Sex and Society | Page 2

support of the theory that such a connection exists are the
following: Furriers testify that rich regions yield more furs from
females and poor regions more from males. In high altitudes, where
nutrition is scant, the birthrate of boys is high as compared with lower

altitudes in the same locality. Ploss has pointed out, for instance, that in
Saxony from 1847 to 1849 the yield of rye fell, and the birth-rate of
boys rose with the approach of high altitudes. More boys are born in
the country than in cities, because city diet is richer, especially in meat;
Düsing shows that in Prussia the numerical excess of boys is greatest in
the country districts, less in the villages, still less in the cities, and least
in Berlin.[6] In times of war, famine, and migration more boys are born,
and more are born also in poor than in well-to-do families. European
statistics show that when food-stuffs are high or scarce the number of
marriages diminishes, and in consequence a diminished number of
births follows, and a heightened percentage of boys; with the
recurrence of prosperity and an increased number of marriages and
births, the percentage of female births rises (though it never equals
numerically that of the males).[7] More children are born from
warm-weather than from cold-weather conceptions,[8] but relatively
more boys are born from cold-weather conceptions. Professor Axel
Key has shown from statistics of 18,000 Swedish school children that
from the end of November and the beginning of December until the end
of March or the middle of April, growth in children is feeble. From
July-August to November-December their daily increase in weight is
three times as great as during the winter months.[9] This is evidence in
confirmation of a connection between maleness, slow growth, and
either poor nutrition or cold weather, or both. Professor Key's
investigations[10] have also confirmed the well-known fact that
maturity is reached earlier in girls than in boys and have shown that in
respect of growth the ill-nourished girls follow the law of growth of the
boys. Growth is a function of nutrition, and puberty is a sign that
somatic growth is so far finished that the organism produces a surplus
of nutrition to be used in reproduction. Organically reproduction is also
a function of nutrition, and, as Spencer pointed out, is to be regarded as
discontinuous growth. The fact than an anabolic surplus, preparatory to
the katabolic process of reproduction, is stored at an earlier period in
the female than in the male, and that this period is retarded in the
ill-nourished female, is a confirmation of the view that femaleness is an
expression of the tendency to store nutriment, and explains also the
infantile somatic characters of woman. Finally, the fact that polyandry
is found almost exclusively in poor countries, coupled with the fact that

ethnologists uniformly report a scarcity of women in those countries,
permits us to attribute polyandry to a scarcity of women and scarcity of
women to poor food conditions.
This evidence should be considered in connection with the experiments
of Yung on tadpoles, of Siebold on wasps, and of Klebs on the
modification of male and female organs in plants:
According to Yung, tadpoles pass through an hermaphroditic stage, in
common, according to other authorities, with most animals.... When the
tadpoles were left to themselves, the females were rather in the
majority. In three lots the proportion of females to males was: 54-46,
61-39, 56-44. The average number of females was thus about
fifty-seven in the hundred. In the first brood, by feeding one set with
beef, Yung raised the percentage of females from 54 to 78: in the
second, with fish, the percentage rose from 61 to 81; while in the third
set, when the especially nutritious flesh of frogs was supplied, the
percentage rose from 56 to 92. That is to say, in the last case the result
of high feeding was that there were 92 females and 8 males.[11]
Similarly, the experiments of Siebold on wasps show that the
percentage of females increases from spring to August, and then
diminishes. We may conclude without scruple that the production of
females from fertilized ova increases with the temperature and food
supply, and decreases as these diminish.[12]
Nor are there many facts more significant than the simple and
well-known one that within the first eight days of larval life the
addition of food will determine the striking and functional differences
between worker and queen.[13]
It is certainly no mere chance, but agrees with other well-known facts,
that for the generation of the female organ more favorable external
circumstances must prevail, while the male organ may develop under
very much more unfavorable conditions.[14]
These facts are not conclusive, but they all point in the same direction,
and are probably sufficient to