[249-20] Cicero, ad. Div., VIII, 12, 14.
[249-21] Sueton., Tiber, 43 ff.; Nero, 27 ff. Tacit., Ann., VI, 1; Lamprid. Commod., 5, 10 seq.; Heliog. passim. On the greges exoletorum, see also Dio Cass., LXII, 28; LXIII, 13; Tacit., Ann., XV, 37. Tatian, ad Graecos, p. 100. Even Trajan, the best of the Roman emperors, held similar ones. (Ael. Spartian, V, Hadr., 2.) Trade in the prostitution of children at the breast. (Martial, IX, 9.) The collection of nearly all the obscene passages in the ancient classics elucidated with a shameful knowledge of the subject in the additions to F. C. Forberg's edition of the Hermaphroditus of Antonius Panormita, 1824.
[249-22] How long this moral corruption lasted may be inferred from the glaring contrast between the purity of the Vandals at the time of the migration of nations. Compare Salvian, De Gubern. Dei, VII, passim.
[249-23] In keeping with the vicious counter tendencies described in this section, is the increasing frequency of the rape of children in France. The average number of cases between 1826 and 1830 was 136; between 1841 and 1845, 346; between 1856 and 1859, 692. Infanticide also increased between 1826 and 1860, 119 per cent. (Legoyt, Stat. comparée, 394.)
INFLUENCE OF THE PROFANATION OF MARRIAGE ON POPULATION.
D. In the preceding paragraphs, we treated of the wild shoots of the tree of population. But the roots of the tree are still more directly attacked by all those influences which diminish the sacredness of the marriage bond. It is obvious how heartless marriages de convenance,[250-1] inconsiderate divorces and frequent adulteries mutually promote one another. And the period of Roman decline also is the classic period of this evil. I need only cite the political speculation in which Caesar gave his only daughter to the much older Pompey, or the case of Octavia, who when pregnant was compelled to marry the libertine Antonius.[250-2] Instead of the Lucretias and Virginias of older and better times, we now find women of whom it was said: non consulum numero, sed maritorum annos suos computant.[250-3] In the numerous class of young people who live without the prospect of any married happiness of their own, we find a multitude of dangerous persons who ruin the married happiness of others, especially where marriage has been contracted between persons too widely separated by years. Corrumpere et corrumpi sæculum vocatur. (Tacitus).[250-4] It is easy to understand how all this must have diminished the desire of men to marry. Even Metellus Macedonicus (131 before Christ) had declared marriage to be a necessary evil.[250-5] [250-6]
In such ages young girls are kept subject to a convent-like discipline, that their reputation may be protected and that they may be able to get husbands; but once married they are wont to be all the more lawless. In a pure moral atmosphere, precisely the opposite course obtains.[250-7]
And so it has been frequently observed, that among declining nations the social differences between the two sexes are first obliterated and afterwards even the intellectual differences. The more masculine the women become, the more effeminate become the men. It is no good symptom when there are almost as many female writers and female rulers as there are male. Such was the case, for instance, in the Hellenistic kingdoms, and in the age of the Cæsars.[250-8] What to-day is called by many the emancipation of woman would ultimately end in the dissolution of the family, and, if carried out, render poor service to the majority of women. If man and woman were placed entirely on the same level, and if in the competition between the two sexes nothing but an actual superiority should decide, it is to be feared that woman would soon be relegated to a condition as hard as that in which she is found among all barbarous nations. It is precisely family life and higher civilization that have emancipated woman. Those theorizers who, led astray by the dark side of higher civilization, preach a community of goods, generally contemplate in their simultaneous recommendation of the emancipation of woman a more or less developed form of a community of wives. The grounds of the two institutions are very similar. The use of property and marriage is condemned because there is evidence of so much abuse of both. Men despair of making the advantages that accompany them accessible to all, and hence would refuse them to every one; they would improve the world without asking men to make a sacrifice of their evil desires. The result, also, would be about the same in both cases. (§ 81.) So far would prostitution and illegitimacy be from disappearing that every woman would be a woman of the town and every child a bastard. There would, indeed, be a frightful hinderance under such circumstances to the increase of population. The whole world would be, so to speak, one vast foundling asylum.[250-9]
But there is another sense to the expression emancipation of woman. It should not be ignored that, in fully peopled countries, there is urgent need of a certain reform in the social condition of woman. The less the probability of marriage for a large part of the young women of a country becomes, the more uncertain the refuge which home with its slackened bonds offers them for old age, the more readily should the legal or traditional barriers which exclude women from so many callings to which they are naturally adapted be done away with.[250-10] This is only a continuation of the course of things which has led to the abolition of the old guardianship of the sex. It may be unavoidable not to go much farther sometimes; but such a necessity is a lamentable one.[250-11] The best division of labor is that which makes the woman the glory of her household, only it is unfortunately frequently impossible.