In warmer latitudes, by the different temperament, perhaps, which the
climate bestows, and by a greater facility in procuring subsistence, the
numbers of mankind increase, while the object itself is neglected; and the
commerce of the sexes, without any concern for population, is made a
subject of mere debauch. In some places, we are told, it is even made the
object of a barbarous policy, to defeat or to restrain the intentions of
nature. In the island of Formosa, the males are prohibited to marry before
the age of forty; and females, if pregnant before the age of thirty six,
have an abortion procured by order of the magistrate, who employs a
violence that endangers the life of the mother, together with that of the
child. [Footnote: Collection of Dutch Voyages.]
In China the permission given to parents to kill or to expose their
children, was probably meant as a relief from the burden of a numerous
offspring. But notwithstanding what we hear of a practice so repugnant to
the human heart, it has not, probably, the effects in restraining; which it
seems to threaten; but, like many other institutions, has an influence the
reverse of what it seemed to portend.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268