t sterile, less fecund, than other women in the United States. Why?

In answer, various physiological causes are often alleged. It is said
that the dissemination of venereal diseases has caused an increase of
sterility; that luxurious living lowers fecundity, and so on. It is
impossible to take the time to analyze the many explanations of this
sort which have been offered, and which are familiar to the reader; we
must content ourselves with saying that evidence of a great many kinds,
largely statistical and, in our opinion, reliable, indicates that
physiological causes play a minor part in the decrease of the
birth-rate.[125]

Or, plainly, women no longer bear as many children, because they don't
want to.

This accords with Dr. Cattel's inquiry of 461 American men of science;
in 285 cases it was stated that the family was voluntarily limited, the
cause being given as health in 133 cases, expense in 98 cases, and
various in 54 cases. Sidney Webb's investigation among "intellectuals"
in London showed an even greater proportion of voluntary limitation. The
exhaustive investigation of the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics
leaves little room for doubt that in England the decline in the
birth-rate began about 1876-78, when the trial of Charles Bradlaugh and
the Theosophist leader, Mrs. Annie Besant, on the charge of circulating
"neo-Malthusian" literature, focused public attention on the
possibility of birth control, and gradually brought a knowledge of the
means of contraception within reach of many. In the United States
statistics are lacking, but medical men and others in a position to form
opinions generally agree that the limitation of births has been steadily
increasing for the last few decades; and with the propaganda at present
going on, it is pretty sure to increase much more rapidly during the
next decade or two.

Some instructive results can be drawn, in this connection, from a study
of the families of Methodist clergymen in the United States.[126]
Although 98 out of every hundred of them marry, and they marry early,
the birth-rate is not high. Its distribution is presented in the
accompanying graph (Fig. 38). It is evident that they have tended to
standardize the two-child family which is so much in evidence among
college professors and educated classes generally, all over the world.
The presence of a considerable number of large families raises the
average number of surviving children of prominent Method