CHAPTER XIX
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE SURVIVAL OF TYPES[[53]]
ACTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER ON SURVIVAL—SIZE OF A NORMAL FAMILY—SOCIAL CHECKS ON THE IMPULSE TO PROPAGATION—THE FAMILY LINE AS AN IDEAL—FACTORS IN MARRIAGE SELECTION—INFLUENCE OF THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT—UNSETTLED CONDITIONS
All the hereditary types or strains in a given society may be said to be competing for survival, with the social system as the arbiter of success. That is, a type can hold its own only as its individuals can make themselves at home in the social environment and bring to maturity at least an average number of offspring to continue it. Thus, as regards merely physical needs, social conditions may involve either ample nutrition and protection or starvation and exposure to destructive climates and diseases. The wide-spread devastation of savage races in recent times is explained in part by the social events which have brought them in contact with European diseases and intoxicants, and there is an analogous condition in the destructive influences acting upon the very poor in all societies.
This, however, is only the more obvious part of the truth. More subtly the social condition determines how any hereditary type develops and whether it has a sort of life that is favorable to propagation. The whole process of survival is, from one point of view, a matter of social psychology. Psychological influences direct the development of the instincts, guiding the selection of one sex by the other, and of both by the social group.
The question just how a hereditary type must be related to the social system in order to survive cannot be answered in any simple way. It is not safe to say that the most successful types, in a social sense, have the best chance of survival; such types often tend to sterility. This may take place through the absorption of their energies in social activities at the expense of propagation; also through overfeeding or lack of incentive, leading to moral decay. Nor do the types that fail socially necessarily fail to propagate, since traits like lack of foresight, which diminish success, may increase the number of offspring.
In order that a hereditary type may survive equally with others the individuals belonging to it must bring to maturity at least as many children, in proportion to their number, as those of other types. It is not sufficient that those having children should rear enough of them to replace the parents; they must also compensate for several sources of loss. A considerable proportion of persons, from lack of vitality or other reasons, do not marry, or, being married, have no children, or lose those they have by early death. And, beyond this, there must be enough surplus of children to give the type they represent its share in the general increase of population.
The failure of a part of the individuals of good stock to leave children is not necessarily a fault: in some degree it is an elimination of the weak that is essential to the welfare of the stock, whose vigor is not the same in all. Many of the celibate or sterile are such because they lack normal vitality. I think we can all find in our own circle of acquaintance people of excellent descent who are healthy enough, perhaps, but seem to lack that surplus of life which would make us feel that they are born to be fathers or mothers. At any rate, others must do what, for no matter what reason, they fail to do.
Just how many offspring the average family must have to meet these requirements is not easy to calculate precisely, as the number varies with the death-rate, the proportion of celibates and barren marriages, the rate of general increase and other factors. I have consulted several statistical experts, but found none of them willing to make a definite estimate for the United States. I should say, roughly, that a stock cannot hold its own in numbers with an average of less than four children to a fertile marriage, and considering the large general rate of increase in this country, five would probably be nearer the mark. A family of three children or less, where the parents are of good descent and, physically and as regards income, capable of having more, must be reckoned a “race-suicide” family, not doing its share in keeping up the stock.
It was formerly assumed that the impulse to propagation, in human as in animal types, was to be taken for granted, the only question being how far the economic conditions would allow this impulse to become effective. A closer study shows that the control of society begins further back, and can easily modify the development of the instincts themselves in such a way that they cease to impel natural increase. Gratification of the sexual impulses may be separated from reproduction, and it may well come to pass that the classes in which they have the fullest sway are the least prolific. The maternal instinct, though less apt to lapse into sensuality, is not much more certain in its operation. It may expend itself on one or two children, or even be directed to other objects.
Modern conditions tend strongly to what is called birth-control, that is, to making the number of children a matter of intention, and not of mere physiology. This is in accord with the general increase of choice, and we may hope that it will work out well in the long run, but it calls for a new conscience and a new intelligence in this connection. The old process did not require that people should know anything about eugenics, or feel the duty of raising a good-sized family; that was left to unconscious forces; but now that they are coming to have no more children than they want, it is evident that, unless those who represent the better strains want the requisite number, such strains must decline. And as birth-control prevails most in the intelligent classes, the possibility of deterioration is manifest. Only eugenic ideals and conduct can save from depletion those stocks which share most fully in the currents of progress.