SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE SURVIVAL OF TYPES[53]
ACTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER ON SURVIVAL—SIZE OF A NORMAL FAMILY—SOCIAL
CHECKS ON THE IMPULSE TO PROPAGATION—THE FAMILY LINE AS AN
IDEAL—FACTORS IN MARRIAGE SELECTION—INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN’S
MOVEMENT—UNSETTLED CONDITIONS
All the hereditary types or strains in a given society may be said to be
competing for survival, with the social system as the arbiter of
success. That is, a type can hold its own only as its individuals can
make themselves at home in the social environment and bring to maturity
at least an average number of offspring to continue it. Thus, as regards
merely physical needs, social conditions may involve either ample
nutrition and protection or starvation and exposure to destructive
climates and diseases. The wide-spread devastation of savage races in
recent times is explained in part by the social events which have
brought them in contact with European diseases and intoxicants, and
there is an analogous condition in the destructive influences acting
upon the very poor in all societies.
This, however, is only the more obvious part of the truth. More subtly
the social condition determines how any hereditary type develops and
whether it has a sort of life that is favorable to propagation. The
whole process of survival is, from one point of view, a matter of social
psychology. Psychological influences direct the development of the
instincts, guiding the selection of one sex by the other, and of both by
the social group.
The question just how a hereditary type must be related to the social
system in order to survive cannot be answered in any simple way. It is
not safe to say that the most successful types, in a social sense, have
the best chance of survival; such types often tend to sterility. This
may take place through the absorption of their energies in social
activities at the expense of propagation; also through overfeeding or
lack of incentive, leading to moral decay. Nor do the types that fail
socially necessarily fail to propagate, since traits like lack of
foresight, which diminish success, may increase the number of offspring.
In order that a hereditary type may survive equally with others the
individuals belonging to it must bring to maturity at least as many
children, in proportion to their number, as those of other types. It is
not sufficient that those having children should rear enough of them to
replace the parents; they must also compensate for several sources of
loss. A considerable proportion of persons, from lack of vitality or
other reasons, do not marry, or, being married, have no children, or
lose those they have by early death. And, beyond this, there must be
enough surplus of children to give the type they represent its share in
the general increase of population.
The failure of a part of the individuals of good stock to leave children
is not necessarily a fault: in some degree it is an elimination of the
weak that is essential to the welfare of the stock, whose vigor is not
the same in all. Many of the celibate or sterile are such because they
lack normal vitality. I think we can all find in our own circle of
acquaintance people of excellent descent who are healthy enough,
perhaps, but seem to lack that surplus of life which would make us feel
that they are born to be fathers or mothers. At any rate, others must do
what, for no matter what reason, they fail to do.
Just how many offspring the average family must have to meet these
requirements is not easy to calculate precisely, as the number varies
with the death-rate, the proportion of celibates and barren marriages,
the rate of general increase and other factors. I have consulted several
statistical experts, but found none of them willing to make a definite
estimate for the United States. I should say, roughly, that a stock
cannot hold its own in numbers with an average of less than four
children to a fertile marriage, and considering the large general rate
of increase in this country, five would probably be nearer the mark. A
family of three children or less, where the parents are of good descent
and, physically and as regards income, capable of having more, must be
reckoned a “race-suicide” family, not doing its share in keeping up the
stock.
It was formerly assumed that the impulse to propagation, in human as in
animal types, was to be taken for granted, the only question being how
far the economic conditions would allow this impulse to become
effective. A closer study shows that the control of society begins
further back, and can easily modify the development of the instincts
themselves in such a way that they cease to impel natural increase.
Gratification of the sexual impulses may be separated from reproduction,
and it may well come to pass that the classes in which they have the
fullest sway are the least prolific. The maternal instinct, though less
apt to lapse into sensuality, is not much more certain in its operation.
It may expend itself on one or two children, or even be directed to
other objects.
Modern conditions tend strongly to what is called birth-control, that
is, to making the number of children a matter of intention, and not of
mere physiology. This is in accord with the general increase of choice,
and we may hope that it will work out well in the long run, but it calls
for a new conscience and a new intelligence in this connection. The old
process did not require that people should know anything about eugenics,
or feel the duty of raising a good-sized family; that was left to
unconscious forces; but now that they are coming to have no more
children than they want, it is evident that, unless those who represent
the better strains want the requisite number, such strains must decline.
And as birth-control prevails most in the intelligent classes, the
possibility of deterioration is manifest. Only eugenic ideals and
conduct can save from depletion those stocks which share most fully in
the currents of progress.
The fact that intelligence saves on the death-rate and enables the type
to be maintained by a smaller number of births is of some moment, but we
must not imagine that any saving of this sort will enable families of
two or three children to keep up a thriving stock.
There seems to be some disposition to blink the quantitative side of
this problem, especially, perhaps, among women, upon whom the hardships
and anxieties of rearing children mainly fall. They are apt to be more
interested in taking better care of children than in having more of
them. And yet, from the standpoint of race welfare, and having regard to
the actual state of things in the well-to-do classes, the number is
pretty clearly the more urgent matter of the two. If the maternal
instinct expends itself upon solicitude for one or two or even three
children, refusing a larger number, it becomes accessory to the decline
of the type. It is mere confusion of thought to suppose that, in this
matter, quality can make up for lack of quantity.
And, so far as quality is concerned, there is good reason to think that
where the parents are not in actual poverty a family of four children or
more, large enough to create a vigorous group life, is better for the
development of a child than one of two or three.
It seems that what we mainly need in this connection is some
resuscitation, in a changed form, of the old ideal of the family line.
We have, from this point of view, gone too far in differentiating the
individual from his kin, having almost ceased to identify ourselves with
our ancestors or descendants, and to find self-expression in the size
and importance of the family group. People hardly comprehend any longer
the sentiment, quite general until within a century or two, that a man’s
position and repute were one with that of a continuing stock whose
traits were imputed to him as a matter of course. We no longer introduce
ourselves, as in Homer, by naming our descent, or rely upon our
posterity for credit. We cannot lose the sense of race without impairing
the fact of race.
I know that precisely this sense has been one of the main obstacles to
democracy, equality of opportunity, and the whole modern movement, so
that public opinion has come to identify it with reaction. Nor do I
think that the danger from it is altogether past. Nevertheless, progress
is to be had not by abandoning old ideals altogether, but by their
control and adaptation; and the race sentiment still has essential
functions. Where it flourishes success and fecundity tend to go
together: the stocks that gain social power and resource express these,
in part, by leaving a numerous offspring. And in so far as the
successful stocks are the better stocks, this means race-improvement.
If we assume, notwithstanding the foregoing, that marriage is, on the
whole, a step toward propagation, we arrive at the question of selection
in marriage. Any type of man or woman that is to hold its own in
heredity must be qualified to secure the co-operation of the other sex
in this relation.
The choice of the sexes in marriage is in great part an expression of
the values prevalent in the social group at large. It is impracticable
to separate the individual judgment from that of society. This is
evidently true where, as is so widely the case, marriages are based on
wealth, social position, or success in any of the forms admired by the
group. The valuation of a suitor, in the mind of a girl’s family, and
even in the mind of the girl herself, is largely a function of his
valuation by other people, and the same is true for the woman, whose
reputation, wealth, and capacity as a housewife are important factors in
her desirability. Even in the matter of sexual attraction there is a
large conventional element. We know how women are dazzled by prestige
and position on the part of men, while “style” and the like are almost
equally effective in their own case. The sexual emotions function in
connection with the mind as a whole, and that is moulded by the general
mind of the group. It is certain, however, that although sexual value is
largely an institutional value there is also a factor of immediate human
nature in it. I mean that there are, on both sides, vague but powerful
elements of sex attraction that spring from instinct and are little
subject to convention. It is hard to say just what these are, but we all
feel them in the other sex, and no one doubts that they come from an
immemorial evolution.
The tendency of the modern movement toward individuality and personal
choice has been to give freer play to preference in the man and woman
who are to marry, increasing the influence of the human-nature values
and rendering marriage, on the whole, more intimate and congenial. This
ought to make for the propagation of manly types of men and womanly
types of women, types strongly vital and sexual after their several
kinds. It really seems to work in this way, though the vagaries of
personal choice may often be inscrutable.
It is still true, however, that the outcome must depend much upon the
state of the public mind. If marriage is generally felt to be a social
institution, with grave public functions, so that everything connected
with it is judged by its bearing on the welfare of the next generation,
if heredity is regarded and the need of economic support given due
weight, without excluding those intuitions which the young may be
trusted not to neglect, then the better types ought to be chosen. But if
marriage is hasty and frivolous, if the prevalent opinion regards it as
a mere matter of personal gratification, if a child is looked upon as a
nuisance or a pet, then the biological outlook, as well as the social,
is bad. Which of these descriptions more nearly applies to our society I
leave the reader to judge; it is certain that we need to do all we can
to make the former true.
As to the effect of a larger participation by women in forming our ideas
regarding marriage selection, the number of children and the like, all
depends upon their developing, as a class, an organized wisdom in these
matters. Already they have more power in this sphere than they ever had
before, and the hope of their making a good use of it lies in their
ideals and organization. If the results of their enlargement are, so
far, not altogether reassuring, if there is much that seems anarchical
and reckless of race welfare in feminist tendencies, this may be because
we are in a transition state. Women have acquired power while still
somewhat unprepared to use it, and what they need is probably more
responsibility along with the training requisite to meet it. It is not
clear that there is any more extravagance in their movement than in
those for which men are responsible.
The hopeful theory is that women, as the bearers of maternal instinct
and functions, are the natural curators of the welfare of the race, and
that, if they are trained and trusted, they will prove adequate to this
function. We must at least admit that it is hard to see any other way
out. They have already so much freedom that it is hardly possible to
deny them more, in this direction where they have so strong a claim upon
it. Eugenics cannot now be forced upon them; if they do not bring it in,
or take a leading part in the work, no other agency can.
Another encouraging reflection is that there is no reason to believe
that women will, in the long run, reject any real wisdom that the male
mind may be able to contribute.
I am inclined to believe that much of the frivolity that seems to
prevail in marriage selection may be ascribed to a disorganization of
standards, such as we see in other phases of life. A confused time
naturally lacks settled habits of choice that reflect the underlying
social requirements. Where _mores_ are unformed, caprice flourishes. In
a society or class that has long been face to face with rather severe
conditions of life, such, for example, as the peasantry of all old
countries, we find customs and habits of thought that are suited to
survival in the face of such conditions. The personal traits that the
situation demands have come to be required in marriage—strength, energy,
and steadfastness in men, and maternal and domestic capacity in women.
These traits become typical of the class, and traits that conflict with
them are weeded out. But with us unsettled conditions and laxity of
standards have given course to mere impulse or meaningless currents of
fashion. There is such a thing as biological discipline, in which we are
perhaps as lacking as in social.