The voluntary adoption of preventive precautions may not be, however, the only method by which the birth-rate has declined; we may have also to recognize a concomitant physiological sterility, induced by delayed marriage and its various consequences; we have also to recognize pathological sterility due to the impaired vitality and greater liability to venereal disease of an increasingly urban life; and we may have to recognize that stocks differ from one another in fertility.
The delay in marriage, as studied in England, is so far apparently slight; the mean age of marriage for all husbands in England has increased from 28.43 in 1896 to 28.88 in 1909, and the mean age of all wives from 26.21 in 1896 to 26.69 in 1909. This seems a very trifling rate of progression. If, however, we look at the matter in another way we find that there has been an extremely serious reduction in the number of marriages between 15 to 20, normally the most fecund of all age-periods. Between 1876 and 1880 (according to the Registrar-General's Report for 1909) the proportion of minors in 1000 marriages in England and Wales was 77.8 husbands and 217.0 wives. In 1909 it had fallen to only 39.8 husbands and 137.7 wives. It has been held that this has not greatly affected the decline in the birth-rate. Its tendency, however, must be in that direction. It is true that Engelmann argued that delayed marriages had no effect at all on the birth-rate. But it has been clearly shown that as the age of marriage increases fecundity distinctly diminishes. [119] This is illustrated by the specially elaborate statistics of Scotland for 1855; [120] the number of women having children, that is, the fecundity, was higher in the years 15 to 19, than at any subsequent age-period, except 20 to 24, and the fact that the earliest age-group is not absolutely highest is due to the presence of a number of immature women. In New South Wales, Coghlan has shown that if the average number of children is 3.6, then a woman marrying at 20 may expect to have five children, a woman marrying at 28 three children, at 32 two children, and at 37 one child. Newsholme and Stevenson, again, conclude that the general law of decline of fertility with advancing age of the mother is shown in various countries, and that in nearly all countries the mothers aged 15 to 20 have the largest number of children; the chief exception is in the case of some northern countries like Norway and Finland, where women develop late, and there it is the mothers of 20 to 25 who have the largest number of children. [121] The postponement in the age of marriage during recent years is, however, so slight that it can only account for a small part of the decline in the birth-rate; Coghlan calculates that of unborn possible children in New South Wales the loss of only about one-sixth is to be attributed to this cause. In London, however, Heron considers that the recognized connection between a low birth-rate and a high social standing might have been entirely accounted for sixty years ago by postponement of marriage, and that such postponement may still account for 50 per cent of it. [122]
It is not enough, however, to consider the mechanism by which the birth-rate declines; to realize the significance of the decline we must consider the causes which set the mechanism in action.
We begin to obtain a truer insight into the meaning of the curve of a country's birth-rate when we realize that it is in relation with the industrial and commercial activity of the country. [123] It is sometimes stated that a high birth-rate goes with a high degree of national prosperity. That, however, is scarcely the case; we have to look into the matter a little more closely. And, when we do so, we find that, not only is the statement of a supposed connection between a high birth-rate and a high degree of prosperity an imperfect statement; it is altogether misleading.
If, in the first place, we attempt to consider the state of things among savages, we find, indeed, great variations, and the birth-rate is not infrequently low. But, on the whole, it would appear, the marriage-rate, the birth-rate, and, it may be added, the death-rate are all alike high. Karl Ranke has investigated the question with considerable care among the Trumai and Nahuqua Indians of Central Brazil. [124] These tribes are yet totally uncontaminated by contact with European influences; consumption and syphilis are alike unknown. In the two villages he investigated in detail, Ranke found that every man over twenty-five years of age was married, and that the only unmarried woman he discovered was feeble-minded. The average size of the families of those women who were over forty years of age was between five and six children, while, on the other hand, the mortality among children was great, and a relatively small proportion of the population reached old age. We see therefore that, among these fairly typical savages, living under simple natural conditions, the fertility of the women is as high as it is among all but the most prolific of European peoples; while, in striking contrast with European peoples, among whom a large percentage of the population never marry, and of those who do, many have no children, practically every man and woman both marries and produces children.
If we leave savages out of the question and return to Europe, it is still instructive to find that among those peoples who live under the most primitive conditions much the same state of things may be found as among savages. This is notably the case as regards Russia. In no other great European country do the bulk of the women marry at so early an age, and in no other is the average size of the family so large. And, concomitantly with a very high marriage-rate and a very high birth-rate, we find in Russia, in an equally high degree, the prevalence among the masses of infantile and general mortality, disease (epidemical and other), starvation, misery. [125]
So far we scarcely see any marked connection between high fertility and prosperity. It is more nearly indicated in the high birth-rate of Hungary—only second to that of Russia, and also accompanied by a high mortality—which is associated with the rapid and notable development of a young nationality. The case of Hungary is, indeed, typical. In so far as high fertility is associated with prosperity, it is with the prosperity of a young and unstable community, which has experienced a sudden increase of wealth and a sudden expansion. The case of Western Australia illustrates the same point. Thirty years ago the marriage-rate and the birth-rate of this colony were on the same level as those of the other Australian colonies; but a sudden industrial expansion occurred, both rates rose, and in 1899 the fertility of Western Australia was higher than that of any other English-speaking community. [126]
If now we put together the facts observed in savage life and the facts observed in civilized life, we shall begin to see the real nature of the factors that operate to raise or lower the fertility of a community. It is far, indeed, from being prosperity which produces a high fertility, for the most wretched communities are the most prolific, but, on the other hand, it is by no means the mere absence of prosperity which produces fertility, for we constantly observe that the on-coming of a wave of prosperity elevates the birth-rate. In both cases alike it is the absence of social-economic restraints which conduces to high fertility. In the simple, primitive community of savages, serfs, or slaves, there is no restraint on either nutritive or reproductive enjoyments; there is no adequate motive for restraint; there are no claims of future wants to inhibit the gratification of present wants; there are no high standards, no ideals. Supposing, again, that such restraints have been established by a certain amount of forethought as regards the future, or a certain calculation as to social advantages to be gained by limiting the number of children, a check on natural fertility is established. But a sudden accession of prosperity—a sudden excess of work and wages and food—sweeps away this check by apparently rendering it unnecessary; the natural reproductive impulse is liberated by this rising wave, and we here see whatever truth there is in the statement that prosperity means a high birth-rate. In reality, however, prosperity in such a case merely increases fertility because its sudden affluence reduces a community to the same careless indifference in regard to the future, the same hasty snatching at the pleasures of the moment, as we find among the most hopeless and least prosperous communities. It is a significant fact, as shown by Beveridge, that the years when the people of Great Britain marry most are the years when they drink most. It is in the absence of social-economic restraints—the absence of the perception of such restraints, or the absence of the ability to act in accordance with such perception—that the birth-rate is high.
Arsène Dumont seems to have been one of the first who observed this significance of the oscillation of the birth-rate, though he expressed it in a somewhat peculiar way, as the social capillarity theory. It is the natural and universal tendency of mankind to ascend, he declared; a high birth-rate and a strong ascensional impulse are mutually contradictory. Large families are only possible when there is no progress, and no expectation of it can be cherished; small families become possible when the way has been opened to progress. "One might say," Dumont puts it, "that invisible valves, like those which direct the circulation of the blood, have been placed by Nature to direct the current of human aspiration in the upward path it has prescribed." As the proletariat is enabled to enjoy the prospect of rising it comes under the action of this law of social capillarity, and the birth-rate falls. It is the effort towards an indefinite perfection, Dumont declares, which justifies Nature and Man, consoles us for our griefs, and constitutes our sovereign safeguard against the philosophy of despair. [127]
When we thus interpret the crude facts of the falling birth-rate, viewing them widely and calmly in connection with the other social facts with which they are intimately related, we are able to see how foolish has been the outcry against a falling birth-rate, and how false the supposition that it is due to a new selfishness replacing an ancient altruism. [128] On the contrary, the excessive birth-rate of the early industrial period was directly stimulated by selfishness. There were no laws against child-labour; children were produced that they might be sent out, when little more than babies, to the factories and the mines to increase their parents' income. The fundamental instincts of men and women do not change, but their direction can be changed. In this field the change is towards a higher transformation, introducing a finer economy into life, diminishing death, disease, and misery, making possible the finer ends of living, and at the same time indirectly and even directly improving the quality of the future race. [129] This is now becoming recognized by nearly all calm and sagacious inquirers. [130] The wild outcry of many unbalanced persons to-day, that a falling birth-rate means degeneration and disaster, is so altogether removed from the sphere of reason that we ought perhaps to regard it as comparable to those manias which, in former centuries, have assumed other forms more attractive to the neurotic temperament of those days; fortunately, it is a mania which, in the nature of things, is powerless to realize itself, and we need not anticipate that the outcry against small families will have the same results as the ancient outcry against witches. [131]