Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/183

Rh figure, thus providing for the regular increase from census to census and for overflow by emigration.

These facts, all platitudes as they are, look so startling at first sight that they will probably need for the unstatistical reader a little explanation and simplification.

Well, suppose, now, every man and every woman in a given community were to marry; and suppose they were in each case to produce two children, a boy and a girl; and suppose those children were in every case to attain maturity; why, then, the next generation would exactly reproduce the last, each father being represented by his son, and each mother by her daughter, ad infinitum. (I purposely omit, for simplicity's sake, the complicating factor of the length and succession of generations, which by good luck in the case of the human species practically cancels itself.) But, as a matter of fact, all the children do not attain maturity: on the contrary, nearly half of them die before reaching the age of manhood in some conditions of life, indeed, and in some countries, more than half. Roughly speaking, therefore (for I don't wish to become a statistical bore), it maybe said that in order that two children may attain maturity and be capable of marriage, even under the most favorable circumstances, four must be born. The other two must be provided to cover risks of infant or adolescent mortality, and to insure against infertility or incapacity for marriage in later life. They are wanted to make up the categories of soldiers, sailors, imbeciles, cripples, and incapables generally. So that even if every possible person married, and if every married pair had four children, we should only just keep up the number of our population from one age to another.

Now, I need hardly say that not every possible person does marry, and that we do actually a good deal more than keep up the number of our population. Therefore it will at once be clear that each actual marriage is fertile to considerably more than the extent of four children. That is, indeed, a heavy burden to lay upon women. One aim, at least, of social reformers should certainly be to lighten it as much as possible.

Nevertheless, I think, it will be abundantly apparent from these simple considerations that in every community, and to all time, the vast majority of the women must become wives and mothers, and must bear at least four children apiece. If some women shirk their natural duties, then a heavier task must be laid upon the remainder. But in any case almost all must become wives and mothers, and almost all must bear at least four or five children. In our existing state six are the very fewest that our country can do with.

Moreover, it is pretty clear that the best ordered community will be one where as large a proportion of the women as possible