HISTOKICAL KACES 263 



regards these factors there are certain important differences as 

 between what we may call mediaeval and modern races. 



Of pre-puberty intercourse there is no evidence. Among 

 modern races it is certainly negligible. If it occurred at all in 

 the mediaeval period it was very uncommon, and we may there- 

 fore regard this factor as of no account. Hitherto we have found 

 that, though far from being universal, it is a fairly common practice. 

 Its disappearance thus makes one distinction between these races 

 and those which we have previously studied. 



The length of the suckling period marks a similar distinction. 

 It is not possible to lay down any hard and fast distinction ; 

 even at the present day in certain country districts it is prolonged, 

 as, for instance, in Hungary for several years according to Gonezi. 1 

 Generally speaking, however, the tendency has been for a reduction 

 to the conditions which now rule in Western Europe. 



14. A far more remarkable difference between these races and 

 those hitherto considered is provided by the conditions regarding 

 celibacy and the postponement of marriage. Hitherto we have 

 found that, with the exception of a very few individuals who 

 chiefly for religious reasons did not marry, all women, if indeed 

 not married before puberty, got married soon after. Such 

 postponement of marriage as occurred was confined to men, and 

 therefore neither celibacy nor postponement had any effect upon 

 numbers. At this point we come upon wholly new conditions. 



The views of St. Paul with regard to marriage are well known 

 and the attitude of all early Christians authors is similar though 

 usually more pronounced. If marriage was tolerable, virginity 

 was in any case preferable. ' For why ', says Tertullian, ' should 

 we long to bear children, whom, when we have them, we desire 

 to send before us ... ourselves also longing to be removed from 

 this most wicked world. . . . Therefore whether marriage be for 

 the sake of the flesh, or of the world or of having descendants, not 

 one of these necessities belongeth to the servants of God.' 2 Such 

 a passage as this can be paralleled in the works of almost any of 

 the Fathers. They return to the subject over and over again. 

 St. Augustine did not avoid the practical difficulty. * But 1 am 

 aware', he says, 'of some that murmur. What, say they, if all 

 men should abstain from sexual intercourse, whence will the 



1 Gonezi, ' Die auf die Geburt und das Saugen der Kinder bezughabenden 

 Gebrauche ', Zentralblatt fur Anthropologie, vol. xii. - 2 Tertullian, First Book 



to His Wife, p. 414. 



