BIRTH-RATE DECLINE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

BIRTH-RATE DECLINE

WILL POLGAMY HAVE TO BE COUNTENANCED? THE suggestion that polygamy might one day have to be countenanced as a remedy for the declining birth-rate was made by Mr W. H. Phillip, the retiring president of the Association of Registrars of Scotland, at the association’s annual meeting in Dundee. Remarking that the birth-rate for Scotland in 1933 was the lowest on record, Mr Phillip said: “It is generally agreed that the declining birth-rate is mainly due to a decrease in the number of children in the upper and middle-class families, and one of the causes is undoubtedly the modern fashion of later marriages. “Most women eagerly embrace marriage and maternity as a career and the bearing and rearing of a family of healthy and intelligent children is the utmost social service which the normal woman can oerform; but if by any chance in the future the population were reduced by one half, then, regrettable though it might to some appear, would public opinion countenance and perhaps insist on some form of polygamy until the balance of the population was restored?”