BIRTH CONTROL
By Havelock Ellis
It may be said that Nature has been seriously troubled with the problem of reproduction even from the first creation of life. Our own doubts and difficulties in that sphere are but a continuation of those experienced on the earth long before Man’s ancestors descended from the forest trees. Nature’s first insistent impulse was for reproduction, and so the lowlier organisms increase at an enormous rate, though by far the greater number of the creatures thus produced are doomed to early destruction by other creatures which prey upon them. Then sex arose and developed. And the object of sex may be said to act as a check on reproduction, and not, as we have sometimes too hastily assumed, to ensure reproduction, for that was already more than fully ensured by other methods already in existence. The device of sex rendered reproduction more difficult, but in decreasing the quantity of offspring it at the same time improved their quality. As the sexual process increased in complexity the individuals produced equally grew more complex and better equipped to resist the dangers they were subjected to. Fishes are spawned by the thousand, but only a few come to maturity. The higher mammals produce but few offspring and surround them with parental care until they are able to lead their own lives with a fair chance of surviving. Thus the sexual process in its finally developed form may be regarded as a mechanism for subordinating quantity to quality, and so promoting the evolution of life to ever higher stages.
This process, which is plain to see on the largest scale throughout living nature, may be more minutely studied, as it acts within a narrower range, in the human species. Here we statistically formulate it in the terms of birth-rate and death-rate; by the mutual relationship of the two courses of the birth-rate and the death-rate we are able to estimate the evolutionary rank of a nation, and the degree in which it has succeeded in subordinating the primitive standard of quantity to the higher and later standard of quality.
It is especially in Europe that we can investigate this relationship by the help of statistics which in some cases extend for nearly a century back. We can trace the various phases through which each nation passes, the effects of prosperity, the influence of education and sanitary improvement, the general complex development of civilisation, in each case moving forward, though not regularly and steadily, to higher stages by means of a falling birth-rate, which is to some extent compensated for by a falling death-rate, the two rates nearly always running parallel, so that a temporary rise in the birth-rate is usually accompanied by a rise in the death-rate,—by a return, that is to say, to the conditions which we find at the beginning of animal life,—and a steady fall in the birth-rate is always accompanied by a fall in the death-rate.
The modern phase of this movement, soon after which our precise knowledge begins, may be said to date from the industrial expansion, due to the introduction of machinery, which Professor Marshall places in England about the year 1760. That represents the beginning of an era in which all civilised and semi-civilised countries are still living. For the earlier centuries we lack precise data, but we are able to form certain probable conclusions. The population of a country in those ages seems to have grown very slowly and sometimes even to have retrograded. At the end of the sixteenth century the population of England and Wales is estimated at five millions and at the end of seventeenth at six millions,—only 20% increase during the century—although during the nineteenth century the population nearly quadrupled. This very gradual increase of the population seems to have been by no means due to a very low birth-rate, but to a very high death-rate. Throughout the Middle Ages a succession of virulent plagues and pestilences devastated Europe. Smallpox, which may be considered the latest of these, used to sweep off large masses of the youthful population in the eighteenth century. The result was a certain stability and a certain well-being in the population as a whole, these conditions being, however, maintained in a manner that was terribly wasteful and distressing.
The industrial revolution introduced a new era which began to show its features clearly in the early nineteenth century. On the one hand, a new motive had arisen to favor a more rapid increase of population. Small children could tend machinery and thereby earn wages to increase the family takings. This led to an immediate result in increased population and increased prosperity. But on the other hand, the rapid increase of population always tended to outrun the rapid increase of prosperity, and the more so since the rise of sanitary science began to drive back the invasions of the grosser and more destructive infectious diseases which had hitherto kept the population down. The result was that new forms of disease, distress, and destitution arose; the old stability was lost, and the new prosperity produced unrest in place of well-being. The social consciousness was still too immature to deal collectively with the difficulties and frictions which the industrial era introduced, and the individualism which under former conditions had operated wholesomely now acted perniciously to crush the souls and bodies of the workers, whether men, women or children.
As we know, the increase of knowledge and the growth of the social consciousness have slowly acted wholesomely during the past century to remedy the first evil results of the industrial revolution. The artificial and abnormal increase of the population has been checked because it is no longer permissible in most countries to stunt the minds and bodies of small children by placing them in factories. An elaborate system of factory legislation was devised, and is still ever drawing fresh groups of workers within its protective meshes. Sanitary science began to develop and to exert an enormous influence on the health of nations. At the same time the supreme importance of popular education was realised. The total result was that the nature of “prosperity” began to be transformed, instead of being, as it had been at the beginning of the industrial era, a direct appeal to the gratification of gross appetites and reckless lusts, it became an indirect stimulus to higher gratifications and more remote aspirations. Foresight became a dominating motive even in the general population, and a man’s anxiety for the welfare of his family was no longer forgotten in the pleasure of the moment. The social state again became more stable, and more “prosperity” was transformed into civilisation. This is the state of things now in progress in all industrial countries, though it has reached varying levels of development among different peoples.
It is thus clear that the birth-rate combined with the death-rate constitutes a delicate instrument for the measurement of civilisation, and that the record of these combined curves registers the upward or downward course of every nation. The curves, as we know, tend to be parallel, and when they are not parallel we are in the presence of a rare and abnormal state of things which is usually temporary or transitional.
It is instructive from this point of view to study the various nations of Europe, for here we find a large number of small nations, each with its own statistical system, confined within a small space and living under fairly uniform conditions. Let us take the very latest official figures (which are usually for 1913) and attempt to measure the civilisation of European countries on this basis. Beginning with the lowest birth-rate, and therefore in gradually descending rank of superiority, we find that the European countries stand in the following order: France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Scotland, Denmark, Holland, the German Empire, Prussia, Finland, Spain, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Russia. If we take the death-rate similarly, beginning with the lowest rate and gradually descending to the highest, we find the following order: Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Scotland, Prussia, the German Empire, Finland, Ireland, France, Italy, Austria, Serbia, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Roumania, Russia.
Now we cannot accept the birth-rates and death-rates of the various countries exactly at their face value. Temporary conditions, as well as the special composition of a population, not to mention peculiarities of registration, exert a disturbing effect. Roughly and on the whole, however, the figures are acceptable. It is instructive to find how closely the two rates agree. The agreement is, indeed, greater at the bottom than at the top; the eight countries which constitute the lowest group as regards birth-rate are the identical eight countries which furnish the heaviest death-rates. That was to be expected; a very high birth-rate seems fatally to involve a very high death-rate. But a very low birth-rate (as we see especially in the case of France) is not invariably associated with a very low death-rate though it is never associated with a high death-rate. This seems to indicate that those qualities in a highly civilised nation which restrain the production of offspring do not always or at once produce the eugenic racial qualities possessed by hardier peoples living under simpler conditions. But with these reservations it is not difficult to combine the two lists in a fairly concordant order of descending rank. Most readers will agree, that taking the European populations in bulk, without regard to the production of genius (for men of genius are always a very minute fraction of a nation), the European populations which they are accustomed to regard as standing at the head in the general diffusion of character, intelligence, education, and well-being, are all included in the first twelve or thirteen nations, which are the same in both lists though they do not follow the same order. These peoples, as peoples—that is, without regard to their size, their political importance, or their production of genius—represent the highest level of democratic civilisation in Europe.
It is scarcely necessary to add that various countries outside Europe equal or excel them; the death-rate of the United States, so far as statistics show, is the same as that of Sweden, that of Ontario, still better, is the same as Denmark, while the death-rate of the Australian Commonwealth with a medium birth-rate, is lower than that of any European country, and New Zealand holds the world’s championship in this field with the lowest death-rate of all. On the other hand, some extra-European countries compare less favorably with Europe: Japan, with a rather high birth-rate, has the same high death-rate as Spain, and Chili, with a still higher birth-rate, has a higher death-rate than Russia. So it is that among human peoples we find the same laws prevailing as among animals, and the higher nations of the world differ from those which are less highly evolved precisely as the elephant differs from the herring, though within a narrower range, that is to say, by producing fewer offspring and taking better care of them.
The whole of this evolutionary process, we have to remember, is a natural process. It has been going on from the beginning of the living world. But at a certain stage in the higher development of man without ceasing to be natural, it becomes conscious and deliberate. It is then that we have what may properly be termed Birth Control. That is to say that a process which had before been working slowly through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth carried out voluntarily, in the light of the high human qualities of reason and foresight and self-restraint. The rise of birth control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed an essential part of that movement. It is firmly established in all the most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France and in England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very high, birth control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during the present century. In Holland its principle and practice are freely taught by physicians and nurses to the mothers of the people, with the result that there is in Holland no longer any necessity for unwanted babies, and this small country possesses the proud privilege of the lowest death-rate in Europe. In the free and enlightened democratic communities on the other side of the globe, in Australia and New Zealand, the same principles and practice are generally accepted, with the same beneficent results. On the other hand, in the more backward and ignorant countries of Europe, birth control is still little known, and death and disease flourish. This is the case in those eight countries which come at the bottom of both our lists.
Even in the more progressive countries, however, birth control has not been established without a struggle which has frequently ended in a hypocritical compromise, its principles being publicly ignored or denied and its practice privately accepted. For at the great and vitally important point in human progress which birth control represents, we really see the conflict of two moralities. The morality of the ancient world is here confronted by the morality of the new world. The old morality, knowing nothing of science and the process of Nature as worked out in the evolution of life, based itself on the early chapters of Genesis, in which the children of Noah are represented as entering an empty earth which it is their business to populate diligently. So it came about that for this morality, still innocent of eugenics, recklessness was almost a virtue. Children were given by God, if they died or were afflicted by congenital disease, it was the dispensation of God, and, whatever imprudence the parents might commit, the pathetic faith still ruled that “God will provide.” But in the new morality it is realised that in these matters Divine action can only be made manifest in human action, that is to say through the operation of our own enlightened reason and resolved will. Prudence, foresight, self-restraint—virtues which the old morality looked down on with benevolent contempt—assume a position of the first importance. In the eyes of the new morality the ideal woman is no longer the meek drudge condemned to endless and often ineffectual child-bearing, but the free and instructed woman, able to look before and after, trained in a sense of responsibility alike to herself and to the race, and determined to have no children but the best.
Such were the two moralities which came into conflict during the nineteenth century. They were irreconcilable and each firmly rooted, one in ancient religion and tradition, the other in progressive science and reason. Nothing was possible in such a clash of opposing ideas but a feeble and confused compromise such as we still find prevailing in various countries of old Europe. It was not a satisfactory solution, however inevitable, and especially unsatisfactory by the consequent obscurantism which placed difficulties in the way of spreading a knowledge of the methods of birth control among the masses of the population. For the result has been that while the more enlightened and educated have exercised a control over the size of their families, the poorer and more ignorant—who should have been offered every facility and encouragement to follow in the same path—have been left, through a conspiracy of secrecy, to carry on helplessly the bad customs of their forefathers. This social neglect has had the result that the superior family stocks have been hampered by the recklessness of the inferior stocks.
Such is the situation to-day when we find America entering this field. Up till now America had meekly accepted at Old Europe’s hands the traditional prescription of our Mediterranean book of Genesis, with its fascinating old-world fragrance of Mount Ararat. On the surface, the ancient morality had been complacently, almost unquestionably accepted in America, even to the extent of permitting a vast extension of abortion—a criminal practice which ever flourishes where birth-control is neglected. But to-day we suddenly see a new movement in the United States. In a flash, America awoke to the true significance of the issue. With that direct vision of hers, that swift practicality of action, and above all, that sense of the democratic nature of all social progress, we see her resolutely beginning to face this great problem. In her own vigorous native tongue we hear her demanding: “What in the thunder is all the secrecy about anyhow?” And we cannot doubt that America’s own answer to that demand will be of immense significance to the whole world.
BIRTH CONTROL. MARY ALDEN HOPKINS, in Harper’s Weekly, 1915.
No one knows what the birth rate of the United States is, or what it ever has been. Every European country knows its birth rate and its death rate, because every birth and every death is registered. Where the number of births, the number of deaths and the number of the population are all known, it is an easy matter to calculate the rates per thousand. But in the international tables of vital statistics our country’s figures are omitted.
Our 1910 census announced that 23 states had “fairly complete” death registration. They recorded about 90% of their deaths. But the birth registration situation was shocking. The New England States, Pennsylvania and Michigan were the only acceptable states. The figures for the cities of Washington, D.C., and New York City passed muster also. The 1910 census birth rate is not yet published, but the 1900 census made shift to figure it out by means of the number of the population’s increase and the death rate. This would be surer if the death rate were not itself approximate. However, the calculated rates were, birth rate, 35.1 per 1000 population; death rate, 17.4 per 1000; excess of births over deaths 17.7 per 1000. Comparing these rates with the rates of the European countries for the same decade, we find ourselves near the head of the list for high birth rate, near the foot of the list for low death rate, and increasing faster than any other nation. These figures leave nothing to be desired from an emotional viewpoint. But they leave much to be desired in the way of accuracy. In addition to our lack of statistics we are confused by the effect of immigration.
The birth rate of every civilized country is falling. The following comparison of national birth rates is based on the ten largest countries of Europe. The less important ones show the same general characteristics. Asiatic countries must be excluded as they have no reliable vital statistics. The United States must be considered separately because both our mortality records and our birth registration are so defective that only approximate calculations can be made. The maximum birth rate preceding the present decline occurred in France 1811–20; in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Prussia 1821–30; Belgium 1831–40; Denmark 1851–60; Scotland and Spain 1861–70; England, Wales, Ireland, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Bavaria, Saxony, and the Netherlands 1871–80; Portugal, Italy, Serbia and Roumania, 1881–90.
The figures of the following table are taken from the Report of the Registrar General of Great Britain for 1910. Five year periods are used in place of single years to eliminate variations of exceptional years.
Seventy-third Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales, 1910, London. Pub. by His Majesty’s Stationery Office. Printed by Darling and Sons, Ltd., Bacon St., E. London. 1912.
| Yearly Number of Births per 1000 Inhabitants. | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1881–5 | 1906–10 | |
| Russia (European) | 49.1 | 47.7[[4]] |
| Hungary | 44.6 | 36.7 |
| German Empire | 37.0 | 34.3[[4]] |
| Spain | 36.4 | 33.6 |
| Austria | 38.2 | 33.6 |
| Italy | 38.0 | 32.6 |
| The Netherlands | 34.8 | 29.6 |
| Belgium | 30.7 | 27.7[[4]] |
| England and Wales | 33.5 | 26.6 |
| France | 24.7 | 19.7 |
[4]. Figures for previous five years.
The countries are arranged in order of their 1906–10 rates.
By subtracting the figures in the second column from the first we obtain the fall in the rates between 1881–5 and 1906–10. Russia, in 1910, had the highest birth rate, and had suffered the slightest diminution, only 1.4 per thousand. Curiously Hungary, standing second in line, showed the greatest fall, 7.9. England and Wales, far down the scale, had a drop of 6.9 per thousand. Italy, The Netherlands, France, and Austria kept a fairly even pace with a fall of around 5. Belgium, Spain, and the German Empire lost only about 3 per thousand.
Much discussion has arisen concerning the cause of this decline. Two distinct stages occur in the fecundity of animal life. In the species below the human race it is checked by biological causes. In the human race it is checked by social and economic causes. As the scale of life rises, the number of offspring become fewer. The higher the animal, the fewer the offspring.
When we reach the human animal, we find in addition to pestilence, war, and “acts of God,” various forms of voluntary check. Semi-civilized countries manage the affair rather crudely; in India the Ganges is hardly yet free from infant corpses, and in China girl babies show an assisted mortality. More civilized countries limit the birth rate more felicitously, reducing the number of marriages and advancing the age of marriage, by imposing social, ethical, and financial obligations. This decreases the number of possible children. These indirect checks held back the increase of population so slightly, evenly and over so long a period as to be hardly perceptible. In the seventies appeared a phenomenon of spectacular novelty—the small family. Harmless methods of contraception had been perfected, the knowledge disseminated, and the means supplied. The birth rate, which had slowly declined through aeons, from eggs by the millions to yearly babies, dropped with dizzying rapidity.
As the birth rates of the nations fall, so fall the death rates. Here are the death rates for the same ten nations for the same years as the previous birth rate table.
| Yearly Number of Deaths per 1,000 Inhabitants | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1881–5 | 1906–10 | |
| Russia (European) | 35.4 | 30.9[[5]] |
| Hungary | 33.1 | 25.0 |
| Spain | 32.6 | 24.3 |
| Austria | 30.1 | 22.3 |
| Italy | 27.3 | 21.0 |
| German Empire | 25.3 | 19.9[[5]] |
| France | 22.2 | 19.2 |
| Belgium | 20.6 | 17.0[[5]] |
| England and Wales | 19.4 | 14.7 |
| The Netherlands | 21.4 | 14.3 |
[5]. Figures for previous five years.
A comparison of the two tables shows immediately that the countries having the highest birth rate have also the highest death rate. Russia, which heads the list in births, heads the list in deaths. Hungary comes second in both lists. Next come, in a slightly altered order, the four countries, German Empire, Spain, Austria and Italy. An exception occurs in France which has the unusual combination of a low birth rate and a medium death rate. Belgium, and England and Wales occupy the same position in both lists with low birth rates and low death rates. The Netherlands is the notable country with its medium birth rate and its low death rate. The Neo-Malthusians love to mention at this point that this country has governmental encouragement in teaching contraception.
The increase of a country is the difference between its birth rate and its death rate. The population of a country depends, not upon its birth rate, but upon its birth rate, minus its death rate. If the two are identical, the population is stationary. This happened in France in the 1891–5 period. The number of births per thousand inhabitants was exactly the number of deaths per thousand inhabitants. The rest of the world tolled the knell for France. But France instead of declining into the have-been nations showed that a controlled birth rate can be raised as well as lowered. Slowly and apparently intentionally she raised her rate during the succeeding years.
Decline and rise of French Birth rate: 1881–5, 2.5; 1886–90, 1.1; 1891–5, 0.0; 1896–1900, 1.2; 1901–5, 1.6; 1906–10, .7. Nor has France since those early nineties allowed her birth rate to fall below her death rate.
The populations of European nations are increasing, because the death rates are falling faster than the birth rates.
If we subtract the deaths per thousand inhabitants, given in the second table, from the births per thousand inhabitants given in the first table, we shall have the natural rate of increase. In every single case the number of births is greater than the number of deaths—so every country is increasing in population.
| Natural Increase in Population per 1,000 Inhabitants | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1881–5 | 1906–10 | |
| Russia (European) | 13.7 | 16.8[[6]] |
| The Netherlands | 13.4 | 15.3 |
| German Empire | 11.7 | 14.4[[6]] |
| Hungary | 11.5 | 11.7 |
| England and Wales | 14.1 | 11.5 |
| Italy | 10.7 | 11.4 |
| Austria | 8.1 | 11.3 |
| Belgium | 10.1 | 10.7[[6]] |
| Spain | 3.8 | 9.3 |
| France | 2.5 | .7 |
[6]. Figures for previous five years.
From the second column we find that Russia is increasing most rapidly. The Netherlands comes second in rate of increase—an honorable position to which the regulationists point triumphantly when they assert that control of the birth rate does not mean the ruin of the nation. The German Empire comes next, with Hungary following. England stands fifth in the rating of increase, and England takes the position with woeful lamentations. Italy, Austria, Belgium, and Spain are near the foot of the list, and France brings up the rear a long, long way behind. France is the only one that is anywhere in sight of a stationary population.
Excepting France and England, every one of these countries is increasing at a faster rate than formerly, because though the birth rate has fallen fast, the death rate has fallen faster. By comparing the second column showing the increase in the 1906–10 period with the first column showing the increase in the 1881–5 period, in the preceding table, we see how much each country is gaining in her rate of increase. This increase may or may not be considered desirable according to whether one wishes to conserve the food supply or increase the army. To every one it presents an interesting condition. It is unexpected to find with a falling birth rate an increasingly increasing population,—always excepting France and England.