210 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



sinks, the age of marriage rises, the birth-rate declines. 

 There is often an element of selfishness in this, especially 

 when the demands of sex are met outside of matrimony, 

 but it would be quite erroneous to write down the post- 

 ponement of marriage as necessarily selfish. It would 

 be equally erroneous to sum up a certain type of 

 marriage, at various levels of society from working-man 

 to financier, as having merely an economic basis. All 

 these phenomena are complex resultants. In past 

 times at certain levels the child used to be regarded as 

 a savings-bank from which the parents could draw 

 early ; if children are nowadays regarded as invest- 

 ments it is only on the understanding that they cannot 

 yield a rapid return. Consciously or subconsciously 

 the economic consideration lingers, but it has not the 

 force that misery lent it in worst days of unregulated 

 industrialism. A new consideration has arisen. There 

 is a heightened appreciation of the value of human life : 

 the child is more precious. What influences many 

 parents, who have had a hard fight themselves, is the 

 fear of being responsible for many children — especially 

 girls who will have to face a similar struggle for existence. 

 This fear may indicate timidity, but it is certainly not 

 selfish. Many, again, resent the wearing down of the 

 mother's health with too frequent births ; and the 

 predominantly maternal and domestic role in which our 

 grandmothers were happy and admirable (and quite 

 as clever as their grandchildren) will not do nowadays. 

 But just as prudence, commendable up to a limit, 

 may pass, on the minus side, into a non-mammalian 



