Chapter CXVII: Section CCLV: Means of Promoting Population

The following are the principal means which have been used to artificially promote the increase of population:

A. Making marriage and the procreation of children obligatory by direct command. Among almost all medieval nations so strong is the family feeling, that it seems to men to be a sacred duty to keep their family from becoming extinct. Where a person is not in a condition physically to fulfill this duty, the law supplies a means of accomplishing it by juridical substitution[255-1] at least. Most national religions[255-2] operate in the same direction, as well as the influence of political law-givers, who fully share in the contempt for willful old bachelors and sterile women, which runs through the national feeling of all medieval times.[255-3] In addition to this, there are the positive rewards offered for large families of children.[255-4] Even Colbert, in 1666, decreed that whoever married before his 20th year should be exempt from taxation until his 25th; that anyone who had 10 legitimate children living, not priests, should be exempt from taxation for all time;[255-5] that a nobleman having 10 children living should receive a pension of 1,000 livres, and one having 12, 2,000 livres. Persons not belonging to the nobility were to receive one-half of this, and to be released from all municipal burthens.[255-6] Such premiums are, indeed, entirely superfluous. No nobleman would desire 12 children simply to obtain a pension of 2,000 livres! Colbert himself abandoned this system of premiums shortly before his death.[255-7] [255-8]

In the case of morally degenerated nations, in which an aversion to the married state had gained ground, efforts have sometimes been made to work against it by means of new premiums. Thus, especially in Rome, since the times of Cæsar and Augustus, although with poor success. It little becomes one who is himself a great adulterer to preach the sixth commandment.[255-9]

[Footnote 255-1: In Sparta, impotent husbands were obliged
to allow another man to have access to their young wives.
(_Xenoph._, De Rep. Laced., I. _Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.)
Compare _J. Grimm_, Weisthümer, III, 42. Great importance of
adoption in Roman law.]

[Footnote 255-2: Thus, the Indian laws of Menu, concerned
principally with the necessity of sacrifices to assure
parents an existence after death. Similarly, Zoroaster and
Mohammed. In the Bible the periods should be accurately
distinguished: I Moses, 2, 18; V Moses, 26, 5; Judges, 10,
4; 13, 14; Proverbs, 14, 28; 17, 6, and the Preacher, 4, 8
apparently agree; also I Corinth., 7, written under
essentially different circumstances but precisely on this
account not in contradiction with those passages of the Old
Testament.]

[Footnote 255-3: Genesis, 30, 23. In Sparta, willful
bachelorhood was almost infamous. (_Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.)
In Athens, a person might be charged with _agamy_ as with a
crime. (_Pollux_, VIII, 40.) Concerning the ancient
censorial punishments inflicted on those who had no children
and the rewards of prolificacy, see _Valer. Max._, II, 9, 1;
_Livy_, XLV, 15; _Gellius_, I, 6: V, 19. Festus v. Uxorium.
Many German cities made marriage a qualification for the
holding of certain public offices, etc. In some places, the
public treasury was made the heir of bachelors, a custom not
abolished in Hanover until 1732. Compare _Ludewig_, on the
Hagestolziatu (1727), but also _Selchow_, Elem. Juris Germ.,
§ 290. On the fines imposed on old bachelors in Spain,
during the middle ages, see _Gans_, Erbrecht, III, 401 seq.
Recently recommended very strongly by _Hermes_, Sophiens
Reise (3 aufl.), I, 660.]

[Footnote 255-4: Yearly rewards for _polytekny_ in Persia:
_Herodot._, I 136. In Sparta, a father with three children
was relieved of guard duty; and one with four, of all public
burthens. (_Aristot._, Polit., II, 6, 13. _Aclian_, V. H.,
VI, 6.) Between 1816 and 1823, 250 fathers received the
royal gift made to godchildren at their christening in the
district of Oppeln, for the seventh son. (_v. Zedlitz_,
Staatskräfte der preuss. Monarchie, I, 285.) The king of
Hannover paid annually about 900 thalers in such gifts.
_Lehzen_, Hannovers Staatshaushalt, II, 346.]

[Footnote 255-5: Children who had fallen in the service of
their country were considered as still living. Precisely
similar laws had existed in Spain from 1623 (_de Laet_,
Hispania Cap., 4); in Savoy from 1648 (_Keysslers_, Reise,
I, 209).]

[Footnote 255-6: Russian law which required the serf master
to emancipate his male serfs who were not married by their
20th year, and female serfs not married by their 18th. He
could not charge them with desertion in such case, even
where combined with theft. (_Karamsin_, Russ. Gesch., XI,
59.) An ancient Prussian law provides that the country
people shall marry at the age of 25. Corpus Const., March,
V, 3, 148, 274.]

[Footnote 255-7: Lettres, etc. de Colbert, _éd_. Clément,
II, 68, 120. _Voltaire_, Siècle de Louis XIV. ch. 29,
bitterly complains of this; and also _Berkeley_, Works, II,
187, and _Forbonnais_, Finances de France, I, 391. On the
other hand, _Ferguson_, Hist, of Civil Society, III, 4,
asks: what fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth?
Similarly, _Franklin_, Observations, etc. It should not be
forgotten that the taxes necessary to supply the so-called
marriage-fund, intended to enable poor couples to marry at
the expense of the state, make marriage more difficult for
other couples. (_Krug_, Staats-Oek., 31.)]

[Footnote 255-8: Frederick the Great limited the mourning
time of widowers to 3 months and of widows to 9. His
abolition of ecclesiastical punishment for those who had
fallen, and his prohibition of censuring them under penalty
of fine, was based as much on his population policy as on
philanthropic grounds. (Preuss. Geschichte, Friedrich's M.,
II, 337.) Similarly in Sweden: _Schlözer_, V. W., V, 43. In
Iceland, after a great plague, even in the last century, it
was provided that it should be no disgrace to a young woman
to have as many as six illegitimate children. (_Zacchariä_,
Vierzig Bücher vom Staate, II, 112.) The marshal of Saxony
wished, in the interest of the recruiting of the army, that
marriages should be contracted only for a term of five
years. (Rêveries de Maurice, etc., 345.) The sterile women
of Egypt visit the Tantah, a place of pilgrimage and
fair-town, where, under the cloak of religion, they give
themselves up to unbridled and promiscuous intercourse.
(_Wachenhufen_, vom ägypt. armen Mann, II, 151 ff.)]

[Footnote 255-9: Even in the year 131 B. C., the censor
Metellus demanded that citizens should, for political
reasons be compelled to marry. (_Livy_, LIX, _Sueton._, Oct.
89.) _Aes uxorium_ for bachelors. (_Valer. Max._, II, 9, I.)
Cæsar distributed land by way of preference among those who
had three or more children. (_Sueton._, Cæs. 20.) Augustus'
celebrated Lex Julia et Papia Poppæa sought to urge even
widows to marry again in opposition to the moral public
conscience. (Partly augendo ærario: _Tacit._, Ann., III,
25.) _Dio Cass._, LVI, 1 ff. Trajan did more yet, inasmuch
as he gave great assistance to impoverished parents, even of
the highest classes, to enable them to educate their
children. _Sub te liberos tollere libet, expedit!_ (_Plin._,
Paneg., 26.) Of what little assistance all this really was,
_Tacitus_, Ann., III, 25, IV, 16, and _Plin._, Epist. IV,
15, bear witness. If, under the Cæsars, the damage done to
the childless in the case of inheritance was a frequent
motive of divorce (_Friedländer_, Sittengeschichte I, 389),
the L. Julia, in fact, operated in a direction contrary to
that in which it was intended to work.]