Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the familyKnight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Science
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family
Knight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Sex (Biology); Sex (Psychology); Taboo; Women
Among domestic animals this is made use of to multiply the better males
to the exclusion of the others, a valuable biological expedient which we
are denied in human groups because it would upset all our social
institutions. So we do the next best thing and make the males do more
than half in the extra-biological activities of society, since they are
by their structure prevented from having an equal share in the
reproductive burden. This is an absolutely necessary equation, and there
will always be some sort of division of labour on the basis of it.
Since reproduction is a group, not an individual, necessity, whatever
economic burden it entails must eventually be assumed by society and
divided up among the individuals, like the cost of war or any other
group activity. Ideally, then, from the standpoint of democracy, every
individual, male or female, should bear his share as a matter of course.
This attitude toward reproduction, as an individual duty but a group
economic burden, would lead to the solution of most of the problems
involved. Negative eugenics should be an immediate assumption--if the
state must pay for offspring, the quality will immediately begin to be
considered. A poor race-contribution, not worth paying for, would
certainly be prevented as far as possible.
Some well-meaning radical writers mistakenly suppose that the
emancipation of women means the withdrawal by the group of any interest
in, or any attempt to regulate, such things as the hours and conditions
of female labour. That would simply imply that the group takes no
interest in reproduction--in its own survival. For if the group does not
make some equation for the greater burden of reproduction upon women,
the inevitable result will be that that particular service will not be
rendered by those most desirable to be preserved.
Given the fundamental assumption that the group is to survive--to be
perpetuated by the one possible means--if it withdraws all solicitude
about the handicap this entails to women as a whole, introducing a
spirit of laissez-faire competition between men and women, the women
with sense enough to see the point will not encumber themselves with
children. For each one of these who has no children, some other woman
must have six instead of three. And some people encourage this in the
name of democracy!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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