RACE SUICIDE IN THE UNITED STATES 215 



bearing on the part of a steadily increasing numl^er of married 

 people, who not only prefer to have but few children, but who 

 know how to obtain their wish. The reasons for this are 

 numerous, but I will mention only three. 



'The first is the diffusion of information with regard to the 

 subject of generation by means of popular and school treatises 

 on physiology and hj^giene, which diffusion began l^etween 

 thirty and forty years ago. Girls of 20 years of age at the 

 present day know much more about anatomy and physiology 

 than did their grandmothers at the same age, and the married 

 women are much better informed as to the means by which the 

 number of children may be limited than were those of thirty 

 years ago. To some extent this may also be true as regards 

 the young men, but I do not think this is an important factor. 



''The second cause has been the growth of the opinion that 

 the abstaining from having children on the part of a married 

 couple is not only not in itself sinful, or contrary to the usual 

 forms of religious creeds, but that it may even be under certain 

 circumstances commendable. 



"The third cause is the great increase in the use of things 

 which were formerly considered as luxuries, but which now 

 have become almost necessities. The greater temptations 

 to expenditure for the purpose of securing or maintaining social 

 position, and the correspondingly greater cost of family life in 

 what may be called the lower middle classes, lead to the desire 

 to have fewer children in order that they may be each better 

 provided for, or perhaps, in some cases, from the purely selfish 

 motive of desire to avoid care and trouble and of having more 

 to spend on social pleasures. 



"In the struggle for what is deemed a desirable mode of 

 existence at the present day, marriage is being held less de- 

 sirable, and its bonds less sacred, than they were forty years 

 ago. Young women are gradually being imbued w^ith the 

 idea that marriage and motherhood are not to be their chief 

 objects in life, or the sole methods of obtaining subsistence; 

 that they should aim at being independent of possible or actual 

 husbands, and should fit themselves to earn their own living in 

 some one of the many ways in which females are beginning to 

 find increasing sources of remunerative employment; that 



