INFANTICIDE, the murder of an infant born alive; the killing of a young or newly-born child. The practice of de stroying a portion of the offspring—in the majority of cases, the female chil dren—among certain nations or tribes, appeared in the earliest times, and still lingers among some undeveloped races. Lubbock thus accounts for female infan ticide: "Girls ate, and did not hunt. They weakened their mothers when young, and when grown up were a temp tation to surrounding tribes"; but de clines to accept the practice "as the true cause of exogamy." In Sparta it was used as one means of securing what Spencer calls the "survival of the fit test," and was defended by Plato and Aristotle.
The murder by high caste Rajpoots in India of their female children, once most extensive, arose from pride of caste. Public opinion requiring the father to expend an extravagant sum on his daughter's marriage and dowry if she lived, he considered it more economic to have her put to death in infancy. To
British remonstrance the answer was, "Pay our daughters' marriage portions, and they shall live." The government took a different method—it imposed on a father sanctioning the murder of his in fant .child an enormous fine, and the practice soon ceased.
Tall lately some of the aboriginal tribes, especially the Khoonds, sacrificed children as votive offerings to the Earth goddess. The Anglo-Indian government was for a long time unable to put dovrn the practice, but the persistent kidnap ping of native children from British-In dian soil having furnished a casus belli, war was declared against the Khoonds, who by the treaty of peace were required to give up female infanticide.