There is very little reason to attribute this increase of population to an increase in the birth-rate. It is attributable rather to a decline in the death-rate, due partly to the advance of medical science, but much more, I think, to the rising level of prosperity brought about by the industrial revolution. From the year 1841, when the birth-rate began to be recorded in England, down to the years 1871-1875, the birth-rate was nearly constant, reaching, in the latter period, a maximum of 35.5. At this stage two events occurred. The first was the Education Act of 1870; the second, the prosecution of Bradlaugh for neo-Malthusian propaganda in 1878. One finds, accordingly, that the birth-rate declined from that moment onward, at first slowly and then catastrophically. The Education Act began to afford the motive, since children were no longer such a lucrative investment; and Bradlaugh afforded the means. In the quinquennial period 1911-1915, the birth-rate had fallen to 23.6. In the first quarter of 1929, it had fallen to 16.5. The population of England is still slowly increasing owing to improvements in medicine and hygiene, but it is rapidly approaching a stationary figure. (note: In the first quarter of 1929 it diminished, but this is to be attributed to the influenza epidemic. See Times, May 27, l929.) France, as everyone knows, has had a virtually stationary population for a considerable time.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-060.HTM
キリスト教は,それが信じられているところではどこでも,禁欲(注:continence 性欲の抑制)は別として,人口の増加を抑止するもの全てを終わらせた(に終止符を打った)(注:put an end to all checks)。嬰児殺しは,もちろん,禁止された。中絶も禁止された。また,いっさいの避妊の手段も禁止された。なるほど,聖職者(牧師や神父)や修道士や修道女は独身であった。しかし,中世のヨーロッパで彼らが人口に占めていた比率は,今日の英国で未婚女が占めている比率ほど大きなものであったとは思えない。それゆえ,彼ら(聖職者等)は,統計的に見て,人口の増加(fertility 繁殖)を抑制する重要なもの(要因)にはならなかった。従って,中世時代には,古代と比べて,多分,貧困(destitution 極貧)と疫病による死亡者数が多かったと思われる。
このようにして,19世紀の(1世紀)間の絶対増加数は,ノルマン征服(時)から19世紀初頭にいたるまでの増加数のほぼ4倍である(となっている)。しかも,イングランドとウェールズの人口の増加は,事実の姿(絵図)を十分に伝えていない。というのは,その期間中,イギリス民族は,以前は少数の未開人しか住んでいなかった,世界の広い地域に植民しつつあったからである。(was peopling large parts of the world)
Chapter XVII: Population, n.5
Christianity, wherever it was believed, put an end to all checks upon the growth of population except continence. Infanticide was, of course, forbidden ; so was abortion ; and so were all contraceptive measures. It is true that the clergy and the monks and nuns were celibate, but I do not suppose that in medieval Europe they formed so large a percentage of the population as unmarried women do in England at the present day. They did not, therefore, represent any statistically very important check upon fertility. Accordingly, in the Middle Ages, as compared with ancient times, there were probably a larger number of deaths caused by destitution and pestilence. The population increased very slowly. A slightly higher rate of increase marked the eighteenth century, but with the nineteenth century a quite extraordinary change took place, and the rate of growth reached a height which it had probably never attained before. It is estimated that in 1066 England and Wales contained 26 persons per square mile. In 1801 this figure had risen to 153; in 1901 it had risen to 561. The absolute increase during the nineteenth century is thus nearly four times as great as the increase from the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Nor does the increase of the population of England and Wales give an adequate picture of the facts, for during that period the British stock was peopling large parts of the world previously inhabited by a few savages.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-050.HTM
Starvation has, nevertheless, played a considerable part in keeping population down; not so much, perhaps, under quite primitive conditions as among agricultural peasant communities of a not very advanced type. The famine in Ireland in I846-7 was so severe that the population has never since attained anything like the level that it had reached before. Famines in Russia have been frequent, and that of 1921 is still fresh in the memory of everyone. When I was in China in I920, considerable portions of that country were suffering a famine quite as severe as the Russian famine of the following year, but the victims secured less sympathy than those of the Volga, because their misfortunes could not be attributed to Communism. Such facts show that population does sometimes increase up to and even beyond the limit of subsistence. This happens, however, especially where fluctuations are liable to diminish the amount of food suddenly and drastically.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-040.HTM
The great merit of Mr. Carr Saunders’s book on population consists in its pointing out that voluntary restriction has been practised in almost all ages and places, and has been more effective in preserving a stationary population than elimination through a high mortality. Possibly he somewhat overstates his case. In India and China, for example, it seems to be mainly the high death-rate which prevents the population from increasing very rapidly. In China statistics are lacking, but in India they exist. The birth-rate there is enormous, yet the population, as Mr. Carr Saunders himself points out, increases slightly more slowly than that of England. This is due mainly to infant mortality and plague and other grave diseases. I believe that China would show a similar state of affairs if statistics were available. In spite of these important exceptions, however, Mr. Carr Saunders’s thesis is undoubtedly true in the main. Various methods of limiting population have been practised. The simplest of these is infanticide, which has existed on a very large scale wherever religion has permitted it. Sometimes the practice has had such a firm hold that in accepting Christianity men have stipulated that it should not interfere with infanticide. (note: This happened, for example, in Iceland, Carr Saunders, Population, I925, p. I9.) The Dukhobors, who got into trouble with the Tsarist Government for their refusal of military service on the ground that human life is sacred, subsequently got into trouble with the Canadian Government for their tendency to the practice of infanticide. Other methods have, however, also been common. Among many races, a woman abstains from sexual intercourse not only during pregnancy, but during lactation, which is often prolonged for two or three years. This necessarily limits her fertility very considerably, especially among savages, who grow old much sooner than civilized races. The Australian aborigines practise an exceedingly painful operation which very much diminishes male potency and restricts fertility in a marked degree. As we know from Genesis,(note: Gen. xxxviii. 9, 10.) at least one definite birth-control method was known and practised in antiquity, although it was disapproved of by the Jews, whose religion was always very anti-Malthusian. By the use of these various devices, men escaped the wholesale deaths from starvation which would have occurred if they had used their fecundity to the utmost.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-020.HTM https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-030.HTM
自然の状態では,大型の哺乳動物は,生きていくために,一頭(一匹)あたり,かなり広い場所を必要とする。その結果,いかなる種類の大型の野生動物の総数は少ない。(比較的大型である)羊や牛の頭数(population 個体数/総数)はかなり多いが,それは人間の力が及んでいるからである(注:食用にするために人間が増やしているため/due to human egency 人間が仲介・世話をしているせい)。人間の数は,他のどの大型哺乳動物の数とも,まったく釣り合いがとれないくらい多い(多くなっている)。これは,もちろん,我々(人間の)技術によるものである。弓矢の発明,(牛などの)反芻動物の家畜化,農業の開始,そして産業革命,これらのすべてが一平方マイル当たりに生存できる人間の数を増加させた。統計からわかるように,以上の経済的な発展のうちの最後のもの(産業革命)が,この目的(人口増加)のために利用された。十中八九(in all likelihood),ほかの発展も同様であったであろう。人間の知能は,何かほかの一つの目的のためよりも(人口増加以外の目的以外よりも),人間の数を増やすことのために使われてきている(のである)。
Chapter XVII: Population, n.1
The main purpose of marriage is to replenish the human population of the globe. Some marriage systems perform this task inadequately, some too adequately. It is from this point of view that I wish to consider sexual morality in the present chapter.
In a state of nature, the larger mammals require a considerable area per head to keep themselves alive. Consequently, the total population of any species of large wild mammal is small. The population of sheep and cows is considerable, but that is due to human agency. The population of human beings is quite out of proportion to that of any other large mammal. This, of course, is due to our skill. The invention of bows and arrows, the domestication of ruminants, the beginnings of agriculture, and the industrial revolution, all of them increased the number of persons who could ,subsist on a square mile. The last of these economic advances, as we know from statistics, was utilized for this purpose ; in all likelihood the others were also. Man’s intelligence has been employed more to increase his numbers than for any other single purpose.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM17-010.HTM
The conclusion seems to be that, while divorce is too difficult in many countries, of which England is one, easy divorce does not afford a genuine solution of the marriage problem. If marriage is to continue, stability in marriage is important in the interests of the children, but this stability will be best sought by distinguishing between marriage and merely sexual relations, and by emphasizing the biological as opposed to the romantic aspect of married love. I do not pretend that marriage can be freed from onerous duties. In the system which I commend, men are freed, it is true, from the duty of sexual conjugal fidelity, but they have in exchange the duty of controlling jealousy. The good life cannot be lived without self-control, but it is better to control a restrictive and hostile emotion such as jealousy, rather than a generous and expansive emotion such as love. Conventional morality has erred, not in demanding self-control, but in demanding it in the wrong place.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM16-150.HTM
ここには,まず第一に,おそらく意図したものではないであろうが,ちょっとした言い間違い(誤った物言い)がある。もちろん,もう恋人同士ではない夫婦は,子供を(新たに)作ることに協力はしないだろう。しかし,リップマン氏もほのめかしているように(seems to imply),子供は,生まれた時になかったことにできるものではない(do with なしですます)。また,情熱的な愛があせた後でさえ,子供の養育に協力することは,自然な愛情を持つことのできる分別ある人たちにとっては,決して超人的な仕事ではない。このことについては,私が個人的に知っている数多くの事例から証言できる(証拠をあげることができる)。そのようなふた親が「ただ義務を果たすだけ」だろうと(リップマン氏が)言うのは,(子供に対する)親としての愛情という情緒を無視すること(そういう情緒はないと言うこと)になる。この情緒は,本物で強い場合には,(配偶者に対する)肉体的な情熱が冷めてしまったずっと後まで,夫婦間の断ち切れない絆を維持するのである。 リップマン氏は,フランスのこと(実情)を耳にしたことがないと考えざるをえない。フランスでは,姦通に関してはきわめて自由であるにもかかわらず,家族は強く,また,両親は非常に義務感にあふれている。家族感情は,アメリカでは極端に弱い。離婚が頻発するのは,この事実の結果である。家族感情が強いところでは,離婚は,たとえ法律的に容易であったとしても,比較的少ないだろう。
When marriage is conceived in relation to children, a quite different ethic comes into play. Thus husband and wife, if they have any love for their children, will so regulate their conduct as to give their children the best chance of a happy and healthy development. This may involve, at times, very considerable self-repression. And it certainly requires that both should realize the superiority of the claims of children to the claims of their own romantic emotions. But all this will happen of itself, and quite naturally, where parental affection is genuine and a false ethic does not inflame jealousy. There are some who say that if a husband and wife no longer love each other passionately, and do not prevent each other from sexual experiences outside marriage, it is impossible for them to co-operate adequately in the education of their children. Thus Mr. Walter Lippmann says : “Mates who are not lovers will not really co-operate, as Mr. Bertrand Russell thinks they should, in bearing children ; they will be distracted, insufficient, and worst of all, they will be merely dutiful.”(note: Preface to Morals, 1929, p. 308.) There is here, first of all, a minor, possibly unintentional, misstatement. Of course mates who are not lovers will not co-operate in bearing children ; but children are not done with when they are born, as Mr. Waiter Lippmann seems to imply. And to co-operate in rearing children, even after passionate love has decayed, is by no means a superhuman task for sensible people who are capable of the natural affections. To this I can testify from a large number of cases personally known to me. To say that such parents will be “merely dutiful” is to ignore the emotion of parental affection — an emotion which, where it is genuine and strong, preserves an unbreakable tie between husband and wife long after physical passion has decayed. One must suppose that Mr. Lippmann has never heard of France, where the family is strong, and parents very dutiful, in spite of an exceptional freedom in the matter of adultery. Family feeling is extremely weak in America, and the frequency of divorce is a consequence of this fact. Where family feeling is strong, divorce will be comparatively rare, even if it is legally easy. Easy divorce, as it exists in America, must be regarded as a transitional stage on the way from the bi-parental to the purely maternal family. It is, however, a stage involving considerable hardship for children, since in the world as it is, children expect to have two parents, and may become attached to their father before divorce takes place. So long as the bi-parental family continues to be the recognized rule, parents who divorce each other, except for grave cause, appear to me to be failing in their parental duty. I do not think that a legal compulsion to go on being married is likely to mend matters. What seems to me to be wanted is first, a degree of mutual liberty which will make marriage more endurable, and secondly, a realization of the importance of children, which has been overlaid by the emphasis on sex which we owe to St. Paul and the Romantic Movement.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM16-140.HTM
So much for the law of divorce ; the custom is another matter. As we have already seen, it is possible for the law to make divorce easy while, nevertheless, custom makes it rare. The great frequency of divorce in America comes, I think, partly from the fact that what people seek in marriage is not what should be sought, and this in turn is due partly to the fact that adultery is not tolerated. Marriage should be a partnership intended by both parties to last at least as long as the youth of their children, and not regarded by either as at the mercy of temporary amours. If such temporary amours are not tolerated by public opinion or by the consciences of those concerned, each in its turn has to blossom into a marriage. This may easily go so far as completely to destroy the bi-parental family, for if a woman has a fresh husband every two years, and a fresh child by each, the children in effect are deprived of their fathers, and marriage therefore loses its raison d’etre. We come back again to St. Paul: marriage in America, as in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, is conceived as an alternative to fornication ; therefore whenever a man would fornicate if he could not get a divorce, he must have a divorce.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM16-130.HTM
There is very great difficulty in framing laws as regards divorce, because Whatever the laws may be, judges and juries will be governed by their passions, while husbands and wives will do whatever may be necessary to circumvent the intentions of the legislators. Although in English law a divorce cannot be obtained where there is any agreement between husband and wife, yet everybody knows that in practice there often is such an agreement. In New York State it is not uncommon to go farther and hire perjured testimony to prove the statutory adultery. Cruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd. When the most eminent of all film-stars was divorced by his wife for cruelty, one of the counts in the proof of cruelty was that he used to bring home friends who talked about Kant. I can hardly suppose that it was the intention of the California legislators to enable any woman to divorce her husband on the ground that he was sometimes guilty of intelligent conversation in her presence. The only way out of these confusions, subterfuges, and absurdities is to have divorce by mutual consent in all cases where there is not some very definite and demonstrable reason, such as insanity, to justify a one-sided desire for divorce. The parties would then have to settle all monetary adjustments out of court, and it would not be necessary for either party to hire clever men to prove the other a monster of iniquity. I should add that nullity, which is now decreed where sexual intercourse is impossible, should instead be granted on application whenever the marriage is childless. That is to say, if a husband and wife who have no children wish to part, they should be able to do so on production of a medical certificate to the effect that the wife is not pregnant. Children are the purpose of marriage, and to hold people to a childless marriage is a cruel cheat.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM16-120.HTM
The grounds which may make divorce desirable are of two kinds. There are those due to the defects of one partner, such as insanity, dipsomania, and crime ; and there are those based upon the relations of the husband and wife. It may happen that, without blame to either party, it is impossible for a married couple to live together amicably, or without some very grave sacrifice. It may happen that each has important work to do, and that the work requires that they should live in different places. It may happen that one of them, without disliking the other, becomes deeply attached to some other person, so deeply as to feel the marriage an intolerable tie. In that case, if there is no legal redress, hatred is sure to spring up. Indeed, such cases, as everyone knows, are quite capable of leading to murder. Where a marriage breaks down owing to incompatibility or to an overwhelming passion on the part of one partner for some other person, there should not be, as there is at present, a determination to attach blame. For this reason, much the best ground of divorce in all such cases is mutual consent. Grounds other than mutual consent ought only to be required where the marriage has failed through some definite defect in one partner.
出典: Marriage and Morals, 1929.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/MM16-110.HTM