The fact that intelligence saves on the death-rate and enables the type to be maintained by a smaller number of births is of some moment, but we must not imagine that any saving of this sort will enable families of two or three children to keep up a thriving stock.
There seems to be some disposition to blink the quantitative side of this problem, especially, perhaps, among women, upon whom the hardships and anxieties of rearing children mainly fall. They are apt to be more interested in taking better care of children than in having more of them. And yet, from the standpoint of race welfare, and having regard to the actual state of things in the well-to-do classes, the number is pretty clearly the more urgent matter of the two. If the maternal instinct expends itself upon solicitude for one or two or even three children, refusing a larger number, it becomes accessory to the decline of the type. It is mere confusion of thought to suppose that, in this matter, quality can make up for lack of quantity.
And, so far as quality is concerned, there is good reason to think that where the parents are not in actual poverty a family of four children or more, large enough to create a vigorous group life, is better for the development of a child than one of two or three.
It seems that what we mainly need in this connection is some resuscitation, in a changed form, of the old ideal of the family line. We have, from this point of view, gone too far in differentiating the individual from his kin, having almost ceased to identify ourselves with our ancestors or descendants, and to find self-expression in the size and importance of the family group. People hardly comprehend any longer the sentiment, quite general until within a century or two, that a man’s position and repute were one with that of a continuing stock whose traits were imputed to him as a matter of course. We no longer introduce ourselves, as in Homer, by naming our descent, or rely upon our posterity for credit. We cannot lose the sense of race without impairing the fact of race.
I know that precisely this sense has been one of the main obstacles to democracy, equality of opportunity, and the whole modern movement, so that public opinion has come to identify it with reaction. Nor do I think that the danger from it is altogether past. Nevertheless, progress is to be had not by abandoning old ideals altogether, but by their control and adaptation; and the race sentiment still has essential functions. Where it flourishes success and fecundity tend to go together: the stocks that gain social power and resource express these, in part, by leaving a numerous offspring. And in so far as the successful stocks are the better stocks, this means race-improvement.
If we assume, notwithstanding the foregoing, that marriage is, on the whole, a step toward propagation, we arrive at the question of selection in marriage. Any type of man or woman that is to hold its own in heredity must be qualified to secure the co-operation of the other sex in this relation.
The choice of the sexes in marriage is in great part an expression of the values prevalent in the social group at large. It is impracticable to separate the individual judgment from that of society. This is evidently true where, as is so widely the case, marriages are based on wealth, social position, or success in any of the forms admired by the group. The valuation of a suitor, in the mind of a girl’s family, and even in the mind of the girl herself, is largely a function of his valuation by other people, and the same is true for the woman, whose reputation, wealth, and capacity as a housewife are important factors in her desirability. Even in the matter of sexual attraction there is a large conventional element. We know how women are dazzled by prestige and position on the part of men, while “style” and the like are almost equally effective in their own case. The sexual emotions function in connection with the mind as a whole, and that is moulded by the general mind of the group. It is certain, however, that although sexual value is largely an institutional value there is also a factor of immediate human nature in it. I mean that there are, on both sides, vague but powerful elements of sex attraction that spring from instinct and are little subject to convention. It is hard to say just what these are, but we all feel them in the other sex, and no one doubts that they come from an immemorial evolution.
The tendency of the modern movement toward individuality and personal choice has been to give freer play to preference in the man and woman who are to marry, increasing the influence of the human-nature values and rendering marriage, on the whole, more intimate and congenial. This ought to make for the propagation of manly types of men and womanly types of women, types strongly vital and sexual after their several kinds. It really seems to work in this way, though the vagaries of personal choice may often be inscrutable.
It is still true, however, that the outcome must depend much upon the state of the public mind. If marriage is generally felt to be a social institution, with grave public functions, so that everything connected with it is judged by its bearing on the welfare of the next generation, if heredity is regarded and the need of economic support given due weight, without excluding those intuitions which the young may be trusted not to neglect, then the better types ought to be chosen. But if marriage is hasty and frivolous, if the prevalent opinion regards it as a mere matter of personal gratification, if a child is looked upon as a nuisance or a pet, then the biological outlook, as well as the social, is bad. Which of these descriptions more nearly applies to our society I leave the reader to judge; it is certain that we need to do all we can to make the former true.
As to the effect of a larger participation by women in forming our ideas regarding marriage selection, the number of children and the like, all depends upon their developing, as a class, an organized wisdom in these matters. Already they have more power in this sphere than they ever had before, and the hope of their making a good use of it lies in their ideals and organization. If the results of their enlargement are, so far, not altogether reassuring, if there is much that seems anarchical and reckless of race welfare in feminist tendencies, this may be because we are in a transition state. Women have acquired power while still somewhat unprepared to use it, and what they need is probably more responsibility along with the training requisite to meet it. It is not clear that there is any more extravagance in their movement than in those for which men are responsible.