[Footnote 2: Catholic Encyclopædia, art. 'Population.' Brants draws attention to the interesting fact that a germ of Malthusianism is to be found in the much-discussed Songe du Vergier, book ii. chaps. 297-98, and Franciscus Patricius de Senis, writing at the end of the fifteenth century, recommends emigration as the remedy against over-population (De Institutione Reipublicae, ix.).]
[Footnote 3: Dureau de la Malle, 'Mémoire sur la Population de la
France au xiv^e Siècle,' Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres, vol. xiv. p. 36.]
The mediæval attitude towards population was founded upon the sanctity of marriage and the respect for human life. The utterances of Aquinas on the subject of matrimony show his keen appreciation of the natural social utility of marriage from the point of view of increasing the population of the world, and of securing that the new generation shall be brought up as good and valuable citizens.[1] While voluntary virginity is recommended as a virtue, it is nevertheless distinctly recognised that the precept of virginity is one which by its very nature can be practised by only a small proportion of the human race, and that it should only be practised by those who seek by detachment from earthly pleasures to regard divine things.[2] Aquinas further says that large families help to increase the power of the State, and deserve well of the commonwealth,[3] and quotes with approbation the Biblical injunction to 'increase and multiply.'[4] Ægidius Romanus demonstrates at length the advantages of large families in the interests of the family and the future of the nation.[5]
[Footnote 1: Summa Cont. Gent., iii. 123, 136.]
[Footnote 2: Summa, II. ii. 151 and 152.]
[Footnote 3: De Reg. Prin., iv. 9.]
[Footnote 4: Gen. i. 28.]
[Footnote 5: De Reg. Prin., ii. 1, 6.]
The growth of a healthy population was made possible by the reformation of family life, which was one of the greatest achievements of Christianity in the social sphere. In the early days of the Church the institution of the family had been reconstituted by moderating the harshness of the Roman domestic rule (patria potestas), by raising the moral and social position of women, and by reforming the system of testamentary and intestate successions; and the great importance which the early Church attached to the family as the basic unit of social life remained unaltered throughout the Middle Ages.[5]
[Footnote 5: Troplong, De l'Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit civil des Romains; Cossa, Guide, p. 99; Devas, Political Economy, p. 168; Périn, La Richesse dans les Sociétés chrétiennes, i. 541 et seq.; Hettinger, Apologie du Christianisme, v. 230 et seq.]