The evidence is conclusive as regards the large family of the
wage-worker. Social workers, physicians and reformers cry out to stop the
breeding of these, who must exist in want until they become permanent
members of the ranks of the unfit.
But what of the family of the wealthy or the merely well-to-do? It is
among these classes that we find the women who have attained to
voluntary motherhood. It is to these classes, too, that the "race
suicide" alarmists have from time to time addressed specially
emphasized pleas for more children. The advocates of more prolific
breeding urge that these same women have more intelligence, better
health, more time to care for children and more means to support them.
They therefore declare that it is the duty of such women to populate
the land with strong, healthy, intelligent offspring--to bear children
in great numbers.
It is high time to expose the sheer foolishness of this argument. The
first absurdity is that the women who are in comfortable circumstances
could continue to be cultured and of social value if they were the
mothers of large families. Neither could they maintain their present
standard of health nor impart it to their children.
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