1. MARRIED PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.--It is the fashion of
those who marry nowadays to have few children, often none. Of course
this is a matter which married people must decide for themselves. As
is stated in an earlier chapter, sometimes this policy is the wisest
that can be pursued.
2. Diseased people who are likely to beget only a sickly offspring,
may follow this course, and so may thieves, rascals, vagabonds, insane
and drunken persons, and all those who are likely to bring into the
world beings that ought not to be here. But why so many well-to-do
folks should pursue a policy adapted only to paupers and criminals,
is not easy to explain. Why marry at all if not to found a family that
shall live to bless and make glad the earth after father and mother
are gone? It is not wise to rear too many children, nor is it wise to
have too few. Properly brought up, they will make home a delight, and
parents happy.
[Illustration: A WELL NOURISHED CHILD.]
3. POPULATION LIMITED.--Galton, in his great work on hereditary
genius, observes that "the time may hereafter arrive in far distant
years, when the population of this earth shall be kept as strictly
within bounds of number and suitability of race, as the sheep of a
well-ordered moor, or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime
let us do what we can to encourage the multiplication of the
races best fitted to invent and conform to a high and generous
civilization."
4. SHALL SICKLY PEOPLE RAISE CHILDREN?--The question whether sickly
people should marry and propagate their kind, is briefly alluded to
in an early chapter of this work. Where father and mother are both
consumptive the chances are that the children will inherit physical
weakness, which will result in the same disease, unless great pains
are taken to give them a good physical education, and even then the
probabilities are that they will find life a burden hardly worth
living.
5. NO REAL BLESSING.--Where one parent is consumptive and the other
vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous
or consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no
comfort to their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they
had better, in most cases, avoid parentage.
6. WELFARE OF MANKIND.--The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a
most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot
avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a
great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness
in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the
prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members
will tend to supplant the better members of society.
7. PREVENTIVES.--Remember that the thousands of preventives which
are advertised in papers, private circulars, etc., are not only
inefficient, unreliable and worthless, but positively dangerous, and
the annual mortality of females in this country from this cause alone
is truly horrifying. Study nature, and nature's laws alone will guide
you safely in the path of health and happiness.
8. NATURE'S REMEDY.--Nature in her wise economy has prepared for
overproduction, for during the period of pregnancy and nursing, and
also most of the last half of each menstrual month, woman is naturally
sterile; but this condition may become irregular and uncertain on
account of stimulating drinks or immoral excesses.
* * * * *