Woman and the New Race | Page 5

the one possible
exception to this practice, because the Mosaic law, as it has come down
to us, is silent upon the subject. Westermark is of the opinion that it
"hardly occurred among the Hebrews in historic times. But we have
reason to believe that at an earlier period, among them, as among other
branches of the Semitic race, child murder was frequently practiced as
a sacrificial rite."

Westermark found that "the murder of female infants, whether by the
direct employment of homicidal means, or exposure to privation and
neglect, has for ages been a common practice or even a genuine custom
among various Hindu castes."
Still further light is shed upon the real sources of the practice, as well
as upon the improvement of the status of woman through the practice,
by an English student of conditions in India. Captain S. Charles
MacPherson, of the Madras Army, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society for 1852, said: "I can here but very briefly advert to the
customs and feelings which the practice of infanticide (among the
Khonds of Orissa) alternately springs from and produces. The influence
and privileges of women are exceedingly great among the Khonds, and
are, I believe, greatest among the tribes which practice infanticide.
Their opinions have great weight in all public and private affairs; their
direct participation is often considered essential in the former."
If infanticide did not spring from a desire within the woman herself,
from a desire stronger than motherhood, would it prevail where women
enjoy an influence equal to that of men? And does not the fact that the
women in question do enjoy such influence, point unmistakably to the
motive behind the practice?
Infanticide did not go out of fashion with the advance from savagery to
barbarism and civilization. Rather, it became, as in Greece and Rome, a
recognized custom with advocates among leaders of thought and
action.
So did abortion, which some authorities regard as a development
springing from infanticide and tending to supersede it as a means of
getting rid of undesired children.
As progress is made toward civilization, infanticide, then, actually
increased. This tendency was noted by Westermark, who also calls
attention to the conclusions of Fison and Howitt (in Kamilaroi and
Kurnai). "Mr. Fison who has lived for a long time among uncivilized
races," says Westermark, "thinks it will be found that infanticide is far
less common among the lower savages than among the more advanced

tribes."
Following this same tendency into civilized countries, we find
infanticide either advocated by philosophers and authorized by law, as
in Greece and Rome, or widely practiced in spite of the law, civil and
ecclesiastical.
The status of infanticide as an established, legalized custom in Greece,
is well summed up by Westermark, who says: "The exposure of
deformed or sickly infants was undoubtedly an ancient custom in
Greece; in Sparta, at least, it was enjoined by law. It was also approved
of by the most enlightened among the Greek philosophers. Plato
condemns all those children who are imperfect in limbs as well as those
who are born of depraved citizens."
Aristotle, who believed that the state should fix the number of children
each married pair should have, has this to say in _Politics_, Book VII,
Chapter V
:
"With respect to the exposing and nurturing of children, let it be a law
that nothing mutilated shall be nurtured. And in order to avoid having
too great a number of children, if it be not permitted by the laws of the
country to expose them, it is then requisite to define how many a man
may have; and if any have more than the prescribed number, some
means must be adopted that the fruit be destroyed in the womb of the
mother before sense and life are generated in it."
Aristotle was a conscious advocate of family limitation even if attained
by violent means. "It is necessary," he says, "to take care that the
increase of the people should not exceed a certain number in order to
avoid poverty and its concomitants, sedition and other evils."
In Athens, while the citizen wives were unable to throw off the
restrictions of the laws which kept them at home, the great number of
_hetera_, or stranger women, were the glory of the "Golden Age." The
homes of these women who were free from the burden of too many
children became the gathering places of philosophers, poets, sculptors

and statesmen. The hetera were their companions, their inspiration and
their teachers. Aspasia, one of the greatest women of antiquity, was
such an emancipated individuality. True to the urge of the feminine
spirit, she, like Sappho, the poetess of Lesbia, sought to arouse the
Greek wives to the expression of their individual selves. One writer
says of her efforts: