Were such continence to be practiced, there is no
doubt that it would be a most effective check upon the birth rate. It
is seldom practiced, however, and when adhered to under compulsion the
usual result is injury to the nervous system and to the general
health. Among healthy persons, this method is practicable only with
those who have a degree of mentally controlled development as yet
neither often experienced nor even imagined by the mass of humanity.
Absolute continence was the ideal of the early Christian church for
all of its communicants, as shall be seen in another chapter. We shall
also see how the church abandoned this standard and now confines the
doctrine of celibacy to the unmarried, to the priesthood and the nuns.
Celibacy has been practiced in all ages by a few artists,
propagandists and revolutionists in order that their minds may be
single to the work which has claimed their lives and all the forces of
their beings may be bent in one direction. Sometimes, too, such
persons have remained celibate to avoid the burden of caring for a
family.
The Rev. Dr. Thomas Robert Malthus, who in 1798 issued the first of
those works which exemplified what is called the Malthusian doctrine,
also advocated celibacy or absolute continence until middle age.
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