Private Sex Advice to Women: For Young Wives and those who Expect to be Married

by Robert B. Armitage

The working classes began to perceive, on the one hand, the tendency of overpopulation to hold down, or even decrease, the scale of wages. The evils of over-production, and of under-consumption were dimly perceived. And, on the other hand, the capitalists began to perceive that another factor was at work—one which they had failed to include in their optimistic calculations. Instead of the cheaper wage rate which they had expected by reason of the over-abundance of human material, they found that the growth of popular education in the democratic countries had caused the working classes to demand greater comforts of life, and to oppose the cheapening of human labor. And at the same time, the masses began to revolt against the idea of raising children to become "cannon fodder" for ambitious autocratic rulers. The masses began to protest against selling their labor and their lives so cheaply.

These changed viewpoints of the working classes began to result in attempts on their part to form associations to resist the tendency on the part of capitalists to force down the scale of wages to fit the increased population. Trade unions flourished and became powerful, and the same impulse carried many into the ranks of socialism, and still beyond into the fold of anarchism and syndicalism. And, here note this significant fact, with these new perceptions and these new movements among the masses, the birth-rate began to fall rapidly.

The writer above quoted from says of this period: "The pessimists were faced by horrors on both sides. On the one hand, they saw that the ever-increasing rate of human production which seemed to them the essential condition of national, social, even moral progress, had not only stopped but was steadily diminishing. On the other hand, they saw that, even so far as it was maintained, it involved, under modern conditions, nothing but social commotion and economic disturbance. There are still many pessimists of this class alive among us even today, alike in England and Germany, but a new generation is growing up, and this question is now entering another phase."

It would seem that the race is now well started in the third period, phase, or stage of this conception of the birth-rate. Even the Great War is not likely to seriously interrupt its ultimate progress, though conditions in all civilized countries will unquestionably be disturbed by the unusual conditions now prevailing and caused by the great conflict. The spirit of this third stage seems to be that the Truth is to be found between the two extremes, viz.: (1) the extreme of passive optimism of the first stage; and (2) the extreme of passive pessimism of the second stage. It realizes that there is excellent ground for hope in better things; but it equally realizes that hope alone is vain, and will accomplish nothing unless it is accompanied with and directed by a clear intellectual vision manifested in individual and social action based on that clear intellectual vision.

The writer above quoted from says of this developing period: "It is today beginning to be seen that the old notion of progress by means of reckless multiplication is vain. It can only be effected at a ruinous cost of death, disease, poverty, and misery. We see this in the past history of Western Europe, as we still see it in the history of Russia. Any progress effected along that line—if 'progress' it can be called—is now barred, for it is utterly opposed to those democratic conceptions which are ever gaining greater influence among us. Moreover, we are now better able to analyze demographic phenomena, and are no longer satisfied with any crude statements regarding the birth-rate. We realize that they need interpretation. They have to be considered in relation to the sex-constitution and the age-constitution of the population, and above all, they must be viewed in relation to the infant mortality rate.

"The bad aspect of the French birth-rate is not so much its lowness as that it is accompanied by a high infantile mortality. The fact that the German birth-rate is higher than the English ceases to be a matter of satisfaction when it is realized that German infantile mortality is vastly greater than English. A high birth-rate is no sign of a high civilization. But we are beginning to feel that a high infantile death-rate is a sign of a very inferior civilization. A low birth-rate with a low infant death-rate not only produces the same increase in population as a high birth-rate with a high death-rate, which always accompanies it (for there are no examples of a high birth-rate with a low death-rate), but it produces it in a way which is far more worthy of our admiration in this matter than the way of Russia and China where opposite conditions prevail."

The evolutionary process which all students of sociology clearly perceive to have been underway in the matter of the attitude of public opinion toward the birth-rate, and which is now underway with increased impetus, is perceived to be a natural process. It is a natural process which has been underway from the beginning of the living world. For a long time it operated and manifested along unconscious and instinctive lines of activity, but now it has emerged into the light of human consciousness and manifests along the lines of conscious, voluntary, and deliberate human action.

In its present state of evolutionary progress human thought along these lines has found expression in what is generally known as "Birth Control." The process which has been working slowly through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth destined to be carried out voluntarily, in the light of human reason, foresight, and self-restraint. The rise of Birth Control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed an essential part of that movement.

The new doctrine of Birth Control is now firmly established in all the most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France and England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very high, Birth Control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during the present century. In Holland its principles and practice are freely taught by physicians and nurses to the mothers of the people, with the result that there is in Holland no longer any necessity for unwanted babies, and this small country possesses the proud privilege of the lowest death-rate in Europe.

In the free and enlightened Democratic communities on the other side of the globe, in Australia and New Zealand, the same principles and practice are generally accepted, with the same beneficent results. On the other hand, in the more backward and ignorant countries of Europe, Birth Control is still little known, and death and disease flourish. This is the case in those eight European countries which come at the bottom of the list of the Birth Control scale, and in which the birth-rate is the highest and the death-rate the heaviest—the two rates maintaining such a constant correspondence as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that they are associated as cause and effect.