In our days, the theory inimical to the family is based rather on misconceived ideas of freedom and science. The Christian mortification of the flesh is, it is said, one-sidedness; and that the flesh no less than the spirit is of God. Hence it is that Saint Simonism would reconcile the two, and "emancipate" the flesh. (Enfantin, Economie politique, 2d ed., 1832.) Fourier, in his Harmonie, allows each woman to have one époux and two children by him; one géniteur and one child by him; one favori and as many amants with no legal rights as she wishes. His "harmonic" world he would protect against over-population by four organic measures: the régime gastrosophique, the object of which is by first-class food to oppose fecundity; la vigeur des femmes, because sickly women have most children; l'exercise intégral, since by the exercise of all the organs of the body the organs of generation are latest developed; lastly the mœurs phanérogames, the minuter description of which Fourier's disciples omitted in the later editions. (N. Monde, 377, ff.) Fourier was of opinion that only one-eighth of the mothers should be occupied with the bringing up of the children, and that a child's own parents were least adapted to bringing it up, as is proved by the natural aversion of the child to mind the advice or obey the injunctions of its own parents. (186 ff.) If all were left free to choose their employment, two-thirds of all men would devote themselves to the sciences, and one-third of all women; the fine arts would be cultivated by one-third of the men and two-thirds of the women. In agriculture, two-thirds of the men and one-third of the women would take to large farming, and to small farming one-third of the men and two-thirds of the women.
The Communistic Journal, L'Humanitaire, is in favor of a community of wives proper, while Cabet leaves the question an open one. Compare, besides, Godwin on Political Justice, 1793, VIII, ch. 8. In beautiful contrast to this are J. G. Fichte's (compare, supra, § 2) views on marriage and the family in the appendix to his Naturrecht, although he, too, would largely facilitate divorce.
[250-10] J. Bentham, Traité de Législation, II, 237, seq., says that it is scarcely decent for men to engage in the toy trade, the millinery business, in the making of ladies' dresses, shoes, etc. Compare M. Wolstoncraft, Rettung der Rechte des Weibes, translated by Salzmann, 1793; v. Hippel, über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber, 1792. Rich in remarks on the woman question are K. Marlo, System der Weltökonomie,[TN 99] and Schäffle, Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 444 ff., who, for the most part, supports him. Compare Josephine Butler, Woman's Work and Woman's Culture: a Series of Essays, 1792; Leroy-Beaulieu, Le Travail des Femmes au. 19, siècle, 1873. Between 1867 and 1871, the number of men dependent on their own action in Berlin, increased 22.9 per cent.; of women dependent on their own labor, 36.6 per cent. (Schwabe, Volkszählung, 1871, 84.)
[250-11] J. S. Mill, on the other hand, rejoices over the great economic independence of women, and expects from it especially a decrease in the number of thoughtless marriages. (Principles, IV, ch. 7, 3. Compare by the same author, The Subjection of Women, 1869.) I need only mention the dramatic art and the factory proletariat, where the independence in question obtains and indeed with very different results! It is very characteristic of the time, that Homer(Il., XII, 433) considered the spinning for wages as despicable, while Socrates, in the mournful period following the Peloponnesian war, earnestly counsels that free women without fortune should employ themselves with home industries. (Xenoph., Memor., II, 7.) It is in keeping with this that during the time of scarcity after the Peloponnesian war even female citizens hired themselves out as nurses. (Demosth., adv. Eubul., 1309, 1313.) The frequency of such engagements has, in many respects, causes related to these which produce a frequency of illegitimate births.
POLYANDRY.—EXPOSURE OF CHILDREN.
In some of the countries of farther Asia, the immoral tendencies counter to over-population which with us take the direction of illegitimate births and acts of adultery, assume the guise of formal institutions established by law. I need only cite the polyandry[TN 100] of East India, Thibet and other mountainous regions of Asia, which is indeed modified somewhat by the fact that, as a rule, only several brothers have one wife in common.[251-1]
That unnatural institution is, in many localities, based on this, that a great many of the newly born female children are killed or at least sold in foreign parts after they have grown.[251-2] In addition to this, we have the very great encouragement given to celibacy in the Himalayas, so that only monks can attain to a higher education and to the higher honors.[251-3] In many parts of the East Indies, we find a legally recognized community of wives, which is but slightly modified[251-4] by the difference of caste; and almost everywhere, that looseness of general morality which usually characterizes declining nations.[251-5]
China is, as a rule, considered the classic land of child-exposure. And a writer of the country, who is considered one of the principal authorities against the exposure of children, actually claims that it is reprehensible only when one has property enough to support them. The murder of daughters he especially reprobates as "a struggle against the harmony of nature; the more a father performs this act, the more daughters are born to him; and no one has ever heard that the birth of sons was promoted in this way."[251-6] Moreover, the exposure of children in the later periods of antiquity played an important part. In Athens, the right of a father to expose his child was recognized by law. Even a Socrates accounts it one of the occasional duties of midwives to expose children.[251-7] Considered from a moral point of view, Aristotle has nothing to say against abortion.[251-8] In Rome, a very ancient law, which was still in existence in 475 before Christ, made it the duty of every citizen to have and to bring up children.[251-9] It was very different in the time of the emperors,[251-10] and until Christianity, made the religion of the state, caused a legal prohibition against the exposure of children to be passed.[251-11] [251-12]
[251-1] Turner, Embassy to Thibet, II, 349, tells of five brothers who lived satisfied thus under one roof. (Jacquemont, Voyage en Inde, 402.) In Ladakh, all the children are ascribed to the eldest brother, to whom also the property belongs; all the younger brothers are his servants and may be expelled the house by him. (Neumann, Ausland, 1866, No. 16 seq.) In Bissahir, on the other hand, the eldest child belongs to the eldest brother, the second to the second, etc. Here the wife is bought by all the brothers together and treated precisely as a slave. (Ritter, Erdkunde, III, 752.) In Bhutan, the men move into the house of the woman, who is frequently old, and who before marriage, and up to her 25th or 30th year, has generally lived very lawlessly. (Ritter, IV, 195.) Among the Garos, the wife may leave the man at pleasure and not lose her property or her children, while her husband by her rejection of him loses both. (Ritter, V, 403.) Even in Mahabarata, polyandry occurs among the Northern Indians. Similarly, among the Indo-Germanic tribes in Middle Asia (Ritter, VII, 608); according to Chinese sources in ancient Tokharestan (Ritter, VII, 699), and among the Sabæans (Strabo, XVI, 768). Even in ancient Sparta. (Polyb., XII, 6.)