The Project Gutenberg ebook of Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 2, by William Roscher.

	1841. on every	1850. on every
On domanial lands,	137 of population.	149 of population.
On manorial lands,	145 "	269 "
On monastery lands,	163 "	175 "
In the cities lands,	115 "	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, ½ 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.)

[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.)

[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 1:13½. (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.

[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 2¾ and 4¾ 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,[TN 86] 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.

[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.

[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.)

[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,[TN 87] Prostitution de Paris, 1836, I, ch. 3.)

[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.)

[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.

[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!

[249-14] Compare Jacobs' Vermischte Schriften, IV, 311 ff.: Murr, Die Mediceische [TN 88] Venus und Phryne, 1804.

[249-15] The number of registered prostitutes in Paris, in 1832, amounted to 3,558; in 1854, to 4,620 (Parent Du Châtelet,[TN 89] 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.

[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. σκύλαξ.[TN 90]) Frightful frequency of the fellare and irrumare in Tarsis: Dio Chrysost., Orat, 33. The Scythians also seem to have learned the νοῦσος θήλεια [TN 91] (pederasty?) in Syria: Herodot., I, 105. Similarly during the crusades.

[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.

[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. Γαίος Λαιτώριος.)[TN 92] Later, it caused much scandal when the great Marcellus accused the ædile Scatinus of making shameful advances to his son. (Plutarch, Marcell., 2.)

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[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.)

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.

[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.)

[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.)

[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 κοινωνία ἁπάντων ἱερῶν καὶ χρημάτων [TN 93] (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 [TN 94] 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.)

[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,[TN 95] Cato, II, 25. Messalina's systematic patronage of adultery: Dio Cass., LX, 18.

[250-5] Gellius, I, 6. In Greece, the same symptoms appear clearly enough, even in Aristophanes: compare especially his Thesmophoriazusae.[TN 96] 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.

[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.

[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,[TN 97] 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.,[TN 98] V, 6, 5; VI, 20, 6; Plato, De Legg., VII, 805; Xenoph., De Rep. Laced., I.) Compare K. O. Müller, Dorier, II, 276 ff.

[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.)

[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 mœurs 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.

[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,[TN 99] 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.)

[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.

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]

[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.)

[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,[TN 101] 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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.)

[251-11] Under Constantine the Great, 315 after Christ. Theod., Cod., XI, 27, 1

[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!

[252-1] It is said that the plague which, in 1709 and 1710, decimated Prussia and Lithuanian,[TN 102] 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.

[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.

[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.

[252-4] The decreasing number of English Quakers, among whom, in 1680-89, there occurred 2,598 marriages, and in 1840-49 only 659, finds expression in the unfrequency of marriage, a comparatively small number of women and a small number of children, all in conjunction with a small mortality. (Statist. Journ., 1859, 208 ff.) There is no reason to have recourse here to vice as a cause, and scarcely to physiological reasons for an explanation, because these phenomena are accounted for in great part by the fact that adult males so frequently leave the sect.

[252-5] In this respect, however, there is a great difference between bondage and slavery. As early a writer as Polybius speaks of the depopulation of Greece. (Polyb., II, 55; XXXVII, 4.) He looks for the cause in this, that in every family, for luxury's sake, either no children whatever were wanted, or at most from one to two, that the latter might be left rich. (Exc. Vat., 448.) Very remarkable, Seneca, Cons. ad. Marc, 19. Further, Cicero, ad. Div., II, 5. Strabo, VII, 501; VIII, 595; IX, 617, 629. Pausan., VII, 18; VIII, 7; X, 4; Dio Chr., VII, 34, 121; XXXIII, 25. Plutarch claimed that Hellas could, in his time, number scarcely 3,000 hoplites, while in the time of Themistocles, Megalis alone had put as many in the field. (De Defectu Orac., S.) Antium and Tarentum similarly declined under Nero. (Tacit., Ann., XIV, 27.) The depopulation even of the capital, which began under Tiberius, is apparent from Tacit., Ann., IV, 4, 27. National beauty also declined with the nation's populousness. Æschines saw a great many beautiful youths in Athens (adv. Timarch., 31); Cotta, only very few (Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, I, 28); Dio Chrysostomus, almost none at all (Orat., XXI). On the necessary lowering of the military standard of measure, see Theod., Cod., VII, 13, 3, Verget, de Re milit., I, 5. The depopulation of the later orbis terrarum is confirmed by the easiness of the new division of land with the German conquerors. Compare Gaupp, Die Germanischen Niederlassungen und Landtheilungen (1845), passim.

CHAPTER III.

POPULATION-POLICY.

A dense population is not only a symptom of the existence of great productive forces carried to a high point of utilization;[253-1] but is itself a productive force,[253-2] and of the utmost importance as a spur and as an auxiliary to the utilization of all other forces. The new is always attractive, by reason of its newness; but at the same time, we hold to the old too precisely because of its age: and the force of inertia would always turn the scales in favor of the latter. This inertia, both physical and mental is so general, that perhaps the majority of mankind would continue forever satisfied with their traditional field of occupation and with their traditional circle of food, were it not that an impulse as powerful and universal as the sexual and that of the love of children compelled them to extend the limits of both. That man might subdue the whole earth it was necessary that the Creator should make the tendency of man to multiply his kind more powerful than the original production-tendency of his earliest [TN 103] home. The unknown far-away deters as much as it attracts.[253-3] It is easy to see how the division and combination of labor become uniformly easier as population increases in density. Think only of large cities as compared with the country.[253-4] "Under-populated"[253-5] countries, which might easily support a large number of human beings, and which, notwithstanding have for a long period of time had only few inhabitants, are on this account abodes of poverty, regions where education and progress are unknown. While, therefore, it cannot be questioned that a nation under otherwise equal circumstances is more powerful and flourishing in proportion as its population embraces a large number of vigorous, well-to-do, educated and happy human beings, the last mentioned attributes should not be left out of consideration.

The possibility of over-population is contested by a great many theorizers (§ 243); and, indeed, the complaints on this score are in most cases only a baseless pretext of the inertia which feels the pressure of the population without being helped and spurred thereby to an increase of the means of subsistence. This inertia itself, especially when it governs a whole nation, is a fact which cannot be ignored. Over-population, as I use the term, exists whenever the disproportion between the population and the means of subsistence operates in such away that the average portion of the latter which falls to the share of each is oppressively small, whether the effect produced thereby manifests [TN 104] itself in a surprisingly large mortality, or in the limitation of marriages and of the procreation of children carried to the point of hardship. Over-population of this kind is, as a rule, curable by extending the limits of the field of food, either as a result of the advance of civilization at home, or by emigration.

That the whole earth should be incurably over-peopled is an exceedingly remote contingency.[253-6] But where, within a smaller circle, by reason of the great stupidity or weakness of mankind, or by the too great power of circumstances, over-population cannot act as a spur to new activity, it is indeed one of the most serious and most dangerous political diseases.[253-7] The immoderate competition of workmen involves the majority of the nation in misery, not only materially but also morally; one of the most dangerous temptations, for the rich to a contempt for human kind, for the poor to envy, dishonesty and prostitution. In every suffocating crowd, the animal part of man is wont to obtain the victory over the intellectual. Precisely the simplest, most universal and most necessary relations are most radically and disastrously affected by the difficulty or impossibility of contracting marriage, and the sore solicitude for the future of one's children.[253-8]

[253-1] A map of Europe, which would show the density of population by the intensity of shade, would be darkest in the vicinity of the lines between Sicily and Scotland, between Paris and Saxony, and grow lighter in proportion to the distance from their point of intersection. Italy is the country with the earliest highly developed national economy of modern times, and England that which possesses the most highly cultivated national economy; as the Rhine is, from the standpoint of civilization, the most important river in Europe. It is remarkable, in this connection, how slowly population increased in all European countries during the 18th century, and how rapidly after the beginning of the 19th, and especially since 1825. According to Dieterici (Berliner Akademie,[TN 105] 16 Mai, 1850), the population increased annually per geographical square mile: