[163] Among the Sandwich Islanders “the infant, after living a week, a month, or even a year, was still insecure, as some were destroyed when able to walk” (Ellis, Tour through Hawaii, p. 325). Among the Eskimo about Behring Strait, “girls were often killed when from 4 to 6 years of age” (Nelson, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 289).
The custom of infanticide prevails, or has prevailed, not only in the savage world, but among semi-civilised and civilised races. In the poorest districts of China female infants are often destroyed by their parents immediately after their birth, chiefly on account of poverty.[164] Though disapproved of by educated Chinese, the practice is treated with forbearance or indifference by the mass of the people, and is acquiesced in by the mandarins.[165] “When seriously appealed to on the subject,” says the Rev. J. Doolittle, “though all deprecate it as contrary to the dictates of reason and the instincts of nature, many are ready boldly to apologise for it, and declare it to be necessary, especially in the families of the excessively poor.”[166] However, infanticide is neither directly sanctioned by the government, nor agreeable to the general spirit of the laws and institutions of the Empire;[167] and it is prohibited both by Buddhism and Taouism.[168] According to Dr. de Groot, the belief that the spirits of the dead may, with authorisation of Heaven, take vengeance on the living, has a very salutary effect on female infanticide in China. “The fear that the souls of the murdered little ones may bring misfortune, induces many a father or mother to lay the girls they are unwilling to bring up in the street for adoption into some family, or into a foundling-hospital.”[169]
[164] Gutzlaff, Sketch of Chinese History, i. 59. Wells Williams, Middle Kingdom, ii. 240 sqq. Douglas, Society in China, p. 354 sqq. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, ii. 206.
[165] Doolittle, op. cit. ii. 203, 208 sq. Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 836; ii. 242. Douglas, Society in China, p. 354. Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 262.
[166] Doolittle, op. cit. ii. 208.
[167] Staunton, in his translation of Ta Tsing Leu Lee, p. 347 n. *
[168] Thâi Shang, 4. Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 377. Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, p. 267. Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 164.
[169] de Groot, Religions System of China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 457 sqq.
In ancient times the Semites, or at least some of them, not only practised infanticide, but, under certain circumstances, approved of it or regarded it as a duty. According to an ancient Arabic proverb, it was a generous deed to bury a female child;[170] and we read of ʿOṣaim the Fazarite who did not dare to save alive his daughter Lacîṭa, without concealing her from the people, although she was his only child.[171] Considering that among the nomads of Arabia, who suffer constantly from hunger during a great part of the year, a daughter is a burden to the poor, we may suppose, with Professor Robertson Smith, that “infanticide was as natural to them as to other savage peoples in the hard struggle for life.”[172] It was condemned, however, by the Prophet:—“Slay not your children for fear of poverty: we will provide for them; beware! for to slay them is ever a great sin.”[173] In the Mosaic Law, on the other hand, infanticide is never touched upon, and, in all probability, it hardly occurred among the Hebrews in historic times. But we have reason to believe that, at an earlier period, among them as also among other branches of the Semitic race, child-murder was frequently practised as a sacrificial rite.[174]
[170] Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, i. 229.