Principles of Political Economy Part 34

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF POPULATION.

SECTION CCXLIV.

HISTORY OF POPULATION.--UNCIVILIZED TIMES.

In the case of those wild tribes which can only use the forces of nature by way of occupation, the small extent of the field of food is filled up by even a very spa.r.s.e population. And the princ.i.p.al means by which population is there limited are the following: the overburthening and ill treatment of the women,[244-1] by which the simultaneous rearing of several small children is rendered impossible;[244-2] the inordinately long time that children are kept at the breast;[244-3] the wide-spread practice of abortion;[244-4] numerous cases of murder, especially of the old and weak;[244-5] everlasting war carried on by hunting nations to extend their hunting territory, found in conjunction with cannibalism in many tribes.[244-6] Besides, nations of hunters are frequently decimated by famine and pestilence, the latter generally a consequence of never-ending alternation between gluttony and famine.[244-7]

Most negro nations live in such a state of legal insecurity that it is impossible for a higher civilization with its attendant increase of the means of subsistence to take root among them. At the same time, their s.e.xual impulses are very strong.[244-8] Here the slave-trade const.i.tuted the chief preventive of over-population. If this traffic were suppressed simply and no care taken through the instrumentality of commerce and of missions to improve the moral and economical condition of the negroes, the only probable but questionable gain would be that the prisoners made in the numberless wars generated by famine would be murdered instead of being sold.

Nomadic races, with their universal chivalry, are wont to treat their women well enough to enable them bear children without any great hards.h.i.+p.[244-9] But the mere use of natural pasturage can never be carried to great intensity. The transition to agriculture with its greater yield of food but with the diminished freedom by which it is accompanied is a thing to which these warlike men are so averse that it directs the surplus population by the way of emigration into neighboring civilized countries, where they either obtain victory, booty and supremacy, or are rapidly subjugated. Such migrations are a standing chapter in the history of all Asiatic kingdoms; they for a long time disturb declining civilized states, finally conquering them, and begin the same cycle in the new kingdom.[244-10] Where nomadic races see themselves cut off from such migrations their marriages are wont to be unfruitful.[244-11]

[Footnote 244-1: In New Holland they are beaten by their husbands even on the day of their confinement. Their heads are sometimes covered with countless scars. _Collins_ says that for mere pity one might wish a young woman there death rather than marriage. (Account of N. S. Wales, 560 ff.) South American Indian women actually kill their daughters, with a view of improving the condition of women. (_Azara_, Reisen in S. Amerika, II, 63.) How the women among the aboriginal inhabitants of North America were oppressed is best ill.u.s.trated by the absence of ornaments among the women, while the men were very gaudily decked, and carried small hand-mirrors with them. (_Prinz Neuwied_, N. A. Reise, II, 108 seq.) The early decay of female beauty among all barbarous nations is related to the ill-treatment they receive.]

[Footnote 244-2: The custom of killing one of twins immediately after birth or of burying a child at the breast with its mother, prevails extensively among savage nations.

On New Holland, see _Collins_, 362; on North America, Lettres edifiantes, IX, 140; on the Hottentots, _Kolb_, I, 144.]

[Footnote 244-3: In many Indian tribes, children are kept at the breast until their fifth year. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte I, 236; II, 85.) Among the Greenlanders, until the third or fourth year (_Klemm_, I, 208); among the Laplanders and Tonguses, likewise (_Klemm_, III, 57); among the Mongols and Kalmucks, longer yet. (_Klemm_, III, 171.)]

[Footnote 244-4: The New Hollanders have a special word to express the killing of the ftus by pressure.

(_Collins._) Among certain of the Brazilian tribes, this is performed by every woman until her 30th year; and in many more the custom prevails for a woman when she becomes pregnant to fast, or to be frequently bled. (_Spix und Martius_, Reise, I, 261.) Compare _Azara._, II, 79.]

[Footnote 244-5: On the Bushmen, see _Barrow_, Journey in Africa, 379 ff.; on the Hottentots, among whom even the wealthy aged are killed by exposure, see _Kolb_, Caput bonae Spei, 1719, I, 321; on the Scandinavian, old Germans, Wendes, Prussians, _Grimm_, D. Rechtsalterthumer, 486 ff.; on the most ancient Romans, _Cicero_, pro Rosc. Amer, 35, and Festus v. Depontani, s.e.xagenarios; on Ceos, _Strabo_, X, 486; on the ancient Indians, _Herodot._, III, 38, 99; on the Ma.s.sagetes, _Herodot._, I, 216; on the Caspians, _Strabo_, XI, 517, 520. Touching picture of an old man abandoned in the desert, unable to follow his tribe compelled to emigrate for want of food: _Catlin_, N. American Indians, I, 216 ff.

We here see how the killing of helpless old people may be considered a blessing among many nations. Death is also sometimes desired by reason of superst.i.tion. For instance, the Figians think that after death they will continue to live of the same age as that at which they died.

(_Williams_, Figi and the Figians, I, 183.) The Germans who died of disease did not get to Walhalla! (_W. Wackernagel_, Kl. Schriften, I, 16.)]

[Footnote 244-6: On the frightful cannibalism practiced on the upper Nile, see _Schweinfurth_ in _Petermann's_ geogr.

Mettheilungen, IV, 138, seq. Australian women seldom outlive their 30th year. _Lubbock_, Prehistoric Times, 449. Many are eaten by the men as soon as they begin to get old.

(Transactions of the Ethnolog. Society, New Series, III, 248.) A chief of Figi Islands who died recently had eaten 872 men in his lifetime. _Lawry_, Visit to the Friendly and Fejee Islands, 1850. Even the more highly civilized Mexicans had preserved this abomination. According to _Gomara_, Cronica de la N. Espana, 229, there were here from 20,000 to 25,000 human sacrifices a year; according to _Torquemada_, Indiana, VII, 21, even 20,000 children a year. _B. Diaz_, on the other hand, puts the number down at 2,500 only. Compare _Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, V, 103, 207, 216.]

[Footnote 244-7: The usual coldness, so much spoken of, of the Indians, seems to have an economic rather than a physiological cause. At least, it has also been observed among the Hottentots. (_Levillant_, Voyage, I, 12 seq.), and under favorable economic conditions the Indians have sometimes increased very rapidly. (Lettres edifiantes, VIII, 243.) Whether the practice in vogue among the Botocuds to carry the organ of generation continually in a rather narrow envelope, or that among the Patachos of lacing the foreskin with the tendrils of a plant, is not a "preventive check,"

quaere. Compare _Prinz Neuwied_, Bras. Reise, II, 10; I, 226.]

[Footnote 244-8: On the gold coast, people become fathers in their 12th year even, and mothers at 10. (_Ritter_, Erdkunde, I, 313.) In the whole of the Soudan the climate is so exciting that the intercourse of the s.e.xes is said to be a "physical necessity," and an unmarried man of eighteen is universally despised. But, indeed, the individual is little valued in Africa, on account of the great prolificacy of the African race. (_Ritter_, I, 385.)]

[Footnote 244-9: _Herodot._, IV, 26.]

[Footnote 244-10: Compare _Machiavelli_, at the beginning of his Istoria Fiorentina. The migration of the Germani is accounted for simply by the family and marriage relations of the Germans, which necessarily favored prolificacy: _Severa matrimonia ... singulis uxoribus contenti sunt ... septae pudicitia ... paucissima adulteria ... publicatae pudicitiae nulla venia ... nemo vitia ridet ... numerum liberorum finire, flagitium habetur ... sua quemque mater uberibus alit ... sera juverum Venus eoque inexhausta p.u.b.ertas ...

quanto plus propinquorum, tanto gratiosior senectus._ _Tacit._, Germ., 14. Entirely similar in character were the migrations of the Normans, which lasted just as long as the resistance to the countries they would invade, seemed to them a matter of less difficulty than the transition to a higher civilization in their own country. _Malthus_ has corrected the extravagant notions concerning the former density of population in the North--the _v.a.g.i.n.a nationum_, according to Jornandes! (_Malthus_, I, ch. 6.) Compare, however, _Friedrich M._, in Antimachiavel, ch. 21, and the later view: Ouevres, IX, 196.]

[Footnote 244-11: Among the Bedouins even three children are considered a large family; and they even complain of that number. (_Burckhardt._)]

SECTION CCXLV.

INFLUENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN AND POLYGAMY.

Most barbarous nations live very unchaste;[245-1] so that, as Tacitus observes, the ancient Germans were a brilliant exception to the rule.[245-2] Vices of unchast.i.ty always limit the otherwise natural increase of population. Premature enjoyment exhausts the sources of fruitfulness in the case of many.[245-3] The life of the child conceived in sin is generally little valued by its parents. Hence the numerous instances of exposure and infanticide.[245-4] We have already seen how closely, psychologically speaking, a community of goods is allied to a community of women. (-- 85.) And, indeed, in the lower stages of civilization, we find as close an approximation to the latter as to the former; and it is difficult to believe that, among men living in a state of nudity, the marriage of one man to one woman could properly exist.[245-5] But it is as little possible to reconcile a community of women with density of population as great national wealth with a community of goods. Any one acquainted with the condition and capacities of new born children knows that the weak little flame easily goes out when not nursed by family care.[245-6]

Polygamy also is a hinderance to the increase of population. Abstract physiology must, indeed, admit that a man may, even without any danger to his health, generate more children than a woman can bear.[245-7] But, in reality, the simultaneous enjoyment of several women leads to excess and early exhaustion;[245-8] and if one of them is married after the other, the older who might still bear children for a long time are neglected by the man.[245-9] Monogamy is, doubtless, the Creator's law, since only in monogamous countries can we expect to find the intimate union of family life, the beauties of social intercourse and free citizens.h.i.+p.[245-10] "G.o.d made them male and female."[245-11] And yet in all countries with which we are statistically acquainted, there is a somewhat larger number of boys than of girls born;[245-12] but this excess is removed by the time that p.u.b.erty sets in, by reason of the greater mortality of boys. Only extraordinary conditions which thin the ranks of males, such as war and emigration, leave a preponderance of the number of women.[245-13] Hence, among barbarous nations, who live in everlasting strife (---- 67, 70), polygamy is very generally established.

Men are seldom deterred therefrom by a solicitude concerning what they shall eat, since the women are treated as slaves, and rather support the men than are supported by them.[245-14] But in the civilized countries of the east, the polygamy of the great may actually lead to the compulsory singleness of many of the lower cla.s.ses, as a species of compensation.[245-15] The monstrous inst.i.tution of eunuchism, which has existed time out of mind in the east, is a consequence of this condition of things as well as of the natural jealousy of the harem.[245-16]

[Footnote 245-1: Impurity of the Kamtschatdales, bordering on a community of women. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, I, 287 ff., 350 ff.; II, 206, 297 seq.) On Lapland, see _Klemm_, III, 55. In their purely nomadic period, even the Getes, afterwards remarkable for their n.o.ble character (_Horat._, Carm., III, 24), have had very loose relations of the s.e.xes.

(_Menander_, in _Strabo_, VII, 297.)]

[Footnote 245-2: Very unlike the Celts: _Strabo_, IV, 199.

But the Germans even at the time when the compensation system alone prevailed, imposed a disgraceful death on the _corpore infames. (Tacit._, Germ., 12.) In keeping with this purity of the Germans was the deep gravity and the genuine heartiness of their ancient nuptial ceremonies. (_Tacit._, Germ., 18.) Similarly, in England throughout the middle ages. (_Lappenberg_, Engl., Gesch. I, 596.) Great moral severity of the Scandinavians (_Weinhold_, Altnord. Leben, 255), so that the gratification of the s.e.xual appet.i.te outside of marriage was punishable with death. (_Adam Brem._, IV, 6, 21.)]

[Footnote 245-3: Abuse of young girls in New Holland (_Collins_, 563); among the American aborigines (_Charlevoix_, Histoire de la N. France, III, 304; Lettres edifiantes, VII, 20 ff.); among the negroes (_Buffon_, Histoire naturelle de l'Homme, VI, 255).]

[Footnote 245-4: Infanticide in Kamtschatka, _Klemm_, I, 349.]

[Footnote 245-5: In most mythical histories, the inst.i.tutions of property and of marriage are ascribed to the same name (Menes Cecrops, the Athenian Thesmophories.) Among the Indian tribes of Terra Firma, the exchange of wives and the _jus primae noctis_ of the chiefs are very common.

(_Depons_ Voyage, I, 304, ff.) In North America, the Indians are very eager to rent out their wives for a gla.s.s of brandy. (_Prinz Neuwied_, N. A. Reise, I, 572 seq.) Compare _Lewis_ and _Clarke_, Travels to the Source of the Missouri and the Pacific Ocean, 1804-1806. Almost always on entering a higher age-cla.s.s it is one of the princ.i.p.al conditions to leave one's wife for a time to the more distinguished. On feast days, prayer days, etc., the women give themselves publicly up to vice; and this can be commuted only by a gift. (_Prinz Neuwied_, I, 129 ff., 272.) Community of women in California. (_Bagert_, Nachrichten von der Halbinsel C.

1772.) In many of the South Sea Islands, the youth of the higher cla.s.ses were wont to form themselves into so-called _arreyo-societies_, the object of which was the most unlimited intercourse of the s.e.xes (a pair being united generally only from 2 to 3 days), and the murder of the new born children. The girls princ.i.p.ally were murdered, and hence the missionaries at Otaheite (New Cytheria) found only 1/5 as many women as men. _Chaque femme semble etre la femme de tous les hommes chaque homme le mari de toutes les femmes._ (_Marchand_, I, 122.) The many governing queens here are characteristic. Compare _Forster_, Reise II, 100, 128; _Kotzebue_, Reise, III, 119; European Magazine, June, 1806; _Reybaud_, Voyages, et marines, 128, and the quotations in _Klemm_, Kulturgesch., IV, 307.

Similar customs are found among the nomads. The Bedouins dissolve their marriages so easily that a man forty-five years old had 50 wives; family secrets are a thing unknown there. (_Burckhardt_, Notes on the Bedouins, 64; Travels app. II, 448; _Ritter_, Erdkunde, XII, 205, 211, 983.) On the Libyans, see _Herodot._, IV, 168, 172, 186, 180: on the Ma.s.sagetes, _Herodot._, I, 216; on the Taprobanes, _Diod._, II, 58; on the Troglodytes, _Pomp, Mella._, I, 8, _Agatharch_, 30. Community of women among the ancient Britons, _Caesar_, B. G. V, 14 seq.; also among the naked, tatooed Caledonians, _Dio Ca.s.s._, LXXVI, 12; probably also among the cannibal Irish. _Strabo_, IV, 201. Great laxity of the marriage tie in Moelmud's laws of Wales, (_Palgrave_, Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, I, 458 ff.) in which country a species of tenure in common of land and servants was customary. (_Wachs.m.u.th_, Europ. Sittengesch.

II, 225.) In Russia, in very ancient times, only the Polanes had real marriages. (_Nestor v. Schlozer_, I, 125 seq.) Something very a.n.a.logous even among the Spartans: same education for boys and girls, admittance for men to the female gymnasiums; marriage in the form of an abduction, and afterwards fornication. (_Xenoph._, De rep. Laced. I, 6: _Plutarch_, Lycurg. 15.) Adultery tolerated by law in countless cases. (_Xenoph._, II, 7 ff.; _St. John_, The h.e.l.lenes, I, 394.) History of the origin of the so-called Partheniae; _Strabo_, VI, 279. (_Supra_, -- 83.) The custom which prevails among so many barbarous nations to designate one's progeny by the name of the mother, _Sanchoniathan_ traces to the licentiousness of women. (p. 16, Orell.) Traces of this also in Egypt: _Schmidt_, Papyrusurkunden, 321 ff. Avunculus means little grand-father. Many proofs which _Peschel_, Volkerkunde, 243 seq. explains otherwise, but which seem to me to point to an original community of wives.]

[Footnote 245-6: The relation existing between the so-called organization of labor (-- 82) and a community of wealth is repeated in the relation of a community of wives to the situation in Dahomey, where every man has to purchase his wife from the king. _Gumprecht_, Afrika, 196. Similarly among the Incas: _Prescott_, Hist. of Peru, I, 159. Even the sale of wives is a step in advance as compared with a community of wives (-- 67 seq).]

[Footnote 245-7: It is said that a German prince of the 18th century had 352 natural children. (_Dohm_, Denkwurdigkeiten, IV, 67.) Feth Ali, shah of Persia, had made 49 of his own sons provincial governors, and he had besides 140 daughters.

(_Ker Porter_, II, 508.)]

[Footnote 245-8: Turkish married men are frequently impotent at the age of 30. (_Volney_, Voyage dans la Turquie, II, 445.) Similarly in Arabia. (_Niebuhr,_ Beschreibung, 74.) The use of aphrodisiac means very wide-spread in the East.

According to _Niebuhr_ (76), monogamous marriages produced absolutely more children than polygamous. Compare _G.

Botero_, Ragion di Stato, VIII, 93 ff.; _Montesquieu_, Lettres Persanes, N., 114; _Sussmilch_, Gottl. Ordnung, I, Kap., 11. On the other hand, _Th. L. Lau_, Aufrichtiger Vorschlag von ... Einrichtung der Intraden (1719), 6, recommends the allowing of polygamy as a means of increasing population.]

[Footnote 245-9: Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines, and only 88 children (II Chron., 11, 21); that is not much more than one child by each.]

[Footnote 245-10: The high esteem for woman requisite to true love seems to be almost irreconcilable with polygamy.

The wife stands to the husband in the relation of a mistress; and, in reference to the latter, fidelity has scarcely any meaning. The husband also has no confidence in his wife; and hence the seclusion of the harem. But the domestic tyrant is easily made the slave of a higher power.

And what becomes of fraternal love with the half-brother feeling of children of different mothers?]

[Footnote 245-11: Genesis 1, 27; 5, 12; 7, 13.]

[Footnote 245-12: Compare _J. Graunt_, Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality (1662). During the course of the 19th century, according to averages made from long series of years, there were, for every 1,000 girls born alive in Lombardy, 1,070 boys; in Bohemia, 1,062; in France, 1,058; in Holland, 1,057; in Saxony, 1,056; in Belgium, 1,052; in England, 1,050; in Prussia, 1,048. On the whole, the ratio in 70,000,000 children born alive was as 100 : 105.83. The excess of males over females in b.a.s.t.a.r.ds is smaller than in the case of legitimate children, in towns than in the country. Everything considered, the number of boys born seems to be greater than the number of girls in proportion as the father is in advance of his wife in years.

Compare _Sadler_, Law of Population, II, 343. _Hofacker_, Ueber die Eigenschaften die sich vererben, 51 ff. _Wappaus_, Allg. Bevolkerungstatistik, II, 151, 160 ff., 306 ff. _Per contra_, we have _Legoyt's_ supposition that the number of boys born is greater in proportion as the parents are more nearly of an age: Statistique comparee, 500.]

[Footnote 245-13: According to the censuses between 1856 and 1861, there are for every 1,000 men in Belgium 994 women; in Austria, 1,004; in Prussia, 1,004; in France, 1,001; in England, 1,039; in Holland, 1,038. The majority of the latter seems to have diminished everywhere the greater the distance in time from the most recent great wars; and to belong only to those age-cla.s.ses which were coeval with those wars. (Preuss. amtliche Tabellen fur 1849, I, 292.) In the United States there were, 1800-1844, for every 1,000 women, 1,033-1,050 men; mainly accounted for by large immigration. Between 1819 and 1855 the immigration was 2,713,391 men and 1,720,305 women. (_W. Bromwell_, History of Immigration to the United States, New York, 1856.) In Switzerland, among the population belonging to the cantons, there were for every 1,000 men, 1,038 women; among the foreign Swiss, 970; among foreigners, 650. (_Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 31.) Compare _Horn_, loc. cit., I, 105 ff., who supposes a natural principle of equilibrium: the greater the preponderance of the number of women, the more does it happen that only the younger women are married; the greater consequently the difference between the ages of the married couple, and the more probable the birth of boys, and _vice versa_. (115 ff.)]