Life and Writings of Thomas R. Malthus

by Charles R. Drysdale

Mr. Godwin supposed that the population difficulty would only become of importance at some remote future. “Three-fourths of the habitable globe are now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.” Mr. Malthus asks us to imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin’s system of equality realised in its utmost extent, and see how soon the difficulty of population might be expected to press upon us under so perfect a form of society.

Let us suppose, he says, all the causes of vice and misery in this island removed. “War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent cities for purposes of Court intrigue, of commerce, and vicious gratification. Simple, healthy, and rational amusements take place of drinking, gambling, and debauchery. There are no towns sufficiently large to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution. The greater part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial Paradise live in hamlets and farm-houses, scattered over the face of the country. All men are equal. The labors of luxury are at an end, and the necessary labors of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of persons and the produce of the island we suppose to be the same as at present. “The spirit of benevolence guided by impartial justice will divide this produce among all the members of society according to their wants. Though it would be impossible that they should all have animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people, and would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength, and spirits.”

“Mr. Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly. Let us suppose the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most perfect freedom. Mr. Godwin does not think himself that this freedom would lead to a promiscuous intercourse, and in this I perfectly agree with him. The love of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural taste, and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select for himself a partner to whom he would adhere, as long as that adherence continued to be the choice of both parties. It would be of little consequence, according to Mr. Godwin, how many children a woman had, or to whom they belonged. Provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the quarter in which they abounded to the quarter in which they were deficient, and every man according to his capacity would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation.”

“I cannot conceive a form of society so favorable upon the whole to population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it is at present constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into this state. An unshackled intercourse, on the contrary, would be a most powerful incitement to early attachments, and as we are supposing no anxiety about the future support of children to exist, I do not conceive that there would be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three years of age, without a family.”

“With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known. I have before mentioned that the inhabitants of the back settlements of America appear to double their numbers in fifteen years. England is certainly a healthier country than the back settlements of America; and as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even than in America, no probable reason can be assigned why the population should not double itself in less, if possible, than fifteen years.”... “It is probable that the half of every man’s time (in a system of equality) must be employed for this purpose (in agriculture). Yet with such a much greater exertion, a person who is acquainted with the nature of the soil of the country, and who reflects on the fertility of the lands already in cultivation, and the barrenness of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in twenty years from the present period. The only chance of success would be from the ploughing up most of the grazing countries, and putting an end almost entirely to animal food. Yet this scheme would probably defeat itself. The soil of England will not produce much without dressing; and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of manure which best suits the land.

“Alas, what becomes of the picture, where men lived in the midst of plenty, when no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants; when the narrow principles of selfishness did not exist; when the man was delivered from his perpetual anxiety for corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is so congenial to him? This beautiful fabric of the imagination vanishes at the severe touch of truth.... The children are sickly from insufficient food. The rosy flush of health gives place to the pallid cheek and hollow eye of misery.”

In as short a period as fifty years the whole of the worst evils of society will certainly re-appear, if population be not checked (says Malthus) by moral restraint, vice, or misery. After showing that a regime of equality would inevitably end in these shallows, so long as the birth-rate was not restricted, Malthus contends that some such laws of private property, as those which at present exist, would be certain to re-appear and misery to be increased. He then continues to give the best account of the irrevocable contract of marriage, with which we are familiar, that any writer has ever attempted to give.

“The next subject which would come under discussion, intimately connected with the preceding, is the commerce of the sexes. It would be urged by those who had turned their attention to the true cause of the difficulties under which the community labored, that while every man felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue; that even if the whole attention and labor of the society were directed to this sole point, and if by the most perfect security of property, and every other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible increase of produce were yearly obtained; yet still the increase of food would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of population; that some check to population, therefore, was imperiously called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to make every man provide for his own children; that this would operate in some respect as a measure and a guide in the increase of population, as it might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world for whom he could not find the means of support; that when this, notwithstanding, was the case, it seemed necessary, for the example of others, that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such conduct should fall upon that individual who had thus inconsiderately plunged himself and his innocent children into want and misery. The institution of marriage, or at least of some express or implied obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the natural result of these reasonings, in a community under the difficulties that we have supposed.”

Mr. Malthus then proceeds with his theory of the reason why society punishes carelessness in sexual relations much more in the case of a woman than in that of a man. “The view of these difficulties presents us with a very natural reason why the disgrace which attends a breach of chastity should be greater in a woman than in a man. It could not be expected that a woman should have resources sufficient to support her own children. When, therefore, a woman had lived with a man who had entered into no compact to maintain her children; and aware of the inconveniences that he might bring upon himself, had deserted her, those children must necessarily fall upon the society for support or starve. And to prevent the frequent recurrence of such an inconvenience, as it would be highly unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or infliction, society might agree to punish it with disgrace. The defence is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known; but the same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother. Where the evidence of the offence was most complete, and the inconvenience to society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the largest share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to support his children the society would enforce by positive law, and the greater degree of inconvenience or labor to which a family would necessarily subject him, added to some feature of disgrace, which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness, might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man.

“That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an offence which men commit nearly with impunity, seems to be undoubtedly a breach of natural justice. But the origin of the custom, as the most obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a serious inconvenience to a community, appears to be natural, though not perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, is now lost in the new train of ideas that the custom has since generated. What at first sight might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of the society, where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there is the least occasion for it.”