Fear of Fertility Decline

By the close of the nineteenth century observers in both Britain and the United States recognized that birth rates were dropping, particularly within the upper class. Efforts to discourage female selfishness began to take the form of exhortations to bear more children.

That the education of women seemed to lower their desired number of children seemed, well, unfortunate. ‘‘If child-bearing women must be intel­lectually handicapped,” wrote Pearson, in a rather ominous hypothetical, ‘‘then the penalty to be paid for race-predominance is the subjection of women.”⁴ In 1908, the Secretary of the British National Birth Rate Com­mission proclaimed that the difference between the number of cradles and the number of coffins would determine ‘‘the existence and persistence of our Empire.’’⁵ Alfred Marshall explained that fertility decline was attributable partly to a ‘‘selfish desire among women to resemble men,’’ and suggested that a ‘‘national protest against the restriction of births from selfish motives’’ might help.⁶ Petitions were circulated stipulating that only women who had borne at least four children should be allowed the vote.⁷

Fertility decline had begun even earlier and spread more rapidly in France. Prominent conservatives there joined with politicians to counter the effects of liberal individualistic policies and encourage population growth, a prescription in keeping with Catholic dictates from the Pope. Feminist activists blamed male egoism—their reluctance to support chil­dren—for the problem, and suggested mothers should go on strike to demand more public support for their efforts.

In the United States, the reproductive reluctance of white American-born women took center stage. The eminent political economist Francis Walker 2JO GREED, LUST & GENDER argued that economic competition from immigrants was undermining the desire and ability of true Americans to reproduce themselves.⁹ Eugenic analysis quickly penetrated mainstream economics journals. An article published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1900 ridiculed those who believed that inherited racial differences were unimportant, and concluded that the ambitious classes should be encouraged to reproduce.¹⁰

President Theodore Roosevelt publicized his fears regarding ‘‘race sui­cide” in the Ladies Home Journal in 1906. Explaining that married women needed to bear at least four children a piece to maintain the population he attributed the waning performance of ‘‘old New England stock” partly to the ‘‘highly welcome emancipation of woman” but went on to explain that ‘‘this new freedom has been twisted into wrong where it has been taken to mean a relief from all those duties and obligations which, though burden­some in the extreme, women cannot expect to escape.’’¹¹ Roosevelt was wrong. Many women ardently hoped and expected to escape the burdens or rearing four or more children. Some began to support policies that would help them do just that.