ETHICS OF PREVENTION.
_Fertility the law of life.--Man interprets and controls this
law.--Marriage law necessary to fix paternal responsibility.--Malthus's
high ideal.--If prudence the motive, continence and celibacy violate no
law.--Post-nuptial intermittent restraint.--Ethics of prevention judged
by consequences.--When procreation is a good and when an
evil.--Oligantrophy.--Artificial checks are physiological sins._
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He
him, male and female created He them, and God blessed them and God said
unto them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth.'"--(Genesis i., 27-28). This commandment was repeated to Noah and
his sons.
Whether Moses was recording the voice of God, or interpreting a
physiological law is immaterial to this aspect of a great social
question. The fact remains that in obedience to a great law of life, all
living things are fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and
multiplication in a state of nature is limited only by space and food.
In a state of nature, reproduction is automatic, and only in this state
is this physiological law, or this divine command obeyed.
The reason of man intervenes, and interprets, and modifies this law.
A community of men becomes a social organism, calls itself a State, and
limits the law of reproduction. It decrees that the sexes shall, if they
pair, isolate themselves in pairs, and live in pairs whether inclined to
so live or not.
If the State has a right so to interpret and limit the law of
reproduction, a principle in human affairs is established, and its
decree that individuals shall not mate before a certain age, or not mate
at all, is only a further application of the same principle. By the law
of reproduction a strong instinct, second only in force and universality
to the law of self-preservation, is planted in the sexes, and upon a
blind obedience to this force, the continuity of the race depends.
The tendency in the races of history has been to over-population, or to
a population beyond the food supply, and there is probably no race known
to history that did not at some one period of its rise or fall suffer
from over-population.
States have mostly been concerned, therefore, with restraining or
inhibiting the natural reproductive instinct of their subjects through
marriage laws which protect the State, by fixing paternal
responsibility. There were strong reasons why a State should not be
over-populated, and only one reason why it should not be
under-populated. That one reason was the danger of annihilation from
invasion.
Sparta was said to have suffered thus, because of under-population, and
passed a law encouraging large families. Alexander encouraged his
soldiers to intermarry with the women of conquered races, in order to
diminish racial differences and antagonism, and Augustus framed laws for
the discouragement of celibacy, but no law has ever been passed
decreeing that individuals must mate, or if they do mate that they shall
procreate.
Malthus, the great and good philanthropist of Harleybury, a great
moralist and Christian clergyman, urged that it was people's duty not to
mate and procreate until they had reasonable hope of being able easily
to rear, support, and educate the normal family of four, and, if that
were impossible, not to mate at all. As a Christian clergyman, Malthus
did not interpret the Divine command apart from the consequences of its
literal acceptance.
"Be fruitful," meant to Malthus reproduce your kind,--that implied not
only bringing babies into the world, but rearing them up to healthy,
robust, and prosperous manhood, with every prospect of continuing the
process.
"Multiply and replenish the earth" as a command to Noah, meant in the
mind of the Rector of Harleybury, "People the earth with men after your
own image."
Very little care would be required in Noah's time, with his fine
alluvial flats, and sparse population, but in Malthus's time the command
could not be fully carried out without labour, self-development, and
"moral restraint."
The physiological law is simple and blind, taking no cognisance of the
consequences, or the quality of the offspring produced. The divine
command is complex. It embodies the reproductive instinct, but restrains
and guides it in view of ultimate consequences.
So much for the views and teaching of Malthus. To him no ethical
standard was violated in preventing offspring by protracted continence,
or lifelong celibacy, provided the motive was the inability so to
provide for a family as to require no aid from the state. And it is
difficult to escape this conclusion. There is no ethical, Christian, or
social law, that directs a man or woman to procreate their kind if they
cannot, or have reasonable grounds to think they cannot, support their
offspring without aid from others.
There can be, therefore, no just law that decrees that men or women
shall marry under such circumstances. In fact most philanthropists think
they violate a social and ethical law if they do marry.
But, if with Paul, they resolve that it is better to marry than to burn,
is there any law that can or should prevent them selecting the
occasions of their union, with a view to limiting fertility.
Abstention is the voluntary hindrance of a desire, when that desire is
strongest in both sexes; and as such it limits happiness, and is in
consequence an evil _per se_. A motive that will control this desire
must be a strong one; such a motive is not necessarily bad. It may be
good or evil.
There can be no essential ethical difference between constant
continence, prior to marriage, and intermittent continence subsequent to
marriage, both practices having a similar motive.
If post nuptial restraint with a view to limiting offspring is wrong,
restraint from marriage with the same motive is wrong.
If delayed marriage in the interest of the individual and the State is
right, marriage with intermittent restraint is in the same interest, and
can as easily be defended.
The ethics of prevention by restraint must be judged by its
consequences. If unrestrained procreation will place children in a home
where the food and comfort are adequate to their healthful support and
development, then procreation is good,--good for the individual,
society, and the State.
If the conditions necessary to this healthful support and development,
can by individual or State effort be provided for all children born, it
is the duty of the individual and of the State to make that effort.
All persons of fair education and good intelligence know what those
conditions are, and if they procreate regardless of their absence, that
procreation is an evil, and prevention by restraint is the contrary
virtue.
It is not suggested, however, that all those who prevent, without or
within the marriage bond, do so from this worthy motive, nor is it
suggested that all those who prevent are not extravagant in their demand
for luxurious conditions for themselves and for their children.
Many require not merely the conditions necessary to the healthful
development of each and every child they may bear, but they demand that
child-bearing shall not entail hardships nor the prospect of hardships,
shall not involve the surrender of any comfort or luxury, nor the
prospect of any such surrender.
Whatever doubt may exist in the minds of moralists and philanthropists
as to the ethics of prevention in the face of poverty, there can be no
doubt that prevention by those able to bear and educate healthy
offspring, without hardship, is a pernicious vice degrading to the
individual, and a crime against society and the State.
Aristotle called this vice "oliganthropy." Amongst the ancients it was
associated with self-indulgence, luxury, and ease. It was the result of
self-indulgence, but it was the cause of mental and moral anæmia, and
racial decay.
So far in this chapter prevention has been dealt with only in so far as
it is brought about by ante-nuptial and post-nuptial restraint.
Artificial checks were first brought prominently before the notice of
the British Public under the garb of social virtue, about the year 1877
by Mrs. Annie Besant and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
These checks to conception, though they are very largely used, can
hardly be defended on physiological grounds. Every interference with a
natural process must be attended, to some extent at least, with physical
injury. There is not much evidence that the injury is great, but in so
far as an interference is unnatural, it is unhealthy, and there is much
evidence to show that many of the checks advocated and used, are not
only harmful but are quite useless for the purpose for which they are
sold.
It will be conceded by most, no doubt, that with those capable of
bearing healthy children, and those unable to rear healthy ones when
born, prevention by restraint, ante-nuptial or post nuptial, is a social
virtue, while prevention under all other circumstances is a social vice.
Happiness has been defined as the surplus of pleasure over pain. What
constitutes pleasure and what pain varies in the different stages of
racial and individual development. In civilized man we have the
pleasures of mind supplementing and in some cases replacing the
pleasures of sense. We talk, therefore, of the higher pleasures--the
pleasures of knowledge and learning, of wider sympathies and love, of
the contemplation of extended prosperity and concord, of hope for
international fraternity and peace, and for a life beyond the grave.
Happiness to the highly civilized will consist, therefore, of the
surplus of these pleasures over the pains of their negation.
Self-preservation is the basal law of life, and to preserve one's-self
in happiness, the completest preservation, for happiness promotes
health, and health longevity.
The first law of living nature then is to preserve life and the
enjoyment of it, and the pleasures sought, to increase the sum of
happiness will depend on the sentiments and emotions, _i.e._, on the
faculties of mind that education and experience have developed, in the
race, or in the individual.
My first thought is for myself, and my duty is to increase the sum of my
happiness. But the mental state we call happiness is relative to the
presence or absence of this state in others. Even amongst the lower
animals, misery and distress in one of the flock militate against the
happiness of the others. In a highly developed man true happiness is
impossible in the presence of pain and misery in others and _vice
versa_; happiness is contagious and flows to us from the joy of others.
If the happiness of others then is so essential to my own happiness, I
am fulfilling the first law of life and ministering to my own
preservation in health and happiness by using my best endeavours to
promote this state in others. My material comfort too depends largely on
the labour, and love, and the contribution of others in the complex
industrial system and division of labour of the higher civilisations.
Not only my happiness and health but my very existence depends on the
good-will and toil of others. Thus from a purely egoistic standpoint, my
first duty to myself is to increase the happiness in others, and,
therefore, my first duty to myself becomes my highest duty to society.
My duty to my child is comprehended in my duty to society, _i.e._, to
others. My duty to others is to increase the sum of the happiness of
others, and bringing healthy children into the world not only creates
beings capable of experiencing and enjoying pleasures, but adds to the
sum of social happiness, by increasing the number of social units
capable of rendering service to others.
The next great law of life is the law of race preservation. This law
comprises the instinct to reproduction and the instinct of parental
love. The first and chief function of these instincts in the animal
economy is the perpetuation of the race. The preservation of self
implies and comprehends the preservation of the race.
My first duty to myself is to preserve myself in health and happiness;
but this is best fulfilled and realized in labouring for the health and
happiness of others. If this be the universal law, I also am the
recipient of others' care, therefore probably better tended and
preserved. I save my life by losing it in others.
My second duty, though nominally to Society, is in reality to myself,
and it is to preserve myself by preserving the race to which I belong.
Self-preservation therefore, is the first law of life, race preservation
the second or subsidiary law.
To fulfil this second law, nature has placed on every normal healthy man
and woman the sacred duty of reproducing their kind. Reproduction as a
physiological process promotes, both directly and indirectly, the
health, happiness and longevity of healthy men and women.
Statistics confirm the popular opinion "that the length of life, to the
enjoyment of which a married person may look forward, is greater than
that of the unmarried, both male and female at the same
age."--(Coghlan).
It is a familiar observation that the mothers of large families of ten
and even twice that number are not less healthy nor shorter lived
because of the children they have borne. Pregnancy is a stimulus to
vitality. Because another life has to be supported, all the vital
powers are invigorated and rise to the occasion--the circulation
increases, the heart enlarges in response to the extra work, and the
assimilative powers of the body are greatly accelerated. During
lactation also, the same extra vital work done is a stimulus to a
physiological activity which is favourable to health and longevity. The
expectancy of life in women is greater than in men all through life, the
difference during the child-bearing period of life being about 2.2 years
in favour of women.
Statistics and physicians from their observation agree in this, that the
bearing of children by normal women, so far from being injurious to
health, is as healthful, stimulating, and invigorating a function as the
blooming of a flower, or the shedding of fruit, and a mother is no worse
for the experience of maternity than is the plant or the tree for the
fruit it bears.
The supreme law of society is the law of race-preservation, and the
infraction of this law is a social crime. One's duty to society is a
higher duty than to one's-self, but the lower duty comes first in our
present stage of racial evolution. Instinct prompts to the one,
reason--a higher and later, but less respected, faculty--prompts to the
other.
But it can be shown that from an egoistic standpoint my duty to the
State in this regard is my highest duty to myself.
The parental sacrifice necessary in rearing the normal number of
children is infinitesimal compared with the parental advantage.
Parental love is a passion as well as an instinct in normal men and
women, and the full play of this passion in its natural state is
productive of the greatest happiness.
Vice may restrain, replace, or smother it, but nothing else can damage
or adulterate this powerful passion in the human heart.
Low level selfishness, love of low level luxury, diseased imaginings,
and unreasonable dreads and fears, are some of the forms of vice that
smother this noble passion.
The pursuit of happiness and the higher forms of selfishness would
naturally point to parentage.
The ectasy of parental love, the sweet response from little ones that
rises as the fragrance of lovely flowers, self-realization in the
comfort and joy of family life, the parental pride in the contemplation
of effulgent youth, the sympathetic partnership in success, the repose
of old age surrounded by filial manhood and womanhood, all go to make a
surplus of pleasure over pain, that no other way of life can possibly
supply.
What is the alternative?
To miss all this and live a barren life and a loveless old age. Perhaps
to bear a child, that, for the need of the educative, elevating
companionship of family mates is consumed by self, inheriting that
vicious selfishness, which he by his birth defeated, and finding all the
forces of nature focussed on his defect, like a pack of hounds that turn
and rend an injured mate.
Or a family of one, after years of parental care and love, education and
expense, dies or turns a rake, and the canker of remorse takes his place
in the broken hearts.
Nature's laws are not broken with impunity--as a great Physician has
said, "She never forgives and never forgets."
Self-preservation and race-preservation together constitute the law of
life, just as Conservation of Matter and Conservation of Energy
constitute the Law of Substance in Haeckels Monistic Philosophy, and the
severest altruism will permit man to follow his highest self-interest in
obedience to these laws. It is only a perverted and vicious
self-interest that would tempt him to infraction.
That the vice of oliganthropy is growing amongst normal and healthy
people is a painful and startling fact. In New Zealand the prevailing
belief is that a number of children adds to the cares and
responsibilities of life more than they add to its joys and pleasures,
and many have come to think with John Stuart Mill, that a large family
should be looked on with the same contempt as drunkenness.