In the 28th annual report relating to the registration and return of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Michigan for the year 1894 (p. 125), it is stated that "The mean number of children borne by females married at from 15 to 19 years of age inclusive, is 6.76. For the next five year period of ages, it is 5.32, or a loss of 1.44 children per marriage, this attending an advance of five years in age at marriage."
Voluntary effort frequently expresses itself in the practice of abortion. Many monthly nurses degenerate into abortionists and practise their calling largely, while many women have learned successfully to operate on themselves.
The extent to which this method of limiting births is practised, and the absence of public sentiment against it, in fact the wide-spread sympathy extended to it, may be surmised from the facts that at a recent trial of a Doctor in Christchurch, New Zealand, for alleged criminal abortion, a large crowd gathered outside the Court, greeting the accused by a demonstration in his favour on his being discharged by the jury. A similar verdict in a similar case in Auckland, New Zealand, was greeted by applause by the spectators in a crowded Court, which brought down the indignant censure of the presiding Judge.
In New Zealand there is no oppressive misgovernment, there is no land question in the sense in which Nitti applies the term, there is no poverty to account for a declining birth-rate or to confuse the problem. There is prosperity on every hand, and want is almost unknown. And yet, fewer and fewer children, in proportion to the population, and in proportion to the number of marriages, are born into the colony every year. The only reason that can be given is that the people, though they want marriage and do marry, do not wish to bear more children than they can safely, easily, and healthfully support, with a due and ever-increasing regard for their own personal comfort and happiness. They have learned that marriage and procreation are not necessarily inseperable and they practice what they know.
CHAPTER V.
Causes of Declining Birth-rate.
Influence of self-restraint without continence.—Desire to limit families in New Zealand not due to poverty.—Offspring cannot be limited without self-restraint.—New Zealand's economic condition.—High standard of general education.—Tendency to migrate within the colony.—Diffusion of ideas.—Free social migration between all classes.—Desire to migrate upwards.—Desire to raise the standard of ease and comfort.—Social status the measure of financial status.—Social attraction of one class to next below.—Each conscious of his limitation.—Large families confirm this limitation.—The cost of the family.—The cost of maternity. The craving for ease and luxury.—Parents' desire for their children's social success.—Humble homes bear distinguished sons. Large number with University education in New Zealand.—No child labour except in hop and dairy districts.—Hopeless poverty a cause of high birth-rates.—High birth-rates a cause of poverty.—Fecundity depends on capacity of the female to bear children.
The first or direct cause of this decline in the birth-rate then, is the inhibition of conception by voluntary means, on the part of those capable of bearing children.