Thrasymachus

by C. E. M. Joad

As regards the Almighty, whether he would agree with the views put forward by those who speak in his name is not known. Until, therefore, we can obtain a direct expression of his opinion on the matter, it is more prudent to assume that his attitude is non-committal, than to supply the place of knowledge by converting our conjectures into dogmas. As regards the supply of cannon-fodder, this is supposed to be important for consumption in future wars. Since, however, those who oppose birth-control on the ground that it will diminish the number of recruits, also hold that wars are inevitable owing to the pressure of expanding populations, it would seem that populations which cease to expand have no need to maintain large armies to protect them from the results of expansion.

The position of those who oppose birth-control being based on political and religious feelings of an emotional character is not, however, refutable by argument, or assailable by reason. Our business is not to reply to arguments which have no rational basis, but to estimate what influence they are likely to have in the future.

There is, I think, little doubt that this influence will be a diminishing one. Much of the opposition to birth-control is little more than an expression of the generalized feeling of hostility which people experience in regard to anything that is new. Whether it be a new morality, a new sonata form, a new way of wearing the hair, a new kind of corset (or none at all), or a new saviour of mankind with which he is presented, man’s natural and instinctive reaction is one of antagonism. The antagonism is provoked not by any intrinsic demerit in the thing that arouses it—indeed in fifty or a hundred years time it is embraced with acclamation as the last word in orthodoxy or good form—but simply by its newness. The suggestion that any way of life, of thought or of conduct can be better than that which they have hitherto followed wounds people’s self-respect, and some time must elapse before they can overlook the offence.

This kind of objection applies in a marked degree to birth-control which challenges people’s most intimate habits, and seems likely to effect a revolution in their conduct. It will, however, diminish as the idea of birth-control becomes familiar. The reaction of the normal Englishman to that which is new usually passes through three phases. He says first “It is absurd”, second “It is contrary to Scripture”, and third “Of course! I knew it all the time”. It will be seen that the opposition to birth-control has already passed into the second phase.

There is a further reason for the probable weakening of the anti-birth-control movement. The organized opposition to birth-control comes very largely from members of the upper and middle classes. These on an average have very much smaller families than the lower classes in whose interests they profess to oppose birth-control, and to whom they denounce it. The inevitable inference from this fact cannot continue indefinitely to remain undrawn, and, as soon as it is drawn, the lower classes will be able to gauge the sincerity of those who exhort them to choose between continence or children, while being themselves remarkable for neither.

Finally the knowledge of the use of contraceptives is bound in course of time to percolate through every social stratum. The advantages of birth-control to the individual are so obvious that few will refuse to avail themselves of the knowledge which the State, in the persons of the medical officers in charge of infant welfare centres, at present withholds; while the disadvantages to the community of a system under which the lower strata proliferate unchecked, while the upper and middle classes barely keep up their numbers, and the exceptional man who has the talent and energy to climb from one stratum into another finds it necessary to sterilize himself in the process, will, in the shape of a rapidly deteriorating population, force themselves upon the notice of even the most pious.

Birth-control has come to stay; it has also knocked the bottom out of what is called sexual morality.

If the views put forward in the previous chapters be correct, if morality is the interest of the stronger, and if, where the stronger is the herd of average individuals, it expresses itself in disapproval of conduct from which the average, for whatever reason, shrink, then the driving force of morality is to be looked for not in any innate sanction but in the power which the herd possess of rendering intolerable the lives of those who flout its prejudices. But in order that the herd may be able to exercise this power, it must be in a position to detect the objects of its censure. This has been possible in the past owing to the unfortunate propensity of sexual irregularity to result in offspring. It is not easy to disguise the existence of a child, and, even if the desperate course of overlaying or otherwise extinguishing it be adopted, the disposal of the corpse presents grave difficulties. Such a course is also open to the objection of doing grave violence to the humaner parental instincts. But birth-control precludes the necessity for children, and by so doing makes it possible to “sin” without being found out.

It is not to be expected that people will refuse to avail themselves of the liberty thereby conferred. Whether we are to infer that people are by nature sinful, or simply that a sin which has been manufactured by herd morality is not really a sin, is a question that does not immediately concern us. What does concern us is the impetus which this ability to avoid detection is likely to give to irregular intercourse. Birth-control combined with economic independence has brought a new freedom to women. Economic independence enables them to have children without going either to the altar or into the workhouse. The practice of birth-control makes it unnecessary even to have the children.

One further result of birth-control may be noticed before we pass on. This is the probable abolition of the double standard of morality for men and women after marriage. That adultery in a wife has always been considered to be more serious than adultery in the husband the state of the law bears witness. Adultery in a wife is a sufficient cause for divorce, in a husband it[6] must be coupled with cruelty or desertion. This disparity of treatment has always caused grave offence to feminist organizations. Yet the reason for the difference is not far to seek. It arises from the economic dependence of the wife upon the husband. As the result of this dependence any children which the wife may acquire in the course of her adventures become a charge upon the husband, who is thus required to pay for the fruits of his own shame and another’s enjoyment. It is true that he is, or ought to be, similarly responsible for the upkeep of the offspring which may result from his own adultery, but in this case he has at least had his pleasure and sinned his sin, and cannot in justice complain if his substance is consumed by its fruits. Where, however, adultery on the part of the wife does not carry with it a risk of children to be maintained by the husband, it becomes an offence neither more nor less serious than adultery on the part of the husband, and the double standard ceases accordingly to operate.