i 7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PLAIN WORDS ON THE WOMAN QUESTION. 



By GRANT ALLEN. 



IF any species or race desires a continued existence, then above 

 all things it is necessary that that species or race should go 

 on reproducing itself. 



This, I am aware, is an obvious platitude ; but I think it was 

 John Stuart Mill who once said there were such things in the 

 world as luminous platitudes. Some truths are so often taken for 

 granted in silence, that we are in danger at times of quite losing 

 sight of them. And as some good friends of mine have lately been 

 accusing me of " barren paradoxes," I am anxious in this paper to 

 avoid all appearance of paradox, barren or fertile, and to confine 

 myself strictly to the merest truisms. Though the truisms, to be 

 sure, are of a particular sort too much overlooked in controversy 

 nowadays by a certain type of modern lady writers. 



Let us look then briefly at the needful conditions under which 

 alone the human race can go on reproducing itself. 



If every woman married, and every woman had four children, 

 population would remain just stationary. Or rather, if every mar- 

 riageable adult man and woman in a given community were to 

 marry, and if every marriage proved fertile, on the average, to the 

 extent of four children, then, under favorable circumstances, that 

 community, I take it, would just keep up its numbers, neither 

 increasing nor decreasing from generation to generation. If less 

 than all the adult men and women married, or if the marriages 

 proved fertile on the average to a less degree than four children 

 apiece, then that community would grow smaller and smaller. In 

 order that the community may keep up to its normal level, there- 

 fore, either all adults must marry and produce to this extent, or 

 else, fewer marrying, those few must have families exceeding on 

 the average four children, in exact proportion to the rate of ab- 

 stention. And if the community is to increase (which on Dar- 

 winian principles I believe to be a condition precedent of national 

 health and vigor), then either all adults must marry and produce 

 more than four children apiece, or else, fewer marrying, those 

 few must produce as many more as will compensate for the ab- 

 stention of the remainder and form a small surplus in each 

 generation. 



In Britain, at the present day, I believe I am right in deducing 

 (after Mr. F. Galton) that an average of about six children per 

 marriage (not per head of female inhabitants) is necessary in order 

 to keep the population just stationary. And the actual number 

 of children per marriage is a little in excess of even that high 



