds to
carry the organ of generation continually in a rather narrow
envelope, or that among the Patachos of lacing the foreskin
with the tendrils of a plant, is not a "preventive check,"
quære. Compare _Prinz Neuwied_, Bras. Reise, II, 10; I,
226.]
[Footnote 244-8: On the gold coast, people become fathers in
their 12th year even, and mothers at 10. (_Ritter_,
Erdkunde, I, 313.) In the whole of the Soudan the climate is
so exciting that the intercourse of the sexes is said to be
a "physical necessity," and an unmarried man of eighteen is
universally despised. But, indeed, the individual is little
valued in Africa, on account of the great prolificacy of the
African race. (_Ritter_, I, 385.)]
[Footnote 244-9: _Herodot._, IV, 26.]
[Footnote 244-10: Compare _Machiavelli_, at the beginning of
his Istoria Fiorentina. The migration of the Germani is
accounted for simply by the family and marriage relations of
the Germans, which necessarily favored prolificacy: _Severa
matrimonia ... singulis uxoribus contenti sunt ... septae
pudicitia ... paucissima adulteria ... publicatae pudicitiae
nulla venia ... nemo vitia ridet ... numerum liberorum
finire, flagitium habetur ... sua quemque mater uberibus
alit ... sera juverum Venus eoque inexhausta pubertas ...
quanto plus propinquorum, tanto gratiosior senectus._
_Tacit._, Germ., 14. Entirely similar in character were the
migrations of the Normans, which lasted just as long as the
resistance to the countries they would invade, seemed to
them a matter of less difficulty than the transition to a
higher civilization in their own country. _Malthus_ has
corrected the extravagant notions concerning the former
density of population in the North--the _vagina nationum_,
according to Jornandes! (_Malthus_, I, ch. 6.) Compare,
however, _Friedrich M._, in Antimachiavel, ch. 21, and the
later view: Ouevres, IX, 196.]
[Footnote 244-11: Among the Bedouins even three children are
considered a large family; and they even complain of that
number. (_Burckhardt._)]
SECTION CCXLV.
INFLUENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN AND POLYGAMY.
Most barbarous nations live very unchaste;[245-1] so that, as Tacitus
observes, the ancient Germans were a brilliant exception to the
rule.[245-2] Vices of unchastity always limit the otherwise natural
increase of population. Premature enjoyment exhausts the sources of
fruitfulness in the case of many.[245-3] The life of the child conceived
in sin is generally little valued by its parents. Hence the numerous
instances of exposure and infanticide.[245-4] We have already seen how
closely, psychologically speaking, a community of goods is allied to a
community of women. (§ 85.) And, indeed, in the lower stages of
civilization, we find as close an approximation to the latter as to the
former; and it is difficult to believe that, among men living in a state
of nudity, the marriage of one man to one woman could properly
exist.[245-5] But it is as little possible to reconcile a community of
women with density of population as great national wealth with a
community of goods. Any one acquainted with the condition and capacities
of new born children knows that the weak little flame easily goes out
when not nursed by family care.[245-6]
Polygamy also is a hinderance to the increase of population. Abstract
physiology must, indeed, admit that a man may, even without any danger
to his health, generate more children than a woman can bear.[245-7] But,
in reality, the simultaneous enjoyment of several women leads to excess
and early exhaustion;[245-8] and if one of them is married after the
other, the older who might still bear children for a long time are
neglected by the man.[245-9] Monogamy is, doubtless, the Creator's law,
since only in monogamous countries can we expect to find the intimate
union of family life, the beauties of social intercourse and free
citizenship.[245-10] "God made them male and female."[245-11] And yet in
all countries with which we are statistically acquainted, there is a
somewhat larger number of boys than of girls born;[245-12] but this
excess is removed by the time that puberty sets in, by reason of the
greater mortality of boys. Only extraordinary conditions which thin the
ranks of males, such as war and emigration, leave a preponderance of the
number of women.[245-13] Hence, among barbarous nations, who live in
everlasting strife (§§ 67, 70), polygamy is very generally established.
Men are seldom deterred therefrom by a solicitude concerning what they
shall eat, since the women are treated as slaves, and rather support the
men than are supported by them.[245-14] But in the civilized countries
of the east, the polygamy of the great may actually lead to the
compulsory singleness of many of the lower classes, as a species of
compensation.[245-15] The monstrous institution of eunuchism, which has
existed time out of mind in the east, is a consequence of this condition
of things as well as of the natural jealousy of the harem.[245-16]
[Footnote 245-1: Impurity of the Kamtschatdales, bordering
on a community of women. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, I, 287
ff., 350 ff.; II, 206, 297 seq.) On Lapland, see _Klemm_,
III, 55. In their purely nomadic period, even the Getes,
afterwards remarkable for their noble character (_Horat._,
Carm., III, 24), have had very loose relations of the sexes.
(_Menander_, in _Strabo_, VII, 297.)]
[Footnote 245-2: Very unlike the Celts: _Strabo_, IV, 199.
But the Germans even at the time when the compensation
system alone prevailed, imposed a disgraceful death on the
_corpore infames. (Tacit._, Germ., 12.) In keeping with this
purity of the Germans was the deep gravity and the genuine
heartiness of their ancient nuptial ceremonies. (_Tacit._,
Germ., 18.) Similarly, in England throughout the middle
ages. (_Lappenberg_, Engl., Gesch. I, 596.) Great moral
severity of the Scandinavians (_Weinhold_, Altnord. Leben,
255), so that the gratification of the sexual appetite
outside of marriage was punishable with death. (_Adam
Brem._, IV, 6, 21.)]
[Footnote 245-3: Abuse of young girls in New Holland
(_Collins_, 563); among the American aborigines
(_Charlevoix_, Histoire de la N. France, III, 304; Lettres
édifiantes, VII, 20 ff.); among the negroes (_Buffon_,
Histoire naturelle de l'Homme, VI, 255).]
[Footnote 245-4: Infanticide in Kamtschatka, _Klemm_, I,
349.]
[Footnote 245-5: In most mythical histories, the
institutions of property and of marriage are ascribed to the
same name (Menes Cecrops, the Athenian Thesmophories.) Among
the Indian tribes of Terra Firma, the exchange of wives and
the _jus primæ noctis_ of the chiefs are very common.
(_Depons_ Voyage, I, 304, ff.) In North America, the Indians
are very eager to rent out their wives for a glass of
brandy. (_Prinz Neuwied_, N. A. Reise, I, 572 seq.) Compare
_Lewis_ and _Clarke_, Travels to the Source of the Missouri
and the Pacific Ocean, 1804-1806. Almost always on entering
a higher age-class it is one of the principal conditions to
leave one's wife for a time to the more distinguished. On
feast days, prayer days, etc., the women give themselves
publicly up to vice; and this can be commuted only by a
gift. (_Prinz Neuwied_, I, 129 ff., 272.) Community of women
in California. (_Bagert_, Nachrichten von der Halbinsel C.
1772.) In many of the South Sea Islands, the youth of the
higher classes were wont to form themselves into so-called
_arreyo-societies_, the object of which was the most
unlimited intercourse of the sexes (a pair being united
generally only from 2 to 3 days), and the murder of the new
born children. The girls principally were murdered, and
hence the missionaries at Otaheite (New Cytheria) found only
1/5 as many women as men. _Chaque femme semble être la femme
de tous les hommes chaque homme le mari de toutes les
femmes._ (_Marchand_, I, 122.) The many governing queens
here are characteristic. Compare _Forster_, Reise II, 100,
128; _Kotzebue_, Reise, III, 119; European Magazine, June,
1806; _Reybaud_, Voyages, et marines, 128, and the
quotations in _Klemm_, Kulturgesch., IV, 307.
Similar customs are found among the nomads. The Bedouins
dissolve their marriages so easily that a man forty-five
years old had 50 wives; family secrets are a thing unknown
there. (_Burckhardt_, Notes on the Bedouins, 64; Travels
app. II, 448; _Ritter_, Erdkunde, XII, 205, 211, 983.) On
the Libyans, see _Herodot._, IV, 168, 172, 186, 180: on the
Massagetes, _Herodot._, I, 216; on the Taprobanes, _Diod._,
II, 58; on the Troglodytes, _Pomp, Mella._, I, 8,
_Agatharch_, 30. Community of women among the ancient
Britons, _Caesar_, B. G. V, 14 seq.; also among the naked,
tatooed Caledonians, _Dio Cass._, LXXVI, 12; probably also
among the cannibal Irish. _Strabo_, IV, 201. Great laxity of
the marriage tie in Moelmud's laws of Wales, (_Palgrave_,
Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, I, 458 ff.)
in which country a species of tenure in common of land and
servants was customary. (_Wachsmuth_, Europ. Sittengesch.
II, 225.) In Russia, in very ancient times, only the Polanes
had real marriages. (_Nestor v. Schlözer_, I, 125 seq.)
Something very analogous even among the Spartans: same
education for boys and girls, admittance for men to the
female gymnasiums; marriage in the form of an abduction, and
afterwards fornication. (_Xenoph._, De rep. Laced. I, 6:
_Plutarch_, Lycurg. 15.) Adultery tolerated by law in
countless cases. (_Xenoph._, II, 7 ff.; _St. John_, The
Hellenes, I, 394.) History of the origin of the so-called
Partheniæ; _Strabo_, VI, 279. (_Supra_, § 83.) The custom
which prevails among so many barbarous nations to designate
one's progeny by the name of the mother, _Sanchoniathan_
traces to the licentiousness of women. (p. 16, Orell.)
Traces of this also in Egypt: _Schmidt_, Papyrusurkunden,
321 ff. Avunculus means little grand-father. Many proofs
which _Peschel_, Völkerkunde, 243 seq. explains otherwise,
but which seem to me to point to an original community of
wives.]
[Footnote 245-6: The relation existing between the so-called
organization of labor (§ 82) and a community of wealth is
repeated in the relation of a community of wives to the
situation in Dahomey, where every man has to purchase his
wife from the king. _Gumprecht_, Afrika, 196. Similarly
among the Incas: _Prescott_, Hist. of Peru, I, 159. Even the
sale of wives is a step in advance as compared with a
community of wives (§ 67 seq).]
[Footnote 245-7: It is said that a German prince of the 18th
century had 352 natural children. (_Dohm_, Denkwürdigkeiten,
IV, 67.) Feth Ali, shah of Persia, had made 49 of his own
sons provincial governors, and he had besides 140 daughters.
(_Ker Porter_, II, 508.)]
[Footnote 245-8: Turkish married men are frequently impotent
at the age of 30. (_Volney_, Voyage dans la Turquie, II,
445.) Similarly in Arabia. (_Niebuhr,_ Beschreibung, 74.)
The use of aphrodisiac means very wide-spread in the East.
According to _Niebuhr_ (76), monogamous marriages produced
absolutely more children than polygamous. Compare _G.
Botero_, Ragion di Stato, VIII, 93 ff.; _Montesquieu_,
Lettres Persanes, N., 114; _Süssmilch_, Göttl. Ordnung, I,
Kap., 11. On the other hand, _Th. L. Lau_, Aufrichtiger
Vorschlag von ... Einrichtung der Intraden (1719), 6,
recommends the allowing of polygamy as a means of increasing
population.]
[Footnote 245-9: Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines,
and only 88 children (II Chron., 11, 21); that is not much
more than one child by each.]
[Footnote 245-10: The high esteem for woman requisite to
true love seems to be almost irreconcilable with polygamy.
The wife stands to the husband in the relation of a
mistress; and, in reference to the latter, fidelity has
scarcely any meaning. The husband also has no confidence in
his wife; and hence the seclusion of the harem. But the
domestic tyrant is easily made the slave of a higher power.
And what becomes of fraternal love with the half-brother
feeling of children of different mothers?]
[Footnote 245-11: Genesis 1, 27; 5, 12; 7, 13.]
[Footnote 245-12: Compare _J. Graunt_, Natural and Political
Observations on the Bills of Mortality (1662). During the
course of the 19th century, according to averages made from
long series of years, there were, for every 1,000 girls born
alive in Lombardy, 1,070 boys; in Bohemia, 1,062; in France,
1,058; in Holland, 1,057; in Saxony, 1,056; in Belgium,
1,052; in England, 1,050; in Prussia, 1,048. On the whole,
the ratio in 70,000,000 children born alive was as 100 :
105.83. The excess of males over females in bastards is
smaller than in the case of legitimate children, in towns
than in the country. Everything considered, the number of
boys born seems to be greater than the number of girls in
proportion as the father is in advance of his wife in years.
Compare _Sadler_, Law of Population, II, 343. _Hofacker_,
Ueber die Eigenschaften die sich vererben, 51 ff. _Wappäus_,
Allg. Bevölkerungstatistik, II, 151, 160 ff., 306 ff. _Per
contra_, we have _Legoyt's_ supposition that the number of
boys born is greater in proportion as the parents are more
nearly of an age: Statistique comparée, 500.]
[Footnote 245-13: According to the censuses between 1856 and
1861, there are for every 1,000 men in Belgium 994 women; in
Austria, 1,004; in Prussia, 1,004; in France, 1,001; in
England, 1,039; in Holland, 1,038. The majority of the
latter seems to have diminished everywhere the greater the
distance in time from the most recent great wars; and to
belong only to those age-classes which were coeval with
those wars. (Preuss. amtliche Tabellen für 1849, I, 292.) In
the United States there were, 1800-1844, for every 1,000
women, 1,033-1,050 men; mainly accounted for by large
immigration. Between 1819 and 1855 the immigration was
2,713,391 men and 1,720,305 women. (_W. Bromwell_, History
of Immigration to the United States, New York, 1856.) In
Switzerland, among the population belonging to the cantons,
there were for every 1,000 men, 1,038 women; among the
foreign Swiss, 970; among foreigners, 650. (_Bernouilli_,
Populationistik, 31.) Compare _Horn_, loc. cit., I, 105 ff.,
who supposes a natural principle of equilibrium: the greater
the preponderance of the number of women, the more does it
happen that only the younger women are married; the greater
consequently the difference between the ages of the married
couple, and the more probable the birth of boys, and _vice
versa_. (115 ff.)]
[Footnote 245-14: Compare _Catlin_, N. American Indians, I,
118 ff. Even Strabo believed that among the Median
mountaineers each man had five wives! (XI, 526.)]
[Footnote 245-15: Concerning Solomon's 700 wives and 300
concubines, see I Kings, 11, 3; according to the Canticle of
Canticles, only 60 wives and 80 concubines. According to
_Mirkhond_ and _Khondemir_, there was in the place in which
the Sassand shah resided, 3,000 women of the harem and
12,000 female slaves. Polygamy among the latter class is
seldom possible or thought of. Of 2,800 Moslems in Bombay,
only 100 lived in polygamy, and only 5 had three wives each.
(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, 1088.) I lay no weight here on the
assertion so frequently repeated of travelers in the east,
that more girls than boys are born there; for the reason
that there is there no real statistics, and that the infidel
travelers can be permitted few glimpses into the secrecy of
family life. _Lady Sheil_ indeed assures us that in Persia
itself the opinion prevails that there are a great many more
women than men. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia,
1855. Similar pretense among the Mormons.]
[Footnote 245-16: We find, even on Egyptian temples,
pictures representing the castration of prisoners. _Franck_,
in the Mémoires sur l'Egypte, IV, 126. On Babylon, see
_Hellanicus_, apud. Donat. ad Terent. Eunuch., I, 2, 87.
This province, besides Assyria (the ancient seat of sultan
glory), delivered 500 castrated boys per annum to the king
of Persia. (_Herodot._, III, 92.) Of the califs, Soliman is
said to be the first (at the beginning of the 8th century)
who had his harem superintended by eunuchs; a very sensual
master who frequently changed his wives. (_Reiske Z.
Abulfeda_, I, 109 ff.; _Weil_, Gesch. der Kalifen, I, 573.)
At an audience which the calif Moktadir gave to a Byzantine
ambassador, there appeared 4,000 white and 3,000 black
eunuchs. (_Rehm._, Gesch. des Mittelalters, I, 2, 32.) In
the harems of the present Persian persons of rank, there are
usually from 6 to 8 eunuchs. _Rosenmüller_, Altes und Neues
Morgenland, IV, 290. In Upper Egypt, the castration of
handsome boys by monks (!) is a regular trade. About 2 per
cent. die in consequence of the operation, the others rise
in consequence in price from 200-300 to 1,000 piasters.
(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, I, 548.) In the Frankish middle age,
the merchants of Verdun castrated persons to sell them in
Spain. Compare _Liutprand_, Hist., VI, 3, in _Muratori_,
Script. Rerum Ital., II, 1, 470.]
SECTION CCXLVI.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.--IN HIGHLY CIVILIZED TIMES.
The conditions of population among mature and flourishing nations is
characterized by this, that the moral and rational preventive tendencies
counter to over-population decidedly preponderate. Here so much value is
attached to the life, and to the healthy and comfortable life of human
beings already in existence that even the majority of the lower classes
take care to bring no more children into the world than can be properly
supported, nor to bring them into being in advance of food. Here, too,
mortality is relatively small, which when population is stationary is
found in connection with a higher average duration of human life.[246-1]
While among savage and semi-savage nations, travelers are struck by no
phenomenon as much as by the total absence of old men,[246-2] in most
European nations the average duration of life has, during the last
centuries, seemed to noticeably increase. In France, for instance,
between 1771 and 1780, on a population of 29,000,000 at most, there were
as many deaths as on 35,000,000 between 1844 and 1853.[246-3] In Sweden,
the classic land of statistics relating to population, mortality from
1749 to 1855 had diminished 0.107 per cent. per annum.[246-4] [246-5]
No reasonable man considers mere living the highest good; but, from an
average prolongation of life, we may with great probability infer an
improvement in the means of subsistence, in hygienic measures, etc.,
even for the lower classes, who everywhere constitute the great majority
of the population. _Aisance est vitalité!_--at least on the supposition
that morality remains the same.[246-6] How great may not have been the
effect, for instance, of the healthier mode of the building of modern
cities, of the disappearance of the greater number of fortifications
etc., the more rational character of the healing art, the extension of
vaccination,[246-7] the hygienic measures adopted by governments,[246-8]
the better care of the poor and especially the asylums for small
children! The modern system of agriculture and of the corn trade make
famines less destructive of life.[246-9] (§ 115). The modern
quarantine-system has protected us entirely against a number of plagues;
and the worst epidemics of our day cannot be compared with those of
earlier periods or in less civilized countries. In the second half of
the 17th century, it was estimated in London that a plague would occur
once in every 20 years, each of which swept away one-fifth of the entire
population.[246-10] And in that very city the annual mortality between
1740 and 1750 varied three-fifths, during the second half of the 18th
century only one-third, during the 19th century only one-fifth in the
same decade; a clear proof of the diminished fatality of
epidemics.[246-11] [246-12]
[Footnote 246-1: The so-called _Populationistikers_ are wont
to distinguish between the average and probable duration of
life (_vie moyenne--vie probable_); and understand by the
former the number of years which, on an average, have been
accorded to one deceased; by the latter, the number of years
after the expiration of which one-half of a given number of
human beings have disappeared. If _x_ deceased persons have
lived an aggregate of _s_ years, their average duration of
life = _s_/_x_. In the case of a whole people, indeed, even
the many-years' average of the duration of life of those
deceased expresses the true average duration of life only
when (a rare case) the aggregate population remains
stationary. For, when the population is increasing, the
average age of the deceased is smaller than the average
duration of life, and, when population is decreasing,
larger. In the saddest case of all, when there are no births
whatever, and the nation is gradually dying out, there would
be an increase from year to year of the average age. In all
such cases, strictly speaking, only the actual observation
and following up of those born, until they die; can afford a
safe result. This is _Hermann's_ method, introduced into
Bavaria since 1835. Compare the XIII. and XVII. numbers of
the official Bavarian statistics with _G. Meyer's_ criticism
in _Hildebrand's_ Jahrbüchern, 1867, I. And indeed _Hopf_,
Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., says that a complete table of
mortality can be made, according to the best method, only
after centuries of observation.
Compare _Kopf_, in the 3d edition of _Kolb's_ Handbuch der
Statistik, and the solid works of _G. F. Knapp_, Ueber die
Ermittelung der Sterblichkeit (1868) and Die Sterblichkeit
in Sachsen (1869). _Price's_ mode of calculation of which
_Deparcieux_ is the real author, which divides the number of
the living by the arithmetical mean of the number of births
and deaths is not only inaccurate (_Meyer_, loc. cit., 43
ff.) but erroneous in principle, since it allows two
countries of equal population to be the same, the one of
which has 120,000 births and a mortality of 80,000, and the
other, on the contrary, 80,000 births and a mortality of
120,000. _Engel_ recommends as the measure of real vitality
the ratio between the "living years" and the "dead years,"
meaning by the former the sum of the years which those still
living have lived through, and by the latter the sum of the
years lived through by those who have died within a given
period. (Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1861, 348 ff.) But the
inference which may be drawn from a high or a low average of
life is altogether ambiguous. A high average may as well be
produced by a great mortality among children as by a
favorable mortality among those of mature age; and a low
average as well by a relatively small number of births as by
a relatively short duration of life. (_Meyer_, loc. cit.,
23, 24.)]
[Footnote 246-2: On the aborigines of America, see Lettres
édifiantes, VII, 317 ff. _Cook,_ Third Voyage, III, ch. 2.
_La Pérouse_, Voyage, ch. 9. _Robertson_, Hist. of America
B., IV. _Raynal_, Histoire des Indes L., XV. On the African
negroes: _M. Park_, ch. 1. They are said to manifest the
symptoms of old age at 40, and very seldom to live to be
over 55 or 60 years of age.]
[Footnote 246-3: _Necker_, De l'Administration des Finances
de la France, 1784, I, 205 ff., gives for 1771-80 the
average number of births, per annum, 940,935; of deaths,
818,391; the population at 24,229,000. _Legoyt_, Statist.
Comp., estimates the last, in 1784, at at least 26,748,843,
probably even at 28,718,000. During the period, 1844-53,
35,000,000 to 36,000,000 Frenchmen had only about as many
births (956,317) and deaths (815,723) as a much smaller
population before the Revolution--the latter numbers,
according to official estimation, omitting the
still-born--which _Necker_ also scarcely took into
consideration. _C'est la différence entre un peuple de
prolétaires et une nation, dont les deux tiers jouissent des
bienfaits de la propriété. (Moreau de Jonnès)._ In France,
there was one death, in 1784, on every 30 living; in 1801,
on every 35.8 living; in 1834-5, on every 38 living; in
1844, on every 39.9 living; in 1855-57 (average), on every
41.1 living; in 1860-65 (average), on every 43.7 living. It
is also probable, that the average duration of life in
France increased from the fact that, from 1800 to 1807, the
number of persons subject to conscription was only 45 per
cent. of the whole corresponding number of births; but that
from 1822 to 1825 it was 61 per cent. (_Bernoulli_,
Populationistik, 452.) On Paris alone, see _Villermé_,
Mémoire lu à l'Académie des Sciences, 29 Nov., 1824. Compare
_supra_, § 10.]
[Footnote 246-4: _Wappäus_, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik. In
Prussia, in the less cultured provinces (the eastern), the
mortality and number of births is greatest; but in the whole
country the relative mortality seems to have remained
stationary since 1748. (_Engel_, Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr.,
1861, 336 seq.) And even the average age of the deceased
decreased even between 1820 and 1860 (344 ff.) In Berlin
alone, the arithmetical mean of the number of births and
deaths shows no improvement, at least (loc. cit. 1862,
195).]
[Footnote 246-5: In Geneva, where there have been almost
uninterrupted tables of mortality, giving the age at the
time of death, the average duration of life during the 2d
half of the 16th century is estimated at 21-1/6 years;
during the 17th century, at 25-3/4 years; from 1701 to 1750,
at 32-7/12 years; from 1750 to 1800, at 34-1/2 years; from
1814 to 1833, at 40-2/3 years. Compare _Mallet_, Recherches
historiques et statistiques sur la Population de Genève,
1837, 98 ff., 104 ff., and _Bernouilli_, Schweiz, Archiv.,
II, 77; _per contra, d'Ivernois_, sur la Mortalité
proportionelle des peuples considérée comme Mesure de leur
Aisance et Civilization, 1833, 12 ff. But little can be
inferred from this, on account of the large immigration, of
adults for the most part. Geneva is said to have had, in the
16th century, never much more than 13,000 inhabitants; at
the end of the 17th century it had 17,000; in 1789, 26,000;
between 1695 and 1795 there was an increase of 6,000 at
least from abroad. (_Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 369 seq.)
Compare _Wappäus_ in the Götting. Gesellsch. der Wissensch.
Bd., VIII, 1860, who, however, as well as _Neison_,
Contributions to Vital Statistics, VI ff., is too skeptical
as regards modern progress in vitality.]
[Footnote 246-6: Higher civilization, indeed, instead of
leading to higher vitality, may lead to immoderate toil and
immoderate enjoyment. (_Schäffle_, in the D.
Vierteljahrsschrift, April, 1862, 340.) _Engel_ says that,
in general, life is more intense in our day, and hence leads
to a more rapid exhaustion of individual life-force.
(Preuss. Statist. Ztschr., 1862, 53.) According to English
experience of the well-fed classes, those have the greatest
duration of life who otherwise live in modest circumstances.
Thus, for instance, clergymen thirty years of age have still
an average expectation of life of 39.49 years; members of
the learned professions, 38.86; country gentlemen, 40.22;
members of the aristocracy, 37.31; princes of the blood,
only 34.04; sovereigns, only 27.16 (Statist. Journal, 1859,
356 ff.); while agricultural laborers, who have sufficient
means and intelligence to participate in the so-called
friendly societies, have an expectation of life of 40.6
years after their thirtieth year. (_Neison_, loc. cit.) On
the whole, it seems to be in harmony with the democratic
leveling tendencies of our own age, that the better care of
children and of the sick has lengthened short lives, and
that the unrest of the times has shortened the long lives,
although the level of the general average continually rises,
notwithstanding. Thus, in Geneva, the proportion of those
who outlived their thirtieth year was: in the 16th century,
after 1549, 29.87; in the 17th century, 37.29; in the 18th
century, 49.39; in the 19th century, until 1833, 58.85 per
cent. of the number of births. On the other hand, the
expectation of life of those who had attained their 80th
year, was in these four centuries respectively 6.22, 5.87,
4.40 and 3.84 years. (_Mallet_, l. c., and Statist. Journal,
1851, 316 ff.) In keeping with this is, that according to
_Guy's_ researches, the average duration of life of the
English peerage and baronetage was, in 1500-1550, 71.27
years; 1550-1600, 68.25 years; 1600-1650, 63.95 years;
1650-1700, 62.40 years; 1700-1745, 64.13 years. (Statist.
Journal, 1845, 74.) However, we may most directly infer a
favorable condition of things from the diminished mortality
of children, for the reason that this, far more directly
than the mortality of adults, is conditioned by the quality
of food. The younger a child is, the more exclusively is its
life-force the product of these two factors: the physical
constitution of its parents and the care bestowed upon it.
Compare _F. J. Neumann_, Die Gestaltung der mittleren
Lebensdauer in Preussen, 1865, 26 ff. In Prussia, in
1751-60, only 312 in 1,000 outlived their tenth year; in
1861-70, 633 in 1,000. Yet, since 1856, the mortality of
children has again begun to increase. (_Knapp_,
Mittheilungen des Statist. Bureaus, VIII, p. 8.)]
[Footnote 246-7: _Duvillard_, Analyse ou Tableau de
l'Influence da la petite Vérole, 1806, is of opinion that
before vaccination only 4 per cent. of those over 30 years
of age were spared by the small-pox; that two-thirds of all
new-born children were attacked by the disease sooner or
later, and that from one-eighth to one-seventh of those
attacked died; and of small children even one-third. Hence,
in many countries, the average duration of life was
increased 3-1/2 years by reason of vaccination. In London,
between 1770 and 1779, of 1,000 deaths, 102 were caused by
the small-pox; in from 1830 to 1836, only 25 in 1,000.
(_Porter_, Progress of the Nation, I, 1, 39.) In Berlin,
between 1792 and 1801, 4,999 persons died of the small-pox;
between 1812 and 1822, only 555. (_Casper._) That this is
really a consequence of vaccination is proved by the facts
of the Chemnitz small-pox epidemic of 1870-71, during which,
in four of the streets principally visited by it, 9 per
cent. were taken ill. Of 4,375 persons who had been
vaccinated, 2.12 per cent. were attacked; of 644 who were
not vaccinated, 54.38 per cent. Of those attacked, 2.1 per
cent. of the former and 11.3 per cent. of the latter died.
(Leipzig Tageblatt, 5 Mai, 1871.)]
[Footnote 246-8: Among the earliest institutions of medical
police are the following: the Swedish Collegium medicum
under Charles XI; the Prussian, 1724; the Danish, 1740; the
quarantine law of Louis XIV., of 1683; the Parisian bureau
of nurses, 1715; lying-in establishments since 1728; French
institutions for the saving of drowned persons, 1740;
English institutions for the saving of persons in cases of
apparent death, 1744; bathing largely promoted by government
since the eighteenth century; prohibition by Maria Theresa
of burial in churches and of locating cemeteries too near
dwelling houses, in 1778. Even _Thomasius_, De Jure
Principum circa Sepultur., § 8, had advised this; and, in
Italy, _Fr. Patricius_, De Inst. Republ. V, 10. On ancient
medical police, see _Pyls_ Repertorium für öffentliche und
gerichtliche Arzneiwissenschaft, II 167, ff. III, 1 ff.]
[Footnote 246-9: In France, the number of deaths in the
cheap years, 1816 and 1819, amounted to an average of
755,877; of the dear years, 1817 and 1818, to an average of
750,065. (Ann. d'Economie politique, 1847, 333.) Thus, the
same scarcity in Pomerania increased its otherwise smaller
mortality relatively less than in Posen. (_Hildebrand's_
Jahrbb. 1872, I, 292.) It is a good sign that in Altenburg,
between 1835 and 1864, the variation in the price of corn
had no influence on its mortality, although the number of
marriages and of births was conditioned by it. (_v. Scheel_
in _Hildebrand's_ Jahrbb., 1866, I, 161 ff.)]
[Footnote 246-10: _Sir W. Petty_, Several Essays, 31 seq.
Great regularity of epidemics in the tropical world:
_Humboldt_, N. Espagne, II, 5. The great plague in the
middle of the 14th century is said to have destroyed 2/3 of
the population of Norway, of Upland, 5/6; in the mountain
districts of Wermeland only 1 boy and 2 girls were left.
(_Geijer_, Schwed. Gesch., I, 186.) According to _Sismondi_,
Gesch. der Italien. Republiken, VI, 27, 3/5 of the whole
population of Europe died at that time. How the cholera
would have raged among our forefathers in the middle ages!
Certainly, as it does now in the East Indies; since, when of
those really attacked by the disease among ourselves so many
die, we cannot attribute our small number of deaths from
cholera to the smaller intensity of the disease or to the
greater skill of our doctors, but chiefly to the better
nourishment of our people, to their better dwellings and
greater cleanliness. Compare _Heberden_, On the Increase and
Decrease of Disease, 1801.]
[Footnote 246-11: _Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 363, seq.
Whether, on this account, we can infer the increased health
of the people, is very much doubted by the aged _laudatores
temporis acti_. They would have us believe that it is
possible that the prolongation of the average of human life
is to be explained by taking into account the case of
numerous valetudinarians who formerly died early, but who
are _now_ preserved to drag out a miserable existence. The
relative number of those who have died of old age did not
noticeably increase between 1816 and 1860 either in Berlin
or in the Prussian state. (_Engel_, Zeitschr., 1862, 222.)
Compare, per contra, _Marx_, Ueber die Abnahme der
Krankheiten durch die Zunahme der Civilization: transactions
of the Göttinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften,
1842--44,43, ff. The extreme limit of the decrease of
mortality, where there are no other causes of death but
inevitable weakness of childhood and age, _J. G. Hoffmann_
thinks would be one death per annum for every 52-53 living,
and _Wappäus_, one in 57-58. (Allg. Bevölkerungstatistik, I,
231, 340); (_Schäffle_, System, I, 571); according to
Capeland observations, one for every fifty.]
[Footnote 246-12: This much, however, is clear, that the
life insurance companies of the present day cannot rely on
the calculations made in earlier stages of civilization; on
_Süssmilch's_, for instance; and just as little on those of
the old Romans in L. Digest. ad Leg. Falcidiam. Compare
_Schmelzer_, De Probabilitate Vitae ejusque Usu forensi,
1788.]
SECTION CCXLVII.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.--NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS.
There is found to be in most states, where a decrease in mortality has
been observed, a diminished number of births likewise.[247-1] This,
indeed, happens necessarily only in the case in which the means of
subsistence either do not increase at all, or in a less degree than
mortality has decreased. Thus, towards the end of the 18th century,
Norway was the country where the increase and decrease of the population
were most remarkable for their smallness. There was only one death
between 1775 and 1784 for every 48 living persons; but, at the same
time, only one marriage for every 130 living.[247-2] The organization of
labor was so little developed among the Norwegians, especially in the
absence of important cities, the industries of which might have been
able to absorb the surplus population, that almost every one of its
inhabitants was in a condition to calculate in advance whether or not he
would have enough to support a family. A person born in the country
remained generally in his native village all his life. To found a family
he had either to own a peasant's estate himself or wait until one of the
day laborer's huts (_Kathe_), of which there were several attached to
each such estate, was vacant. A too large family would certainly have
died of hunger in the winter time. The clear sober sense of the people
recognized this fact, and all the farm houses of the peasants were
without any appreciable injury to morality filled with unmarried
servants of both sexes who were, indeed, supplied with clothes and food
but who at the same time were indolent and incapable of
advancement.[247-3] Where a nation's economy is rapidly advancing, there
is no necessity why the most natural and when properly directed the most
beneficent human impulse should be sacrificed to a higher average
duration of life. But if this must be, when the distribution of the
national resources is pretty nearly equal, it is not so much the number
of marriages as the average fruitfulness of marriages that will
diminish; that is as many persons as before may enter the married state
but most of them are obliged either to postpone doing so until a later
age, which places a greater interval between generation and generation,
and causes the number of those living at any one time to decrease; or
they cease to procreate children at an earlier period in their married
life. The latter is found especially in France.[247-4] [247-5] But, on
the other hand, where the distribution of the national resources is very
unequal, the rich may afterwards as well as before continue to follow
out their inclination to marry at as early a day and age as they wish;
but the less fortunate must remain unmarried through life. Here,
therefore, the average number of children to a marriage does not
diminish; but the aggregate number of marriages does.[247-6] If the
relative frequency of marriages in most European countries has
diminished during the last century, the cause has been in part directly
the long duration of life of married couples. Hence, we are not always
warranted in consequence, to infer a diminished number of existing
marriages.[247-7]
In many countries, it has been recently observed that the average number
of persons to a family is a decreasing one. Thus for, instance, in 1840,
in Holland, there were to every hundred families 497 persons, in 1850,
only 481; in Saxony, in 1832, 460; in 1840, only 443; in Bavaria, in
1827, 480, in 1846, only 448. In cities also the average size of
families is usually smaller than in the country.[247-8] This is
intimately connected with this other fact that in the higher stages of
civilization a larger number of independent households consists of
single persons in contradistinction to married couples.[247-9] [247-10]
[Footnote 247-1: In France there was one child born alive,
In 1801-1805, on every 30.9 living.
In 1806-1810, " 31.6 "
In 1811-1815, " 41.5 "
In 1816-1820, " 31.6 "
In 1821-1825, " 32.1 "
In 1826-1830, " 33.0 "
In 1831-1836, " 34.0 "
In 1846-1850, " 37.8 "
In 1851-1854, " 37.88 "
In 1860-1864, " 37.56 "]
[Footnote 247-2: _Malthus_, Principle of Population, II, ch.
1. In Denmark, at the same time, 1 in 37 and 114.
(_Thaarup_, Dänische Statistik., II, 1, 4.)]
[Footnote 247-3: In modern times, the intellectual and legal
conditions which existed in Norway have been loosened to a
great extent, and population in that country has, in
consequence, made rapid advances. In 1769 the population was
only 723,000; in 1855, it was 1,490,000. But the above
customs for the most part continue still. Between 1831 and
1835, there was one marriage a year for every 138 living
persons. The relative number of marriages is smaller than
before. In 1769, there were, in every 1,000,376 married
persons; in 1801, 347; in 1825, 345; in 1835, 322. In 1805,
there were only 63 illegitimate births to every 1,000
births; in 1835, the proportion was 71.5 in every 1,000.
(_Blom_, Statistik Con N., II, 168, 173.)]
[Footnote 247-4: In England, there were, in 1838-47, of
every 1,000 contracting marriage, 94 who had not yet
completed their 21st year; in Belgium, 1840-50, only 54; but
the famine year, 1846-47, noticeably lowered the relative
number of minors in both countries. There were married--
Column Head Key: A - _In Belgium 1841-50._
B - _In the purely Flemish provinces._
C - _In the purely Wallonic provinces.
D - _Sweden 1831-35._
==============================================================
| A | B | C | D
-------------+-------+-------+-------+------------------------
| per | per | per |
| 1,000 | 1,000 | 1,000 |
Before their
21st year | 56 | 32 | 74 |{ 359 per 1,000 males.
From 22 to | | | |{
25 years | 219 | 181 | 259 |{ 463 per 1,000 females.
From 26 to | | | |{458 males, 387 females,
35 years | 503 | 511 | 490 |{ per 1,000.
From 36 to | | | |
45 years | 161 | 191 | 129 |{ 183 per 1,000 males.
After their | | | |{
45th year | 61 | 75 | 48 |{ 150 per 1,000 females.
==============================================================
But it must not be overlooked here, that the Flemish
provinces of Belgium had been for a long time in a sad
economic condition. (_Horn_, Studien, I, 75 ff.) No less
characteristic of the well-being of a people and their
providence in entering into the married state is the
relative age at which they contract marriage. If we divide
ages into four classes (up to the 30th year, between 31 and
45, between 46 and 60, and after 60), we find, for instance,
that from 1841 to 1845, there were in West Flanders 585 per
1,000 marriages between persons of the same age-class, 305
in which the husband, and 110 in which the wife belonged to
an older class; in Namur, on the other hand, 683, 234 and
83. In dear years, the relative number of marriages between
persons belonging to different age-classes, and the relative
difference in age of parties to the marriage contract
increases.
And so, the frequency of second marriages of widows and
widowers is no favorable symptom of the facility of founding
a family. Naturally every woman prefers a man who was never
married before to a widower; and every man a maiden to a
widow; but where there is a want of room to establish a new
household, the possession of such one by a widower may
readily preponderate over all counter considerations. Thus,
for instance, in the Flemish provinces of Belgium, of 1,000
widowers, from 365 to 395 marry again; in the Wallonic, only
from 293 to 308. Of 1,000 brides, 98 are widows in West
Flanders, and in Namur, 41. A similar proportion in Bavaria
between the Palatinate and the hither-districts. (_Hermann_,
Bewegung der Bevölkerung in Bayern, p. 14.) The less the
frequency of marriage in general, the greater is the
relative probability of second marriage for widows and
widowers; and hence, in years of scarcity, the latter
relatively increase. (_Horn_, Studien, I, 201 ff.) Sometimes
this increase is absolute: in Austria, during the cheap year
1852, there were 231,900 marriages between persons never
before married, and 85,000 in which at least one of the
contracting parties had been married before. On the other
hand, during the dear year 1855, there were only 156,000 of
the former and 89,000 of the latter. Something analogous,
observed in antiquity. (_Pausan._, II, 21, 8; X, 38, 6;
_Propert._, II, 11, 36.) _Tacitus_, Germ., 19, describes the
moral feelings of the ancient Germans as averse to the
second marriage of widows, and he apparently approves it.]
[Footnote 247-5: In 19 European countries, with an aggregate
population of 121,000,000, the number of the married
amounted to an average of 34.88 per cent. of the whole
population. France is at the head with 38.94 per cent.
(1866), even 40.5. In these countries, of all adults, there
is a percentage of 65.98 who marry. France is here, also, at
the head, with a percentage of 73.58. And the number of the
unmarried has continually decreased in post-revolutionary
France. In 1806, there were only 35.84 per cent. of the
population married. (_Wappäus_, A. Bevölk erungsstatistik,
II, 219, 223, 229.) In relation also to the frequency of
first marriages and of marriage at the proper age, France is
the best situated country. (_Haushofer_, Lehr- und Handbuch
der Statistik, 40 ff.) But at the same time, in what
concerns the fruitfulness of marriage, it is the farthest
behind; and since 1780 prolificacy has continually decreased
there. Thus, 1800-1815, 3.93 legitimate children to a
marriage; 1856-60, only 3.03; 1861-6, again 3.08. (_Legoyt_
in the Journal des Econ. Oct. 1870, 28.) How little this
depends upon physiological causes may be inferred from the
fact that _Strabo_ commends the women of the Gallic race for
their peculiar adaptability to bearing and rearing children.
(IV, 178, 196.) The "prudential checks" must play a
principal part in producing a low birth rate. (Statist.
Journal, 1866, 262), as we find in France
============================================================
| _Yearly per 100_ |
| _inhabitants._ | _Women who marry_
_In_ +------------------------+ _before their 25th_
|_Marriages._| _Births._ | _year_.
--------------+------------+-----------+--------------------
Brittany, | 7.0 | 29.8 | 42.7 per cent.
Adour, | 6.9 | 25.0 | 47.3 "
Lower Garonne,| 8.3 | 22.0 | 59.7 "
Upper Seine | 8.0 | 23.7 | 60.0 "
============================================================
That, however, the shorter duration and smaller fruitfulness
of marriage by no means necessarily accompany one another,
France also proves, since it possesses the longer average
duration of marriage: 26.4 years against 20.7 in Prussia.
(_Wappäus_, II, 311, 315.)]
[Footnote 247-6: The proportion of the married to the whole
population declined in Prussia from 35.09 in 1816, to 33.09
per cent. in 1852; in Sweden, from 36.41 in 1751 to 32.59
per cent. in 1855; in Norway, from 37.60 per cent. in 1769
to 32.21 per cent. in 1855; in Saxony, from 35.52 per cent.
in 1834, to 34.98 per cent. in 1849. (_Wappäus_, II, 229.)
If all who are at least 20 years of age be considered
competent to marry, there are of every 1,000 thus competent
in Belgium, 520 actually married; in the Flemish provinces
alone, 489; in the most favorably situated Wallonic, 554.
(_Horn_, Bevölk. Studien, I, 139 ff.) In Rome, under
Augustus, the proportion was much less satisfactory. In the
higher classes, a large majority did not marry at all.
(_Dio. Cass._, I, VI, 1.)]
[Footnote 247-7: In Halle, in 1700, there was one marriage
for every 77 of the population; in 1715, for every 99; in
1735, for every 140; in 1755, for every 167. In Leipzig, in
1620, there was one for every 82; 1741-1756, for every 118;
1868, for every 92.8. In Augsburg, 1510, one in 86; in 1610,
in 108; in 1660, in every 101; in 1750, in every 123. The
provinces of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Cleve, Mark, Munden,
Brandenburg, Pomerania and Prussia had, about the end of the
seventeenth century, one marriage per annum for every 76-95
of the population; the Prussian monarchy, 1822-1828, one
marriage for every 109-121. Compare _Sussmilch_ Göttl.
Ordnung, I., 131, ff., _Schubert_ Staatskunde des preuss.
Staates I., 364. In France, 1801-1805, there was one
marriage per annum in every 137 living; in 1821-5, for every
129; in 1831-35, for every 127; in 1842-51, for every
125.39; in 1860, for every 124.7.]
[Footnote 247-8: In Prussia, in 1849, there were in every
one hundred families in the cities, 492 individuals; in the
country, 512. In Belgium, in 1846, 459 and 497 respectively.
(_Horn_, Bevölk. Studien, I, 88, ff.) In France, in 1853, in
the cities, 358; in Paris alone, 299. In the Zollverein, the
number of individuals in a family increased in 1852-55, 5.81
per cent.; the population only 3.02 per cent.; the
population of those over fourteen years of age, by 4.41 per
cent.; of minors by 1.02 per cent. Only in Saxony and the
cities of Hanover was the reverse the case. (_v. Viebahn_,
II, 278, seq.)]
[Footnote 247-9: Thus, for instance, in Belgium, for every
100 households, there are 74 marriages; in the cities of
Belgium, 70; in the Belgian country parishes, 75; in Prussia
in 1849, 84. (_Horn_, I, 93 seq.) It is estimated that in
Prussia, only 3 per cent. of the adult population live
outside of the family. (_Viebahn_, II, 273.)]
[Footnote 247-10: It is strange that _Süssmilch_, Göttl.
Ordnung, I, § 13, considers mortality an unalterable law,
while he fully recognizes the social grounds which caused
the frequency and prolificacy of marriages to vary (I, § 56,
99).]
SECTION CCXLVIII.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.--NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS.
So far as the mere number of the population is concerned, it is
obviously a matter of indifference whether there are annually 1,000
births and 800 deaths, or 2,000 births and 1,800 deaths. But we see in
the former an element of higher civilization,[248-1] especially, on
account of the conditions which determine it. It can occur only where
even the most numerous, that is the lower class, feel other wants than
those of the mere means of existence and of the satisfaction of the
sexual instinct: wants, duties which probably could not be satisfied in
a state of marriage thoughtlessly entered into; where the virtues both
of foresight and self-control are very generally practiced.
And then let us consider the consequences. The efficacy of the
repressive hinderances to over-population either consists in immoral
acts or easily leads to immorality. Until a "surplus" child has died,
what a series of troubles for good parents, and what a chain of evil
deeds for bad ones, to say nothing of the poor child itself.
Further, every man, no matter how short or long his life, requires a
large advance of capital and trouble which he has later to return to
society through the activity of his riper years. If he dies before his
maturity, this advance has been made in vain. The more, therefore, the
population of a country, in order to maintain itself within the bounds
of its field of food, has to calculate on the death of children, the
greater is this loss.[248-2] Hence, from a national-economic point of
view, it is to be considered a great advance, that in England in 1780,
there was one death among its people under 20 years of age in every 76
of the population, in 1801, in every 96, in 1830, in every 124, in 1833,
one only in every 137. (_Porter._) Lastly, the longer the average
duration of life of a child the greater, other circumstances remaining
the same, the number of grown people as compared with that of the
children; but grown people are, as a rule, independent, capable of
self-defense, economically productive, competent to discharge all the
rights and duties of citizenship, while children are dependent,
incapable of self-defense, unproductive, immature. Only he who knows the
relative numbers of the different age-classes of a nation can draw
fruitful conclusions from the data per capita relating to taxation, from
the statistics of crime, suicides, illegitimate births, of
school-children, etc., or judge correctly of a locality's military
contingent.[248-3] [248-4] Here, indeed, it should not be overlooked that
in the highest age-classes, human beings return in many respects to the
helplessness of childhood. Yet, as a rule, to reach a good old age is
generally considered a personal good fortune; and the existence of a
great many aged persons in a country, if not in itself an advantageous
element in its economy, may, nevertheless, be called a pleasing
symptom.[248-5] On an average there is only one person over sixty to
every twelve under fifteen years of age. (_J. G. Hoffmann._) We may,
hence, readily measure what an advantage France possesses in this, that
in 1861, in every 1,000 inhabitants, only 273 were under fifteen years
of age, 524 between sixteen and fifty, the most vigorous years of life,
and 203 over fifty years old. The average age of the French population
was 31.06 years against 27.22 in Sardinia and 25.32 in Ireland.
However, a positively unfavorable conclusion from a relatively large
number of children in a nation should not be drawn except in the case of
a people the limits of whose field of food cannot be extended. (§ 239.)
Where the nation's economy has a rapid growth, as for instance in young
colonies, the comparatively easy rearing of children which there
obtains, without any corresponding mortality, is not so much considered
a burthen[248-6] as a symptom of their good fortune and even a positive
good.[248-7] On the other hand, of the Belgian provinces, for instance,
suffering Flanders had relatively the smallest number of children,
because it had the largest child-mortality.[248-8]
Almost all the signs which, according to the above paragraphs,
distinguish a higher stage of civilization from a lower, may be shown
within the limits of the same age and nation to characterize the upper
classes as compared with the lower. We may even claim that the greater
foresight and self-control of the former in the matter of marriage and
in the procreation of children, since the abolition of the greater
number of legal advantages of class, are by far the most important of
the elements constituting their superiority over the latter. The word
proletariat, from _proles_, means first of all, having many children
(_Vielkinderei_)!
[Footnote 248-1: _J. Möser_ did not even dream of this.
Patr. Phant., I, 15.]
[Footnote 248-2: _Rossi_, Cours d'Economie politique, I,
371, estimates the cost of bringing up a child to its 16th
year at a minimum of 1,000 francs. Hence, a country with
1,000,000 births annually, in which only 50 per cent. reach
that age, would lose 500,000,000 francs per annum. However,
over one-third of the children in question die in the first
years of childhood, and the rest do not reach on an average
their 16th year, but die between the age of 7 and 8:
_Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 259. _Engel_ estimates
Saxony's "man-capital" at 4 times the value of all the land
in the country, and at 10 times the value of all movable
property. (Sächs., Statist. Zeitschr., 1855, No. 9. Preuss.
Statist. Zeitschr., 1861, 324.) One of the chief advocates
of the view that there is an investment of capital in every
child is _Chadwick_ in the opening address delivered by him
before an English learned society at Cambridge: Statist.
Journal, Dec., 1862. Lancashire alone pays a penalty per
annum for preventable deaths of £4,000,000, for the funeral
and medical expenses; to say nothing of the capital lost
(506).]
[Footnote 248-3: _Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 51 ff.
_Quetelet_, Recherches statist. sur le Royaume des Pays-Bas,
1827, 1, 9, and Du Système social, 1848, 176 ff., specially
called attention to the important differences in this
relation, between the productive and unproductive years of
life. Thus it should not be forgotten, when reading of the
greater mortality of the poor quarters of Paris, that
strangers who are for the most part in the vigorous years of
life, live there least of all.]
[Footnote 248-4: In Russia, it seems that only 36 per cent.
of all those born outlive their 20th year; in England, 55
per cent. (_Porter_, Progress, ch. I, 29.) The Russian
peasants are said to have from 10 to 12 children, only about
one-third of whom grow to maturity, (_v. Haxthausen_, I,
128.) In the United States, the population was in 1820
divided into two nearly equal parts as to age, the 16th year
of age forming the dividing point; in England the same was
the case, only the dividing point was 20 years of age.
(_Tucker_, Progress of the United States, 16, 63.)]
[Footnote 248-5: There were in
---------------------------------------------------------------
|_Years._|_From 0 to_ |_From 16 to_ | _Over 50_
| | _15 years_ | _50 years_ | _years_
| | _of age._ | _of age._ | _of age._
---------------------------------------------------------------
| | Per 1,000 | Per 1,000 | Per 1,000
| | of the pop.| of the pop. | of the pop.
| | | |
Belgium, | 1846 | 323 | 509 | 168
Prussia, | 1849 | 370 | 504 | 126
Great Britain,| 1851 | 354 | 504 | 142
Holland, | 1849 | 333 | 509 | 158
Saxony, | 1840 | 339 | 505 | 156
Sweden, | 1850 | 328 | 511 | 161
---------------------------------------------------------------
In Great Britain, the census of 1851 gave 596,030 persons
over 70 years of age; 9,847, over 90; 2,038, over 95; 319,
over 100 years of age. (Athen., 12 Aug., 1854.) In France,
in 1851, there were 1,319,960 persons seventy years of age
and over. In the United States the population of--
----------------------------------------------------------------
| _Per English_ | _Relative number of
| _square mile._ | _children under ten
| | _years._
----------------------------------------------------------------
| 1800 | 1840 | 1800 | 1840
------------------------|---------------------------------------
| | | per cent. | per cent.
New England, | 19.2 | 34.8 | 63.5 | 51.1
The Middle States, | 15.3 | 43.6 | 70.7 | 55.7
The Southern States, | 8.9 | 15.9 | 73.0 | 67.8
The Southwestern States,| 1.3 | 13.7 | 77.6 | 75.5
The Northwestern States,| 2.3 | 25.5 | 84.9 | 73.8
----------------------------------------------------------------
In the whole Union, in 1830, the age classes up to 20 years
embraced 56.12 per cent. of the population; in 1840, 54.62
per cent; in 1850, 51.85 per cent. Compare _Horn_, Bevölk.
Studien, I, 126; _Wappäus_, A. Bevölk. Stat., II, 44, 125
ff., 88; _Tucker_, Progress of the United States, 105.]
[Footnote 248-6: As _Wappäus_ says that in America an equal
number of adults must work for at least a third larger
number of children than in Europe: "a much more unfavorable
situation, so far as production-force is concerned." (A.
Bevölk. St., II, 44.)]
[Footnote 248-7: _Horn_, I, 127 ff. The Becoming is not only
more pleasant than the Having become, but it may even stand
higher in so far as the latter consists only in being
resigned to further development.]
[Footnote 248-8: _Les mendiants sont dans le cas des peuples
naissants_ etc. _Montesquieu_, E. der Lois, LXXIII, 11. In
England and Wales in 1851-60, there died yearly before their
sixth year, 7.24 per cent. of all male children born, but in
the families of peers, only 2.22 per cent. (Stat. Journal,
Sept., 1865.) If we grade the quarters of the city of Berlin
according to the well-being of their inhabitants, we find
that in the lower, the number of married men between 18 and
25 years is successively greater 1.1, 1.4, 2.4 and 3.4 per
cent. (_Schwabe_, Völkszählung von, 1871, 24.)]
SECTION CCXLIX.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.--IN PERIODS OF DECLINE.
Nations involved in political and religious decline are wont to lose the
moral foundation of the situation last described. Here, therefore,
again, both the repressive (which are almost always immoral) tendencies
counter to over-population, and the viciously preventive occupy the most
prominent place. We may most completely observe this spectacle among the
heathen nations of later antiquity. But, unfortunately, even among
modern nations, we find some analogies to the ancient, to which the
political economist may point with the finger of warning. "For unto
every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but
from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
This universally applicable truth explains the fact that all successive
acts of immorality, the more frequently they occur the less severely are
they branded by public opinion.
A. We are not warranted, from the relative[249-1] number of illegitimate
births, to draw too direct an inference in relation to the morality of a
people. Where, for instance, as in the kingdom of Saxony, the annual
frequency of marriage was 0.017 of the population, every illegitimate
birth bears evidence of a greater absence of self control than in
Bavaria, where, on every one thousand living, there were only thirteen
marriages a year.[249-2] In many quarters, where the economic relations
are very stable, and where peasant estates (_geschlossene Bauergüter_)
are subject to a species of entailing, where consequently the son can
engage in marriage only after the death of the father, illegitimate
children are in great part legitimatized by subsequent marriage at a
later time, and meanwhile brought up in the family of the mother like
legitimate children.[249-3] Evidently the guilty inconstancy creative of
ephemeral _liaisons_, and the neglect of the children born of them, do
not here produce the sad effects which they are wont to in the large
cities, where illegitimate relations are made and dissolved with
shocking rapidity. However, births are seldom heard of in the case of
ruined debauchees.
At the same time, the frequency of illegitimate births is always an
evidence that the rightful founding of a home is made difficult[249-4]
by the economic condition of the police provisions of a country; and
that the moral force of the people does not suffice to resist the
temptation[249-5] which such condition and provisions suppose. In the
latter respect, this phenomenon may be considered, not only as a symptom
but also as a cause: since bastards are generally very badly brought up.
A large parthenic population is always an element of great danger in a
state.[249-6] The frequency of illegitimate children must, however, be
designated as a tendency counter to over-population, for the reason that
still-born births and early deaths occur much more frequently among them
than among legitimate children.[249-7]
B. The trade of the women of the town is indeed an exceedingly old
one.[249-8] But this evil assumes large dimensions only where a large
class of men and women have no prospect to marry at all, or only late in
life; especially when, at the same time, families have become
unaccustomed to keeping together for life.[249-9] Prostitution may be
considered a counterpoise to over-population, not only because of the
polyandry it involves, but also of the infecundity of its
victims.[249-10] Even the diseases which it propagates are not without
importance in this regard. The love of change and impatience of
restraint which it produces keeps many a man who, economically
considered, might very well engage in marriage, in a state of criminal
celibacy.[249-11] This moral poisoning of the nation's blood is more
pernicious in proportion as vice is decked with the charms of
intellect,[249-12] and reflected in literature and art.[249-13] When
Phryne had wealth enough to project the rebuilding of Thebes, and
boldness enough to ask to be allowed to put this inscription on its
walls: "Alexander destroyed them, but Phryne, the hetæra, rebuilt them,"
not only the dignity but the nationality of Greece was gasping for the
last time for breath.[249-14] [249-15]
C. I know no sadder picture in all history than the wide diffusion and
even sovereignty which unnatural vice possessed among the declining
nations of antiquity. Egypt and Syria seem to have been the original
seat of this moral plague.[249-16] In Greece, there was a time noted for
the brilliancy of its literature and art, when the poetic fancy, in its
dreams of love, pictured to itself only the forms of beautiful boys; and
that this love was generally an impure one, there is, unfortunately, no
room to doubt.[249-17] In more ancient Rome, it was most severely
punished;[249-18] but afterwards, again, it seemed reprehensible to a
Tibullus only when it was bought with money.[249-19] Even under Cæsar, a
censor could threaten an ædile with a charge of sodomy; the latter
reciprocate the threat, and think it witty to invite a man like Cicero
to assist at the curious argument which such a case might call forth,
before a pretor with a reputation of being guilty of the same
vice.[249-20] When the horrible deeds of which Tiberius was guilty are
known, we cannot consider them capable of exaggeration. But Tiberius, at
least, sought secrecy, while Nero, Commodus and Heliogabalus felt a
special delight in the publicity of their shame.[249-21] [249-22] [249-23]
[Footnote 249-1: The ratio between the number of
illegitimate births and legitimate, so generally brought
forward, leads to no correct conclusions whatever. The ratio
between the number of illegitimate births, on the other
hand, and marriageable men and women, especially of those
who are yet unmarried, may afford a basis for valuable
inferences. Compare _Hoffmann_, in the Preuss.
Staatszeitung, 1837, No. 18. In Prussia, nearly 75 per cent.
of all women between 17 and 75 are married. (_v. Viehbahn_,
II, 189.)]
[Footnote 249-2: In Bavaria, not only was the frequency of
marriage surprisingly small (one marriage a year in every
151.59 inhabitants, while the average in 14 European
countries was 1 in 123.9), but marriage was there contracted
at a surprisingly advanced age. Of 10,000 of both sexes
engaging in marriage, there were, in Bavaria, only 2,081 25
years of age and less, while in England, there were 5,528.
Compare _Wappäus_, A. Bevölk. Statistik, II, 241, 270.]
[Footnote 249-3: In Oldenburg, it is estimated that 48 per
cent. of its illegitimate children are legitimatized _per
subsequens matrimonium_ (_Rau-Hanssen_ Archiv. N. F., I, 7),
in the agricultural districts of Nassau even 70 per cent.
(_Faucher's_ Vierteljahrsschrift, 1864, II, 19), in the whole
of Bavaria, 15 per cent.; in the Palatinate, 29.7 per cent.
(_Hermann_, Bewegung der Bevolkerung, 20); in the Kingdom of
Saxony, 1865, at least 21 per cent. (Statist. Zeitschr.
1868, 184.) In France 10 per cent. of the marriages
contracted legitimatize children. (_Legoyt_, Stat. Comp.,
501); in Saxony, 1865, 11.7; in Bavaria up to 1852, about
1/8 of the marriages belonged to this category; 1858-61,
1/7; 1861-64, nearly 1/6. Compare Heft XII, of the official
statistics. In the manufacturing towns of France, especially
the border ones, a large number of the children of female
operatives and of males having their domicile in foreign
parts, are legitimatized by marriage: thus in Mühlhausen,
23.7 per cent. Recherches statist. sur M., 1843, 62.]
[Footnote 249-4: In Mecklenburg-Schwerin there was one
marriage
_1841._
On domanial lands, on every 137 of population.
On manor " " 145 "
On monastery " " 163 "
In the cities " " 115 "
_1850._
On domanial lands, on every 149 of population.
On manor " " 269 "
On monastery " " 175 "
In the cities " " 104 "
The number of illegitimate births stood to the aggregate
number of births in 1800, as 1:16; in 1851, as 1:4.5; in
1850-55, as 1:4.8; in 1856-59, as 1:5.04; in 1865, as 1:4.0;
in 1866, as 1:4.8; in 1867, as 1:5.33; in 1868, as 1:6.0; in
1869, as 1:7.2; in 1870, as 1:7.08, In 260 localities, in
1851, 1/3 and more of the aggregate number of births were
illegitimate; in 209, 1/2 and more, and in 79 the entire
number! The small improvement afterwards made was probably
due in great part to emigration, which from 1850 to 1859
must have amounted to 45,000. How relative the idea of
over-population even in this respect is, is shown by the
small number of illegitimate births in very densely
populated parts of England--Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwick,
Stafford, West York--while districts as thinly populated as
North York, Salop, Cumberland, Westmoreland, have very many
illegitimate births. The number increases in the best
educated districts, where their "education" begins to cause
them to make "prudent" and long delays in marrying.
(_Lumley_, Statistics of Illegitimacy: Statist. Journal,
1862.)]
[Footnote 249-5: Strikingly more favorable influence of the
_ecclesia pressa_. In Prussia, in 1855, the Evangelicals had
12.3 legitimate births for one illegitimate; the Catholics
19.4, the Jews 36.7, the Mennonites 211.5. (_v. Viebahn_,
II, 226.)]
[Footnote 249-6: The relative number of illegitimate births
in many nations of to-day is unfortunately an increasing
one. In France, in 1801, only 4.6 per cent. of all live
births were illegitimate; in 1811, 6.09; in 1821, 7.07; in
1830, 7.2; in 1857, 7.5; 1861-65, 7.56 per cent. The German
especially must confess with deep shame that the southern
half of the fatherland presents a very unfavorable picture
in this respect. Can a nation be free when its capital,
Vienna (1853-56), counts on an average 10,330 illegitimate
and 11,099 legitimate births? Compare _Stein-Wappäus_,
Handbuch der Geogr., IV, 1, 193. According to observations
made between 1850 and 1860, in England between 1845 and
1860, there were in Holland for every 1,000 legitimate
births 44 illegitimate, in Spain 59, in England and Wales
71, in France 80, in Belgium 86, in Prussia 91, in Norway
96, in Sweden 96, in Austria 98, in Hanover 114, in Saxony
182, in Bavaria 279. (Statist. Journ., 1868, 153.) Compare
_Wappäus_, A. Bevölk. Stat., II, 387. In Russia, according
to _v. Lengefeld_, 36.9; in the electorate of Mark, 1724-31,
1 in 18. (_Süssmilch_, I, § 239.) During the 17th century it
is estimated that the ratio of illegitimate to legitimate
births in Merseburg was as 1:22-30, in Quedlinburg as
1:23-24, in Erfurt as 1:13-1/2. (From the Kirchenbücher in
_Tholuck's_ Kircliches Leben, etc., I, 315 seq.) In Berlin
in 1640, only 1-2 per cent. of illegitimate births.
(_König_, Berlin, I, 235.) In Leipzig, 1696-1700, 3 per
cent.; 1861-65, 20 per cent. _Knapp_, Mitth. des. Leipz.
Statist. Bureaus, VI, p. X.]
[Footnote 249-7: Thus, in 1811-20, the still-born births in
Berlin, Breslau and Königsberg amounted to five per cent. of
the legitimate, and to eight per cent. of the illegitimate;
in the country places in Prussia, to 2-3/4 and 4-3/4 per
cent. Of 384 illegitimate children born in Stettin in 1864,
45 were still-born and 279 died in their first year. (_v.
Oettingen_, Moralstatistik, 879.) In the whole monarchy,
1857-58, three to 4 per cent. of legitimate children died at
birth, and 5 to 6 per cent. of the illegitimate; while
during the first year of their age 18-19 per cent. of the
former, and 34-36 per cent. of the latter, died (_v.
Viebahn_, II, 235). In France, in 1841-54, of the legitimate
births, an average of 4 per cent., and of illegitimate 7 per
cent., was still-born; and the probability of death during
the first year of life was 2.12 times as great for an
illegitimate child as for one born in lawful wedlock.
(_Legoyt._) After the first year the proportion changes.]
[Footnote 249-8: Genesis, 38; Joshua, 1, ff.; Judges, 16, 1,
ff. It must not here be overlooked that the Canaanites
possessed a much higher degree of economic culture than the
contemporary Jews. In Athens, Solon seems to have
established brothels to protect virtuous women. (_Athen._,
XIII, 59.) In France, as early a ruler as Charlemagne took
severe measures against prostitution. (_Delamarre_, Traité
de Police, I, 489.) Compare L. Visigoth., III, 4, 17, 5.]
[Footnote 249-9: Travelers are wont to be the first to make
use of prostitution. I need only mention the extremely
licentious worship of Aphrodite (Aschera) which the
Phoenicians spread on every side: in Cypria, Cytherae, Eryx,
etc. Connected with this was the mercenary character of the
Babylonian women (_Herodot._, I, 199); similarly in Byblos
(_Lucian_, De dea Syria, 6); Eryx (_Strabo_, VI, 272:
_Diod._, IV, 83), in Cypria; (_Herodot._, I, 105, 199);
Cytheria (_Pausan._, I, 14); Athenian prostitutes in Piräeus
and very early Ionian in Naucratis. (_Herodot._, II, 135.)
In all the oases on the grand highways of the caravans, the
women have a very bad reputation. Temporary marriages of
merchants in Yarkand, Augila, etc. (_Ritter_, Erdkunde, I,
999, 1011, 1013, II, 360; VII, 472; XIII, 414.) It is
remarkable how the legislation of German cities at the very
beginning of their rise was directed against male bawds and
prostitutes; at times with great severity, the death penalty
being provided for against the former and exile against the
latter, while the earlier legislation of the people was
directed only against rape. (_Spittler_, Gesch. Hannovers,
I, 57 ff.)]
[Footnote 249-10: Conception in the case of women of the
town is indeed not a thing unheard of, but abortion
generally takes place or is produced; their confinement is
extremely dangerous, and nearly all the children born of
them die in the first year of their life. (_Parent Du
Châtelet_, Prostitution de Paris, 1836, I, ch. 3.)]
[Footnote 249-11: In the time of Demosthenes, even the more
rigid were wont to say that people kept hetæras for
pleasure, concubines to take better care of them, wives for
the procreation of children and as housekeepers. (adv.
Neæram., 1386.)]
[Footnote 249-12: In Greece as well as in Rome, only slaves,
freedmen and strangers sold their bodies for hire; but under
the Emperors, prostitution ascended even into the higher
classes. (_Tacit._, Ann. II, 85; _Sueton._, Tiber, 35;
_Calig._,41; _Martial_, IV, 81.) Concerning the Empress
Messalina, see _Juvenal_, VI, 117 ff. Address of
Heliogabalus to the assembled courtesans of the capital,
whom the Emperor harrangued as _commilitones_. (_Lamprid_,
V.; Heliogabali, 26.) In Cicero's time, even a man of such
exalted position as M. Coelius was paid for cohabitation
with Clodia, and even moved into her house. (_Drumann_,
Gesch. Roms., II, 377.) Even in Socrates' time, the hetæras
at Athens were probably better educated than wives: Compare
_Xenophon_, Memorabilia, III, 11.]
[Footnote 249-13: On the Pornographs of antiquity, see
_Athen._, XIII, 21. Even _Aristophanes_ was acquainted with
some of the species. (Ranæ, 13, 10 ff.) Compare _Aristot._,
Polit., III, 17. _Martial_, XII, 43, 96. Of modern nations,
Italy seems to have been the first to produce such poison
flowers: _Antonius Panormita_ (ob. 1471); _Petrus Aretinus_
(ob. 1556). Of the disastrous influence on morals, during
his time, of obscene pictures, _Propert_, II, 5, complains.
It is dreadfully characteristic that even a Parrhasios
painted wanton deeds of shame. (_Sueton._, Tiber, 44), and
that Praxiteles did not disdain to glorify the triumph of a
_meretrix gaudens_ over a _flens matrona_. (_Plin._, H. N.,
XXXIV, 19.) But indeed also Giulio Romano!]
[Footnote 249-14: Compare _Jacobs'_ Vermischte Schriften,
IV, 311 ff.: _Murr_, Die Mediceische Venus und Phryne,
1804.]
[Footnote 249-15: The number of registered prostitutes in
Paris, in 1832, amounted to 3,558; in 1854, to 4,620
(_Parent Du Châtelet_, ch. 1, 2); in 1870, to 3,656. These
figures are evidently much below the real ones. Compare the
extracts from the abundant, but, in particulars, very
unreliable literature on the great sin of great cities, in
_v. Oettingen_, Moralstatistik, 452 ff. According to the
Journal des Econ., Juin, 1870, 378 ff., there was an
aggregate of 120,000 _femmes, qui ne vivent que de
galanterie_.]
[Footnote 249-16: _Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis_,
says _Martial_, of Egypt. Worship of Isis, in Rome:
_Juvenal_, VI, 488 ff. See, further, _Herodot._, II, 46, 89;
_Strabo_, XVII, 802. On Syria, see Genesis, 19, 4 ff., 9
seq.; Leviticus, 18, 22 seq., 20, 13, 15. The _cunnilingere_
of Phoenician origin. (_Heysch_, _v._ skylax.) Frightful
frequency of the _fellare_ and _irrumare_ in Tarsis: _Dio
Chrysost._, Orat, 33. The Scythians also seem to have
learned the nousos thêleia (pederasty?) in Syria:
_Herodot._, I, 105. Similarly during the crusades.]
[Footnote 249-17: Compare _Becker_, Charicles, I, 347 ff.
_Æschines_ condemns this vice only when one prostitutes
himself for money (in Timarch., 137). _Lysias_, adv. Simon,
unhesitatingly speaks to a court about a contract for hire
for purposes of pederasty. Compare _Æschin._, l. c., 159,
119, where such a contract is formally sued on. Industrial
tax on pederastic brothels. (_Æschin._. I, c. R.)
_Aristophanes_ alludes to obscenity still more shameful:
Equitt., 280 ff.; Vespp., 1274 ff., 1347; Pax., 885; Ranæ,
1349.]
[Footnote 249-18: _Valer. Max._, VI, 1, 7, 9 ff. The Lex
Julia treats it only as _stuprum_: L. 34, § 1. Digest, 48,
5; Paulli Sentt. receptt., II, 26, 13. Permitted later until
Philip's time, in consideration of a license-fee. _Aurel.
Vict._, Caes., 28. Earliest traces of this vice in the year
321 before Christ. (_Suidas_, v. Gaios Laitôrios.) Later, it
caused much scandal when the great Marcellus accused the
ædile Scatinus of making shameful advances to his son.
(_Plutarch_, Marcell., 2.)]
[Footnote 249-19: _Tibull_, I, 4. Even the "severe"
_Juvenal_ was not entirely disinclined to pederasty, and
_Martial_ does not hesitate to boast of his own pederasty
and onanism. (II, 43, XI, 43, 58, 73, XII, 97.)]
[Footnote 249-20: _Cicero_, ad. Div., VIII, 12, 14.]
[Footnote 249-21: _Sueton._, Tiber, 43 ff.; Nero, 27 ff.
_Tacit._, Ann., VI, 1; Lamprid. Commod., 5, 10 seq.; Heliog.
passim. On the _greges exoletorum_, see also _Dio Cass._,
LXII, 28; LXIII, 13; _Tacit._, Ann., XV, 37. _Tatian_, ad
Graecos, p. 100. Even Trajan, the best of the Roman
emperors, held similar ones. (Ael. Spartian, V, Hadr., 2.)
Trade in the prostitution of children at the breast.
(_Martial_, IX, 9.) The collection of nearly all the obscene
passages in the ancient classics elucidated with a shameful
knowledge of the subject in the additions to _F. C.
Forberg's_ edition of the Hermaphroditus of _Antonius
Panormita_, 1824.]
[Footnote 249-22: How long this moral corruption lasted may
be inferred from the glaring contrast between the purity of
the Vandals at the time of the migration of nations. Compare
_Salvian_, De Gubern. Dei, VII, passim.]
[Footnote 249-23: In keeping with the vicious counter
tendencies described in this section, is the increasing
frequency of the rape of children in France. The average
number of cases between 1826 and 1830 was 136; between 1841
and 1845, 346; between 1856 and 1859, 692. Infanticide also
increased between 1826 and 1860, 119 per cent. (_Legoyt_,
Stat. comparée, 394.)]
SECTION CCL.
INFLUENCE OF THE PROFANATION OF MARRIAGE ON POPULATION.
D. In the preceding paragraphs, we treated of the wild shoots of the
tree of population. But the roots of the tree are still more directly
attacked by all those influences which diminish the sacredness of the
marriage bond. It is obvious how heartless _marriages de
convenance_,[250-1] inconsiderate divorces and frequent adulteries
mutually promote one another. And the period of Roman decline also is
the classic period of this evil. I need only cite the political
speculation in which Caesar gave his only daughter to the much older
Pompey, or the case of Octavia, who when pregnant was compelled to marry
the libertine Antonius.[250-2] Instead of the Lucretias and Virginias of
older and better times, we now find women of whom it was said: _non
consulum numero, sed maritorum annos suos computant_.[250-3] In the
numerous class of young people who live without the prospect of any
married happiness of their own, we find a multitude of dangerous persons
who ruin the married happiness of others, especially where marriage has
been contracted between persons too widely separated by years.
_Corrumpere et corrumpi sæculum vocatur._ (_Tacitus_).[250-4] It is easy
to understand how all this must have diminished the desire of men to
marry. Even Metellus Macedonicus (131 before Christ) had declared
marriage to be a necessary evil.[250-5] [250-6]
In such ages young girls are kept subject to a convent-like discipline,
that their reputation may be protected and that they may be able to get
husbands; but once married they are wont to be all the more lawless. In
a pure moral atmosphere, precisely the opposite course obtains.[250-7]
And so it has been frequently observed, that among declining nations the
social differences between the two sexes are first obliterated and
afterwards even the intellectual differences. The more masculine the
women become, the more effeminate become the men. It is no good symptom
when there are almost as many female writers and female rulers as there
are male. Such was the case, for instance, in the Hellenistic kingdoms,
and in the age of the Cæsars.[250-8] What to-day is called by many the
emancipation of woman would ultimately end in the dissolution of the
family, and, if carried out, render poor service to the majority of
women. If man and woman were placed entirely on the same level, and if
in the competition between the two sexes nothing but an actual
superiority should decide, it is to be feared that woman would soon be
relegated to a condition as hard as that in which she is found among all
barbarous nations. It is precisely family life and higher civilization
that have emancipated woman. Those theorizers who, led astray by the
dark side of higher civilization, preach a community of goods, generally
contemplate in their simultaneous recommendation of the emancipation of
woman a more or less developed form of a community of wives. The grounds
of the two institutions are very similar. The use of property and
marriage is condemned because there is evidence of so much abuse of
both. Men despair of making the advantages that accompany them
accessible to all, and hence would refuse them to every one; they would
improve the world without asking men to make a sacrifice of their evil
desires. The result, also, would be about the same in both cases. (§
81.) So far would prostitution and illegitimacy be from disappearing
that every woman would be a woman of the town and every child a bastard.
There would, indeed, be a frightful hinderance under such circumstances
to the increase of population. The whole world would be, so to speak,
one vast foundling asylum.[250-9]
But there is another sense to the expression emancipation of woman. It
should not be ignored that, in fully peopled countries, there is urgent
need of a certain reform in the social condition of woman. The less the
probability of marriage for a large part of the young women of a country
becomes, the more uncertain the refuge which home with its slackened
bonds offers them for old age, the more readily should the legal or
traditional barriers which exclude women from so many callings to which
they are naturally adapted be done away with.[250-10] This is only a
continuation of the course of things which has led to the abolition of
the old guardianship of the sex. It may be unavoidable not to go much
farther sometimes; but such a necessity is a lamentable one.[250-11] The
best division of labor is that which makes the woman the glory of her
household, only it is unfortunately frequently impossible.
[Footnote 250-1: This expression is applicable only in times
of higher civilization where individual disposition of self
is considered the most essential want. During the middle
ages, when the family tie is yet so strong, the contract of
marriage was generally formed by the family; but this was
not, as a rule, felt a restraint. In France, at the present
time, of 1,000 men who marry before their 20th year, 30.8
marry women from 35 to 50 years of age, and 4.8 who marry
women over 50 years of age. (_Wappäus_, A. Bevölkerung.
Stat. II, 291.)]
[Footnote 250-2: _Propertius_ bitterly complains of the
corruption prevalent in love affairs in his time. (III, 12.)
In the Hellenic world, also, among the successors of
Alexander the Great, there was a revoltingly large number of
_marriages de convenance_, so that even the old Seleucos
took to wife the grand-daughter of his competitor Antegonos,
Lysimachos the daughter of Ptolemy etc. _Dante's_ lament
over the anxiety of fathers to whom daughters are born
concerning their future dowry: Paradiso, XV, 103. Florentine
law of 1509, against large dowries: _Machiavelli_, Lett.
fam., 60. In the United States, marriage dowries are of
little importance. (_Graf Görtz_, Reise um die Welt, 116.)
[Footnote 250-3: _Seneca_, de Benef., III, 16--a frightful
chapter. Also, I, 9. _Juvenal_ speaks of ladies who in five
years had married eight men (IV, 229, seq.), and _Jerome_
saw a woman buried by her 23d husband, who himself had had
21 wives, one after another, (ad. Ageruch, I, 908.) The
first instance of a formal divorce _diffareatio_ is said to
have occurred in the year 523, after the building of the
city (_Gellius_, IV, 3), a clear proof that the Romulian
description of marriage, as koinônia hapantôn hierôn kai
chrêmatôn (Dionys., A. R. II., 25), was long a true one. The
old manus-marriage certainly supposes great confidence of
the wife and her parents in the fidelity of the husband,
while the marriage law of the time of the emperors relating
to estates never lost sight of the possibility of divorce.
The facility of obtaining amicable divorces (the most
dangerous of all) appears from the gifts allowed, _divorti
causa_, in L., 11, 12, 13, 60, 61, 62; Dig., XXIV, 1. In
Greece, we meet with the characteristic contrast, that, in
earlier times, wives were bought, but that later, large
dowries had to be insured to them or the risk of divorce at
pleasure be assumed. (_Hermann_, Privataltherthümer, § 30.)
How women themselves married again, even on the day of their
divorce, see _Demosth._, adv. Onet., 873; adv. Eubul., 1311.
On Palestine, see Gospel of _John_, 4, 17 ff. Concerning
present Egypt, where prostitution is carried on especially
by cast-off wives, see _Wachenhusen_, vom ägypt, armen Mann,
II, 139. During the great French revolution, divorces were
so easily obtained that but little was wanted to make a
community of wives. (Vierzig Bücher, IV, 205; Handbuch des
französischen Civilrechts, § 450.) The more divorces there
are in a Prussian province, the more illegitimate births
also. Thus, for instance, Brandenburg, 1860-64, had 1,721
divorces, and one illegitimate birth for every 7.8
legitimate (max.). Rhenish Prussia, four divorces and one
illegitimate birth for every 25.4 legitimate (min.). In the
cities of Saxony, it is estimated there are, for every
10,000 inhabitants, 36 divorced persons; in the country,
only 19 (_Haushofer_, Statistik, 487 seq.); in Württemberg,
20; Thuringia, 33; all Prussia, 19; Berlin, 83. (_Schwabe_,
Volkszählung von, 1867 p. XLV.)]
[Footnote 250-4: _Cicero_, in his speech for Cluentius,
gives us a picture of the depth to which families in his
time had fallen through avarice, lust, etc., which it makes
one shudder to contemplate. Moreover, of the numerous
families mentioned in _Drumann's_ history, there are
exceedingly few which, either actively or passively had not
had some share in some odious scandal. Concerning even Cato,
see _Plutarch_, Cato, II, 25. Messalina's systematic
patronage of adultery: _Dio Cass._, LX, 18.]
[Footnote 250-5: _Gellius_, I, 6. In Greece, the same
symptoms appear clearly enough, even in _Aristophanes_:
compare especially his Thesmophoriazusae. The frequently
cited woman-hatred of Euripides is part and parcel hereof;
also the fact that since Socrates' time, the most celebrated
Grecian scholars lived in celibacy. (_Athen._, XIII, 6 seq.;
_Plin._, H. N., XXXV, 10.) Compare Theophrast in Hieronym.
adv. Jovin, I, 47, and _Antipater_, in _Stobæus_, Serm.,
LXVII, 25.]
[Footnote 250-6: In modern Italy, the monstrosity known as
cicisbeism had not assumed any great proportions before the
17th century, in consequence of the bad custom which
permitted no woman to appear in public without such
attendant, and ridiculed the husband for accompanying his
own. In the time of the republics, the conventual seclusion
of girls and the duenna system were not yet customary.
(_Sismondi_, Gesch. der Italiennischen Republiken, XVI, 251,
ff., 498, ff.) Adultery punished with death in many cities
of medieval Italy: for instance, the Jus Municipale
Vicentinum, 135. Concerning the Spanish cicisbeos, who
evince as much shamelessness as fidelity, see _Townsend_,
Journey, II, 142, ff. _Bourgoing_, Tableau, II, 308, ff. The
so-called _cortejos_ are generally young clerics or young
officers.]
[Footnote 250-7: A young American woman says to Mrs. Butler:
"We enjoy ourselves before marriage, but in your country
girls marry to obtain a greater degree of freedom, and
indulge in the pleasures and dissipations of society." While
the young girls are always to be met with in the streets,
wives are to be found always in the kitchen. (_Mrs. Butler_,
American Journal, II, 183.) Compare _Beaumont_, Marie ou
l'Esclavage aux États-Unis, I, 25 ff. 349. The opposite
extreme in Italy, where, therefore, too favorable an
inference should not be drawn from the small number of
illegitimate births. Morally considered, one act of adultery
outweighs 10 _stupra!_ Even in the age of the renaissance,
the free intercourse of young girls in England and the
Netherlands made a favorable impression on Italian
travelers; _Bandello_, Nov., II, 42; IV, 27.
Similar contrast in antiquity between Ionian and Dorian
women. Wives were more rigidly excluded from entering
gymnasia for males in Sparta than young girls. (_Pausan._,
V, 6, 5; VI, 20, 6; _Plato_, De Legg., VII, 805; _Xenoph._,
De Rep. Laced., I.) Compare _K. O. Müller_, Dorier, II, 276
ff.]
[Footnote 250-8: _Plato_, De Legg., VI, 774, and
_Aristotle_, Polit., II, 6; V, 9, 6; VI, 2, 12, complain of
the too great supremacy of women in their day. Colossal land
ownership of Lacedemonian women. (_Aristot._, Polit., II, 6,
11.) And yet even Plato advises that women be allowed to
participate in the gymnasia, in the assemblies and to hold
public office, etc. They were indeed different from men, but
not as regards those qualities which fit for ruling. (De
Rep., V, 451 ff.; De Legg., VI, 780; VII, 806.) That the
Roman courtesans wore the male toga and were therefore
called togatæ. _Horat._, Serm., I, 2, 63 ff., 80 ff.;
_Martial_, VI, 64, recalls certain caricatures of very
recent times; for instance, Bakunius' demand that both sexes
should wear the same kind of dress. (_R. Meyer_,
Emancipationskampf des 4 Standes, I, 43.) Later, concerning
wifish men, see _Apuleius_, Metam., VIII; _Salvian_, Gubern.
Dei VII. We are led to a related subject in noticing that in
England of persons charged with serious crimes there were 10
women to 30 men; in Russia only 10 women to 81 men. (_v.
Oettingen_, 758.) As _Riehl_ remarks, Famille 15, the
undeniable _consensus gentium_, that the costume of men
should differ from that of women, is an equally undeniable
protest against this species of emancipation. I would add
that, as among ourselves in the earliest years of childhood,
so also among lowly civilized peoples, the difference in
costumes of the sexes is least apparent. (_Tacit._, Germ.,
17; Plan. Carpin., Voyage en Tartarie; Add. éd., Bergeron,
art. 2.) Even the physical difference is smaller there
(_Waitz_, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, I, 76), especially
in the size of the pelvis. (_Peschel_, Völkerkunde, 81,
86.)]
[Footnote 250-9: Even _Plato_ complains of the unnatural
relations of the sexes to one another, and would instead
have the unions of couples of short duration introduced, and
complete community of children under the direction of the
state. (De Rep., V.) The Stoic Chrysippos approves the
procreation of children by parent and child, brother and
sister. (_Diog. Laert._, VII. 188.) In the time of Epictetus
(Fr. 53, ed. Duebner), the Roman women liked to read Plato's
republic, because in his community of wives they found an
excuse for their own course. The Anabaptists appealed to
Christ's saying that he who would not lose what he loved
could not be his disciple. Thus the women should sacrifice
their honor and suffer shame for Christ's sake. Publicans
and prostitutes were fitter for heaven than honorable wives,
etc. (_Hagen_, Deutschlands Verhältnisse im
Reformationszeitalter, III, 221.)
In our days, the theory inimical to the family is based
rather on misconceived ideas of freedom and science. The
Christian mortification of the flesh is, it is said,
one-sidedness; and that the flesh no less than the spirit is
of God. Hence it is that Saint Simonism would reconcile the
two, and "emancipate" the flesh. (_Enfantin_, Economie
politique, 2d ed., 1832.) _Fourier_, in his Harmonie, allows
each woman to have one _époux_ and two children by him; one
_géniteur_ and one child by him; one _favori_ and as many
_amants_ with no legal rights as she wishes. His "harmonic"
world he would protect against over-population by four
organic measures: the _régime gastrosophique_, the object of
which is by first-class food to oppose fecundity; _la vigeur
des femmes_, because sickly women have most children;
_l'exercise intégral_, since by the exercise of all the
organs of the body the organs of generation are latest
developed; lastly the _moeurs phanérogames_, the minuter
description of which _Fourier's_ disciples omitted in the
later editions. (_N. Monde_, 377, ff.) _Fourier_ was of
opinion that only one-eighth of the mothers should be
occupied with the bringing up of the children, and that a
child's own parents were least adapted to bringing it up, as
is proved by the natural aversion of the child to mind the
advice or obey the injunctions of its own parents. (186 ff.)
If all were left free to choose their employment, two-thirds
of all men would devote themselves to the sciences, and
one-third of all women; the fine arts would be cultivated by
one-third of the men and two-thirds of the women. In
agriculture, two-thirds of the men and one-third of the
women would take to large farming, and to small farming
one-third of the men and two-thirds of the women.
The Communistic Journal, L'Humanitaire, is in favor of a
community of wives proper, while _Cabet_ leaves the question
an open one. Compare, besides, _Godwin_ on Political
Justice, 1793, VIII, ch. 8. In beautiful contrast to this
are _J. G. Fichte's_ (compare, _supra_, § 2) views on
marriage and the family in the appendix to his Naturrecht,
although he, too, would largely facilitate divorce.]
[Footnote 250-10: _J. Bentham_, Traité de Législation, II,
237, seq., says that it is scarcely decent for men to engage
in the toy trade, the millinery business, in the making of
ladies' dresses, shoes, etc. Compare _M. Wolstoncraft_,
Rettung der Rechte des Weibes, translated by Salzmann, 1793;
_v. Hippel_, über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber,
1792. Rich in remarks on the woman question are _K. Marlo_,
System der Weltökonomie, and _Schäffle_, Kapitalismus und
Socialismus, 444 ff., who, for the most part, supports him.
Compare _Josephine Butler_, Woman's Work and Woman's
Culture: a Series of Essays, 1792; _Leroy-Beaulieu_, Le
Travail des Femmes au. 19, siècle, 1873. Between 1867 and
1871, the number of men dependent on their own action in
Berlin, increased 22.9 per cent.; of women dependent on
their own labor, 36.6 per cent. (_Schwabe_, Volkszählung,
1871, 84.)]
[Footnote 250-11: _J. S. Mill_, on the other hand, rejoices
over the great economic independence of women, and expects
from it especially a decrease in the number of thoughtless
marriages. (Principles, IV, ch. 7, 3. Compare by the same
author, The Subjection of Women, 1869.) I need only mention
the dramatic art and the factory proletariat, where the
independence in question obtains and indeed with very
different results! It is very characteristic of the time,
that _Homer_(Il., XII, 433) considered the spinning for
wages as despicable, while _Socrates_, in the mournful
period following the Peloponnesian war, earnestly counsels
that free women without fortune should employ themselves
with home industries. (_Xenoph._, Memor., II, 7.) It is in
keeping with this that during the time of scarcity after the
Peloponnesian war even female citizens hired themselves out
as nurses. (_Demosth._, adv. Eubul., 1309, 1313.) The
frequency of such engagements has, in many respects, causes
related to these which produce a frequency of illegitimate
births.]
SECTION CCLI.
POLYANDRY.--EXPOSURE OF CHILDREN.
In some of the countries of farther Asia, the immoral tendencies counter
to over-population which with us take the direction of illegitimate
births and acts of adultery, assume the guise of formal institutions
established by law. I need only cite the polyandry of East India, Thibet
and other mountainous regions of Asia, which is indeed modified somewhat
by the fact that, as a rule, only several brothers have one wife in
common.[251-1]
That unnatural institution is, in many localities, based on this, that a
great many of the newly born female children are killed or at least sold
in foreign parts after they have grown.[251-2] In addition to this, we
have the very great encouragement given to celibacy in the Himalayas, so
that only monks can attain to a higher education and to the higher
honors.[251-3] In many parts of the East Indies, we find a legally
recognized community of wives, which is but slightly modified[251-4] by
the difference of caste; and almost everywhere, that looseness of
general morality which usually characterizes declining nations.[251-5]
China is, as a rule, considered the classic land of child-exposure. And
a writer of the country, who is considered one of the principal
authorities against the exposure of children, actually claims that it is
reprehensible only when one has property enough to support them. The
murder of daughters he especially reprobates as "a struggle against the
harmony of nature; the more a father performs this act, the more
daughters are born to him; and no one has ever heard that the birth of
sons was promoted in this way."[251-6] Moreover, the exposure of
children in the later periods of antiquity played an important part. In
Athens, the right of a father to expose his child was recognized by law.
Even a Socrates accounts it one of the occasional duties of midwives to
expose children.[251-7] Considered from a moral point of view, Aristotle
has nothing to say against abortion.[251-8] In Rome, a very ancient law,
which was still in existence in 475 before Christ, made it the duty of
every citizen to have and to bring up children.[251-9] It was very
different in the time of the emperors,[251-10] and until Christianity,
made the religion of the state, caused a legal prohibition against the
exposure of children to be passed.[251-11] [251-12]
[Footnote 251-1: _Turner_, Embassy to Thibet, II, 349, tells
of five brothers who lived satisfied thus under one roof.
(_Jacquemont_, Voyage en Inde, 402.) In Ladakh, all the
children are ascribed to the eldest brother, to whom also
the property belongs; all the younger brothers are his
servants and may be expelled the house by him. (_Neumann_,
Ausland, 1866, No. 16 seq.) In Bissahir, on the other hand,
the eldest child belongs to the eldest brother, the second
to the second, etc. Here the wife is bought by all the
brothers together and treated precisely as a slave.
(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, III, 752.) In Bhutan, the men move into
the house of the woman, who is frequently old, and who
before marriage, and up to her 25th or 30th year, has
generally lived very lawlessly. (_Ritter_, IV, 195.) Among
the Garos, the wife may leave the man at pleasure and not
lose her property or her children, while her husband by her
rejection of him loses both. (_Ritter_, V, 403.) Even in
Mahabarata, polyandry occurs among the Northern Indians.
Similarly, among the Indo-Germanic tribes in Middle Asia
(_Ritter_, VII, 608); according to Chinese sources in
ancient Tokharestan (_Ritter_, VII, 699), and among the
Sabæans (_Strabo_, XVI, 768). Even in ancient Sparta.
(_Polyb._, XII, 6.)]
[Footnote 251-2: In lower Nerbudda, the poisoning of new
born female children was very common about the beginning of
this century. In Kutch, people prefer to marry persons from
foreign countries, and murder their own daughters.
(_Ritter_, VI, 623, 1054.) Similarly, even in the Indian
Arcadia, the land of the Nilgherrys (V, 1035 seq.). In
Cashmir, all the beautiful girls are sold in the Punjab and
in India from their eighth year upwards. (VII, 78.)
Similarly in the Caucasus and in the mountainous region of
Badakschan. (VII, 798 ff.) _v. Haxthausen_, Transkaukasia,
1856, I, ch. 1, tells how the Russians captured a vessel
carrying Circassian slaves into Turkey. They left them their
choice, to go back home, marry in Russia, or to continue
their journey to Constantinople. They all unhesitatingly
chose the last! There is an echo of something analogous even
in the Semiramis saga.]
[Footnote 251-3: In many parts of Thibet and Rhutan the
fourth son, and in some places the half of the young men,
become lamas. (_Ritter_, Erdkunde, IV, 149, 206.)]
[Footnote 251-4: Among the Garos and Nairs, as well as among
the Cossyahs, in Northwestern Farther India, the children
have no father, but consider their brothers on the mother's
side their nearest male relatives. Inheritance also takes
this direction. (_J. Mill_, History of British India, I, 395
seq. _Buchanan_, Journey through Mysore, II, 411 seq.
_Ritter_, V, 390 seq., 753.) Similarly, among the Lycians:
_Herodot._, I, 173. Whether the peculiar custom of many old
German people, of which _Tacitus_, Germ., 20, makes mention,
does not point to an original community of wives, _quære_.]
[Footnote 251-5: Even the most debauched European is a
pattern of modesty compared with the Indians themselves.
(Edinb. Rev., XX, 484.) On the frightful development of
unnatural as well as natural crimes against chastity among
the Chinese, see _G. Schlegel_, in the memoirs of the
Genoostchap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen in Batavia, Band.
XXXII, and Ausland, Januar., 1868.]
[Footnote 251-6: According to _J. Bowring's_ official
report: Athenæum, 17 Nov., 1855. That the exposure of
children is allowed by law in China, and that many poor
couples marry with the intention of exposing them, is
unquestionable. But the reports concerning the extent of the
evil differ materially. The Jesuits estimated that in Pekin
alone from 2,000 to 3,000 children were exposed in the
streets. To this must be added the many thrown into the
water or smothered in a bath-tub immediately after birth.
Compare Lettres édif., XVI, 394 ff.; _Barrow_, 166 ff. The
street-foundlings were picked up by the police and placed in
wagons, living and dead together, and cast into one pit in a
part of the city. Other accounts are much more favorable:
thus that of _Ellis_, Voyage, ch. 7, who was there in 1816,
and of _Timkowski_, Reise, II, 359. Compare the quotations
in _Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, VI, 212.]
[Footnote 251-7: _Petit_, Legg. Att., 144. Compare _Becker_,
Charicles, I, 21 ff.; _Plato_, Theæt., 150 ff. In Plato's
state, a system of exposure on a large scale is one of the
most essential foundations of the whole. (De Re., V, 461.)]
[Footnote 251-8: Aristotle advised that males should not
marry before their 37th year, and that at least after their
55th year they should bring no more children into the world.
No family was allowed to have more than a definite number of
children. (Polit., VII, 14.) There are even yet pictures of
Venus trampling an embryo under foot. (_R. O. Müller_,
Denkmäler der alten Kunst, II, No. 265.) Compare, _per
contra_, _Stobaeus_, Serm., LXXIV, 91; LXXI, 15.]
[Footnote 251-9: _Dionys. Hal._, Ant. Rom., IX, 22.]
[Footnote 251-10: _Plutarch_, De Amore Prol., 2, Minut.
Felix Octav., 30. That it seemed entirely right, when
persons had "enough" children, to put the others to death,
is proved by the catastrophe in _Longus'_ idyllic romance,
IV, 24, 35. Even men like _Seneca_ (Contr., IX, 26; X, 33)
and _Tacitus_ (Ann., III, 25 ff.) were actually in favor of
the right of exposing children. On the frequency of
artificial abortion, see _Juvenal_, VI, 594. Semi-castration
of young slaves for libidinous women who did not want to
bear children. (_Juvenal_, VI, 371 ff.; _Martial_, I, V67.)]
[Footnote 251-11: Under Constantine the Great, 315 after
Christ. _Theod._, Cod., XI, 27, 1]
[Footnote 251-12: It is an unfortunate fact that many modern
nations approximate more closely to this abomination of the
ancients than is generally supposed. The infrequency of
illegitimate children in Romanic southern nations is offset
by the enormous number of exposures almost after the manner
of the Chinese. See the tables in _v. Oettingen_, Anhang,
95. In Milan, between 1780 and 1789, there were, in the
aggregate, 9,954 children abandoned; between 1840 and 1849,
39,436. (_v. Oettingen_, 587.) On abortion in North America,
and the numberless bold advertisements of doctors there that
they are ready to remove all impediments to menstruation
"from whatever cause," see _v. Oettingen_, 523, and Allg.
Zeitung, 1867, No. 309. It would be a very mournful sign of
the times if the work: Principles of Social Science, or
physical, sexual and natural Religion; an Exposition of the
real Cause and Cure of the three great Evils of Society,
Pauperism, Prostitution and Celibacy, by a Doctor of
Medicine (Berlin, 1871), were really a translation of an
alleged English original. It is throughout atheistic,
materialistic and immoral, concerned only with one
fundamental idea: to instruct women how to prevent
conception!]
SECTION CCLII.
POSITIVE DECREASE OF POPULATION.
The way of vice is steep. Where the aversion to the sacrifices and to
the limitations of liberty imposed by marriage, has permeated the great
body of the people; where, indeed, the immoral tendencies counter to
population described in § 249 ff. have been largely developed, they very
readily cease to be mere checks, and population may positively decline.
While in the case of fresh and vigorous nations, the mere loss of men
caused by wars, pestilence, etc., is very easily made up;[252-1] that
reproductive power may here be too much enfeebled to fill up the gap
again. It has happened more than once that the decline of a period has
been frightfully promoted by great plagues, which have swept away in
whole masses the remnants of a former and better generation.[252-2] The
return of the relatively small population of its childhood to a nation
in its senility cannot be ascribed exclusively to a decrease in its
means of subsistence and to a less advantageous distribution of
them.[252-3] [252-4] The depopulation, however, of Greece and Rome in
their decline might be hard to understand were it not for the slavery of
the lower class.[252-5]
[Footnote 252-1: It is said that the plague which, in 1709
and 1710, decimated Prussia and Lithuanian, carried away
one-third of the inhabitants, and even one-half of those at
Dantzig. While previously the number of marriages annually
was, on an average, 6,082, it rose in 1711 to 12,028. In
1712 it was 6,267, and sank some years afterwards on account
of the decrease in population, to 5,000. (_Süssmilch_,
Göttl. Ordnung, I, Tab. 21.) Similar effects of the plague at
Marseilles, 1720. (_Messance_, Recherches sur la Population,
766.) In Russia, too, it was observed after the devastation
produced by the black death in 1347 and the succeeding
years, that the population again increased at an
extraordinarily rapid rate; and that an unusual number of
twins and triplets were born (?). (_Karamsin_, Russ. Gesch.,
IV, 230.) Compare _Dalin_ Schwed. Gesch., 11,384;
_Montfaucon_, Monuments de la Monarchie Française, I, 282.]
[Footnote 252-2: I would mention the Athenian pestilence
during the last years or Pericles; the Roman in the _orbis
terrarum_, between 250 and 265 B.C., which is said to have
destroyed one-half of the population of Alexandria.
(_Gibbon_, Hist. of the Roman Empire, ch. 10.) It also made
frightful ravages, intellectually, on the nationality of the
Romans. (_Niebuhr._) Thus, in England, the black death
contributed very largely to cause the disappearance of the
medieval spirit. (_Rogers._) Of great political importance
was the pestilence of Bagdad, which, in 1831, carried off
2/3 of the inhabitants. All national bonds seemed dissolved,
robbers ruled the country; the army of the powerful Doud
Pascha was carried off entirely, and his whole political
system, constructed after the model of that of Mehemet-Ali,
fell into ruin. Compare _Anth. Groves_, Missionary Journal
of a Residence at Bagdad, 1832.]
[Footnote 252-3: Among the Maoris, the number of sterile
women is 9 times as great as the average in Europe. Compare
Reise der Novara, III, 129.]