Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1913-03-05
Sociological Studies Of the Family.
and Home.
p r. NJ. Magnuson, Phi. D.

s!t5Ss z.4 dUu t1UIIIc.
2. M: Magnuson, Phi. D.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. SUICIDE
The family exists primarily for the
children. Thus is the race perpetu-
ated. II for fifty years no children
were born, the human race would
cease to be. If the average number
OF children to a family should sink
to two or less, the human race were
doomed to extinction in few gem
erations.
But a century ago the opposite
danger worried economists. Nautilus,
a Scotch economist, asserted that the
human race tended to increase in a
geometric ratio, and the means of
subsistence at best in an arithmetic
ratio, and that hence if it were not
for war, pestilence and vice, the
world would soon be overpopulated,
and famished humanity would fight
over sustenance inevitably insult
fcient.
There is much to support this con
tention. The population Of the world
more than doubles every fifty years.
If this ratio Of increase keeps up
it's only question of time and of a
relatively short time until standing
room will be at a premium in this lit
tie world OF ours. To be sure the
world can support several times the
population it has at present, but
there is a limit. Malthusianism ap-
peared to our fathers as very real
and automatically certain danger.
But it appears such no longer. In
all civilized countries the rate Of in
crease Of the population is steadily
decreasing. In France the rate of
increase coming from the excess of
births over d aths has almost, if not
quite disappeared. And this in spite
Of the fact that the death rate has
been greatly reduced. It means that
the average number of children to
family is smaller than formerly.
II every person lived to maturity
and got married, an average Of two
children to every family would just
keep the population of the world
stationary in numbers. But as many
die before maturity and many adults
do not marry, it is evident that the
average must be more than two chill
dren to the family in order that the
human race may be maintained. At
the present average death rate at
least three children per family are
necessary to keep the population at
its present number.
Considerations like these have Civ
en- rise to the opposite fear. If the
birth rate keeps ON decreasing, the
human race faces extinction at a
comparatively early date. By refus-
ing to have children the race will
commit suicide. The family which
shirks the duty of raising it's neces-
sary quota Of children is guilty of
murder.
It must be admitted that race sui
eide and not Malthusian overpopula-
ton is the real danger for the human
race today. Now, what are the
causes Of the decrease Of the birth
rate today?
There are many theories, and most
have some truth in them. The rap
idly rising standard Of living and
universal education make the aver
age young man wish to live more ex-
pensively, 'Ebetter," than his father.
That means that he tries to rise to
a higher economic level than that on
which he was born. To do this he
must remain single through a good
many Of his mature years to "make
his pile' or get the salary on which
he can marry and maintain a family
in this expensive fashion. Women
in our day can make a good living as
bachelor girl, and she hesitates to
become poor mans wife and skimp
and save and toll harder and for less
economic rewards than if she re-
mains single. In fact, usually she
doesn't hesitate, she refuses. AS one
expressed it, she did not wish'to give
up a fifty dollar job for a ten dollar
man.
It is also believed by many that
modern life has become so artificial
that the human race is threatened by