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Taboo and Genetics - A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by Melvin Moses Knight;Phyllis Mary Blanchard;Iva Lowther Peters
page 84 of 200 (42%)
find themselves so well adapted to modern conditions that they are even
moderately successful in the competition for material rewards, will
hardly find recompense thus for turning from their social to their
biological functions. To these highly individualized modern women must
be presented more cogent reasons for taking upon themselves the burden
of reproducing the group.

It is obvious that from just this energetic female stock we should
obtain a large part of the next generation if we are at all concerned
over the welfare of the group and its chances of survival. One
suggestion is that we may be able to turn their very individualism to
account and use it as a potent factor in the social control of their
reproductive activities. If we can demonstrate on the basis of sound
biological data that the bearing of children is necessary for the full
and complete development of the individual woman, physically and
mentally, we shall have gone a long way toward securing voluntary
motherhood. Only such argument will induce the highly individualized,
who may also be the most vital, woman to turn of her own accord from
competitive social activities to the performance of the biological
function for which she is specialized. This is especially true, as has
been intimated above, since contraceptive knowledge now permits the
exercise of sexual functions without the natural consequences, and the
avoidance of motherhood no longer involves the denial of expression to
the sexual urge.

Even if we are able to utilize this method of control, it will not
obtain the requisite number of offspring to maintain the eugenic quality
of the group, since the bearing of one or two children would be all that
individual development would require. If the group must have on the
average three children from each of its women in order to replace
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