The Catholic faith has sometimes gained credit for its religious vows; which by forbidding marriage to a certain number of indiyidu als, seemed to offer some opposition to an unlimited multiplication of the human species. But those who consider it thus, certainly do not understand another very important part of the legislation of casuists, with re gard to all that they have named the duties of husbands. Con sidering marriage as solely destined for multiplication, they have made a sin of the very virtues which they enforce on single persons. This morality is enforced by every con fessor on every father and mother of a family. The effects of it arc powerfully felt in the social organization of Ca tholic countries. They are met with even in reformed churches.
When fatal prejudices are not honoured; when a system of morality contrary to our true duties towards others, and above all towards those indebted to us for life, is not taught in the name of the most sacred authority, no wise man will marry till he is in a condition that affords him sure means of living, no father of a family will have more children than he can conveniently maintain.The latter expects that his children will be satisfied with the lot in which he has lived; hence he will wish the rising generation exactly to repre sent that which is departing ; he will wish that a son and a daughter arrived at the age of marriage, should fill the place of his father and his mother; that his children's children should fill his place and his wife's, in their turn; his daughter will find in another house exactly the lot which he will give to the daughter of another house in his own; and the income which satisfied the fathers will satis fy the children.
When once this family is formed, justice and humanity require that they submit to the same constraints which sin gle people undergo. On considering how small is the num ber of natural children in every country, it ought to be admitted that this constraint is sufficiently effectual. In a country where population cannot increase, where new places do not exist for new establishments, the father who has eight children should reckon either that six of his children will die young, or that three contemporary males and their contemporary females; or in the following ge neration three of his sons and three of his daughters will not marry on his account. There is no less injustice in the second calculation than cruelty in the first. If marriage is
sacred ; if it is one great means of attaching men to vir tue, and recompensing the chagrins of declining years, by the growing hopes of allowing an honourable old age to succeed an active youth, it is not because this institution renders lawful the pleasures of sense, but because it im poses new duties on the father of a family, and returns him the sweetest recompense in the ties of husband and father. Religious morality ought therefore to teach men, that marriage is made for all citizens equally; that it ig the ob ject towards which they should all direct their efforts; but that this object has not been attained except so far as they are able to fulfil their duties towards the beings whom they call into existence: and after obtaining the happiness of being fathers, alter renewing their families, and giving this stay and hope to their declining years, they are no less obliged to live chastely with their wives, than single per wns with such as do not belong to them.
Self-interest powerfully warns men against this indefinite multiplication of their families, to which they have been invited by so fatal a religious error, and no one ought to be disquieted if this order is observed remissly. In gene ral at least three births are required to give two such indi viduals as arrive at the age of marriage; and the niches of population are not so exactly formed, that they cannot by turns admit a little more and a little less. Only govern ment ought to awaken the prudence of citizens deficient in it, and never to deceive them by hopes of an independent lot, when this illusory establishment shall leave them ex posed to misery, suffering, and death.
When peasants are proprietors, the agricultural popula tion stops of itself, when it has brought about a division of the land, such that each family is invited to labour, and may live in comfortable circumstances. This is the case in almost all the Swiss cantons, which follow nothing but agriculture. When two or more sons are found in one fa mily, the younger do not marry till they can find wives who bring them some property. Till then, they work day labour, and live by means of it. But among peasant-cul tivators the trade of day-labour does not afford a rank ; and the workman who has nothing but his limbs, can rarely find a father imprudent enough to give him his daughter.