288 THE EEGULATION OF NUMBERS 



maintain the standard of living upon a certain area must be 

 obvious. It may be more or less definitely realized by each 

 individual ; it is also enshrined in the social conventions of such 

 people. The conditions in French rural districts have been much 

 studied, and there is a large amount of evidence pointing to the 

 conclusion that families are consciously limited owing to the 

 realization that large families are not economically advantageous. 

 Legal regulations and social customs as to the inheritance of 

 landed property are of considerable importance in France and 

 other countries in this connexion, but there is no space to enter 

 upon the subject here. The conditions are, generally speaking, 

 clear ; any one who is acquainted with the conditions of life 

 in the country districts of France, Switzerland, or Norway, for 

 instance, has probably observed what is going on. Somewhat as 

 has been described for the Middle Ages in England, the number 

 of houses, and consequently the number of families, is not increased. 

 Further, when marriage takes place the number of children is 

 clearly limited by considerations based on the economic conditions. 

 There is, of course, always an opportunity for the young people 

 to go to the towns and work for wages, and we must now ask 

 what the conditions are among the wage-earning classes. 



Hitherto, with the exception of the artisans of the Middle 

 Ages, we have always found men in groups of varying size support- 

 ing themselves upon a restricted area. In the case of the wage- 

 earners it is more difficult to understand how the desirability of 

 limitation can become translated into customs or habits whether 

 consciously or unconsciously followed, because, first, we are no 

 longer dealing with a small group confined in the knowledge of 

 all of them to a certain area, and, secondly, because restrictive 

 customs in the nature of taboos have little chance of establishing 

 themselves to-day. There are no restrictions of importance on 

 the entrance to various trades ; there is at least nothing com- 

 parable to the restrictions imposed by the guilds. A young man 

 of the wage-earning class finds no hindrance to marriage and 

 further finds that the maximum rate of earning he is ever likely 

 to attain to is within his grasp at an early age. Why therefore 

 should he not marry early ? Compared with the mediaeval period 

 he does marry early. As Rubin says, ' the journeymen and 

 servants of former times were as a rule unmarried, while in our 

 times skilled workmen and factory employees, on account of the 



