74 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



are at present two slight indications of the existence of 

 some biological adjusting factor in determining the 

 numerical proportions of the sexes in a community 

 where the birth-rate is not affected by artificial restric- 

 tion. In the first place, there is evidence to show that 

 the proportion of females born is somewhat increased 

 during years of plenty or among people and classes 

 who are habitually in possession of sufficient supplies 

 of food. In the second place, it appears that there is 

 a tendency for females to be born in the earlier years 

 of married life and for males to appear in the later 

 periods. 



If we accept the probability of the existence of these 

 two factors, which are said to have been observed in a 

 more marked form in primitive communities, it follows 

 that a nation may look to have a somewhat larger 

 number of women than men in its upper and more 

 prosperous classes. Whether, as has been suggested, 

 this superfluity of women indicates the possibility of 

 the population overtaking the supplies by means of 

 some form of polygamy such as is practised in simpler 

 forms of social organization it is not pertinent to 

 inquire, since we are dealing with civilization of a 

 different type. The second tendency for the female 

 births to precede the male births, in these days of 

 limited families, will also work in a similar direction, 

 and again tend to upset the numerical balance between 

 the two sexes. Adding to these two indications the 

 fact that the elder children of a family are somewhat 

 more liable to inherit the racial weakness a tendency 

 to crime, tubercular disease or feeble-mindedness 

 than the younger children, we have indications that our 



