CHAPTER II.
The Remedy: Old and New.
The principle stated at the end of the preceding chapter being assumed, the question arises: How can the evils caused by the constant tendency towards over-population be prevented? The method which Mr. Malthus proposed was the substitution of the prudential (or birth-restricting) for the positive (or life-destroying) check. He advised late marriage and celibacy as the most moral means of restraining population. He urged that men should wait until they were in a position to provide for a family before undertaking the responsibilities consequent upon the marriage state. He says: “Our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect of being able to support our children will appear to deserve the attention of the moralist, if it can be proved that an attention to these obligations is of more effect in the prevention of misery than all the other virtues combined; and that if, in violation of this duty, it was the general custom to follow the first impulse of nature, and marry at the age of puberty, the universal prevalence of every known virtue in the greatest conceivable degree would fail of rescuing society from the most wretched and deplorable state of want, and all the diseases and famines which usually accompany it.”
This, then, was the prudential check advocated by Malthus; but since his time it has been perceived that his remedy is in itself the cause of evils scarcely less terrible than those which it was designed to remove. Further, it is one which, in the vast majority of cases, could not possibly be put into practice; for it assumes a power of mental control over the sexual passion which exists in a comparatively small number of individuals.
The physiological evils arising from celibacy, and, in lesser degree, from prolonged abstention from marriage, are of the most disastrous nature. Celibacy is necessarily a condition of privation and suffering, since it involves the deliberate and incessant suppression of the most powerful instinct of mankind. The pure and elevating joys of wedded and family life are shut out, and existence is shorn of its most delightful features. The unselfish pleasure of promoting the happiness of a loved wife and children is denied to the morbid and gloomy celibate, doomed to a solitary and cheerless existence. And even when permanent celibacy is not contemplated, marriage may be deferred until the bloom and brightness of life are gone for ever, until delay and disappointment have soured the temper and choked the fountain of affection.
Dr. Bertillon, of Paris, has proved conclusively by statistics derived from France, Holland and Belgium, that married persons, especially males, live much longer than single ones, and are less liable to become insane, criminal, or vicious. It has been shown that the married state reduces the danger of insanity by nearly one-half. With regard to the effects of celibacy upon individuals, Dr. Holmes Coote is reported in the Lancet to have said: “No doubt incontinence is a great sin; but the evils connected with continence are productive of far greater misery to society. Any person could bear witness to this who has had experience in the wards of lunatic asylums.”
In addition to the personal ills arising from celibacy, it must be remembered that late marriage directly encourages prostitution, the most hideous blot upon our social state. Malthus, indeed, laid great stress upon the duty of chastity whilst young men were engaged in accumulating the means to enable them to marry and rear a family later in life. He might as fitly have preached to the whirlwind, or exhorted the storm to moderate its violence. The power of restraint is given to but few men; and, even when that restraint can be exercised, it is only at the cost of much suffering and physical and moral detriment.
The later school of thinkers, whilst adopting the principle formulated by Malthus, propound an infinitely better method of compassing the end which he had in view. They advocate early marriage and limited families. It is not necessary that young men and women should sacrifice the youth and freshness of their lives in order that they may marry when the evening shadows are lengthening around them. The blessings of domestic comfort, of intimate companionship and of family love are opened to them in the noontide of life, when the possibility of enjoyment is at its highest point. Mrs. Annie Besant says: “To be in harmony with nature, men and women should be husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and until nature evolves a neuter sex celibacy will ever be a mark of imperfection.… No one who desires society to be happy and healthy should recommend late marriage as a cure for the social evils around us. Early marriage is best, both physically and morally; it guards purity, softens the affections, trains the heart, and preserves physical health; it teaches thought for others, gentleness and self-control; it makes men gentler and women braver from the contact of their differing natures. The children that spring from such marriages—where not following each other too rapidly—are more vigorous and healthy than those of middle-aged parents; and in the ordinary course of nature the parents of such children live long enough to see them make their start in life, to aid, strengthen, and counsel them at the beginning of their career.”
Medical science has shown that the size of families is absolutely under the control of parents, if they will but exercise a reasonable degree of care and forethought. A young couple may now enter the marriage-state without misgiving: for the number of their offspring can be regulated in proportion to their means as surely as they can determine the amount of their expenditure upon clothing or luxuries.
Thus the teachings of Malthusianism, combined with the later development of innocent prudential checks, open up boundless possibilities for the improvement of social conditions. When the law of population—a law of nature—is clearly understood, it becomes possible for man, by the exercise of his reason, to control its operation, just as he constructs dykes to protect his crops from floods, or diverts the lightning harmlessly into the ground.