Chapter 37

130McLennan,Studies in Ancient History, p. 75.

131See Westermarck,History of Human Marriage, p. 312sq.; and, besides the authorities there referred to, Dorsey, â€˜Omaha Sociology,â€™ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 369; Kirke,Twenty-five Years in British Guiana, p. 160; Chalmers,Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 163; Hodgson,Miscellaneous Essays, p. 123 (BÃ³do and DhimÃ¡ls); Baumann,Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle, p. 161 (Masai).

132Man, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xii. 329.

133Wied-Neuwied,op. cit.ii. 39. Keane, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xiii. 206.

134Powers,op. cit.pp. 192, 271, 382.

135Sarasin,Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, iii. 469, 539.

136Bridges, in a letter dated Downeast, Tierra del Fuego, August 28th, 1888.

137Fison and Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 134sqq.Cf.Farrer,Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 224; Sutherland,op. cit.i. 114sq.

138Cf.Darwin,Descent of Man, p. 594.

139Powers,op. cit.p. 207.Cf.ibid.p. 183.

140Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 249.

Where infanticide is not sanctioned by custom, the occasional commission of it has a tendency to call forth disapproval or excite horror. The Blackfeet are said to believe that women who have been guilty of this crime will never reach the happy mountain after death, but are compelled to hover round the seats of their crimes, with branches of trees tied to their legs.141Speaking of another North American tribe, the Potawatomis, Keating observes:â€”â€œIn a few instances, it is said that children born deformed have been destroyed by their mothers, but these instances are rare, and whenever discovered, uniformly bring them into disrepute, and are not unfrequently punished by some of the near relations. Independently of these cases, which are but rare, a few instances of infanticide, by single women, in order to conceal intrigue, have been heard of; but they are always treated with abhorrence.â€142Among the Omahas â€œparents had no right to put their children to death.â€143The Aleuts believed that a child-murder would bring misfortune on the whole village.144The Brazilian Macusis145and Botocudos146look upon the deed with horror. At Ulea,of the Caroline Islands, â€œthe prince would have the unnatural mother punished with death.â€147So, too, Herr Valdau tells us of a Bakundu woman who, accused of infanticide, was condemned to death.148In Ashanti a man is punished for the murder of his child.149Among the Gaika tribe, of the Kafirs, the killing of a child after birth is punishable as murder, the fine going to the chief.150Nay, even peoples among whom infanticide is habitual seem now and then to have a feeling that the act is not quite correct. Mr. Brough Smyth asserts that the Australian Black is himself ashamed of it;151and Mr. Curr has no doubt that he feels, in the commencement of his career at least, that infanticide is wrong, as also that its committal brings remorse.152

141Richardson, in Franklin,Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 77.

142Keating,op. cit.i. 99.

143Dorsey, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 268.

144Dall,op. cit.p. 399.

145Waitz,op. cit.iii. 391.

146Wied-Neuwied,op. cit.ii. 39.

147von Kotzebue,op. cit.iii. 211.

148Valdau, inYmer, v. 280.

149Bowdich,Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, p. 258.

150Maclean,Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 111.

151Brough Smyth,op. cit.i. 54.

152Curr,The Australian Race, i. 100.

The custom of infanticide in most cases requires that the child should be killed immediately or soon after its birth. Among certain North American Indians â€œthe right of destroying a child lasted only till it was a month old,â€ after which time the feeling of the tribe was against its death.153Ellis says of the Society Islanders:â€”â€œThe horrid act, if not committed at the time the infant entered the world, was not perpetrated at any subsequent periodâ€¦. If the little stranger was, from irresolution, the mingled emotions that struggled for mastery in its motherâ€™s bosom, or any other cause, suffered to live ten minutes or half an hour, it was safe; instead of a monsterâ€™s grasp, it received a motherâ€™s caress and a motherâ€™s smile, and was afterwards nursed with solicitude and tenderness.â€154Almost the same is said of other South Sea Islanders155and of tribes inhabiting the Australian continent.156That the custom of infanticide is generallyrestricted to the destruction of new-born babies also appears from various statements as to the parental love of those peoples who are addicted to this practice.157In Fiji â€œsuch children as are allowed to live are treated with a foolish fondness.â€158Among the Narrinyeri, â€œonly let it be determined that an infantâ€™s life shall be saved, and there are no bounds to the fondness and indulgence with which it is treatedâ€;159and with reference to other Australian tribes we are told that it is brought up with greater care than generally falls to the lot of children belonging to the poorer classes in Europe.160Among the Indians of the Pampas and other Indians of that neighbourhood, who abandon deformed or sickly-looking children to the wild dogs and birds of prey, an infant becomes, from the moment it is considered worthy to live, â€œthe object of the whole love of its parents, who, if necessary, will submit themselves to the greatest privations to satisfy its least wants or exactions.â€161In Madagascar, according to Ellis, â€œnothing can exceed the affection with which the infant is treated by its parents and other members of the family; the indulgence is more frequently carried to excess than otherwise.â€162From these and similar facts, as also from the general absence of statements to the contrary, I conclude that murders of children who have been allowed to survive their earliest infancy are very rare, though not quite unknown,163among the lower races.

153Schoolcraft, quoted by Sutherland,op. cit.i. 119.

154Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 255.

155Waitz-Gerland,op. cit.vi. 138, 139, 638. Angas,Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 313.

156Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 255. Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 51.Iidem,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 608.

157Seeinfra, p. 529sqq.; also Haberland,loc. cit.p. 29, and Sutherland,op. cit.i. 115sqq.

158Williams and Calvert,op. cit.p. 142.

159Taplin, in Woods,Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 15.

160Brough Smyth,op. cit.i. 51. Meyer, â€˜Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe,â€™ in Woods,Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 186.

161Guinnard,op. cit.p. 144.

162Ellis,History of Madagascar, i. 161.

163Among the Sandwich Islanders â€œthe infant, after living a week, a month, or even a year, was still insecure, as some were destroyed when able to walkâ€ (Ellis,Tour through Hawaii, p. 325). Among the Eskimo about Behring Strait, â€œgirls were often killed when from 4 to 6 years of ageâ€ (Nelson, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xviii. 289).

The custom of infanticide prevails, or has prevailed, not only in the savage world, but among semi-civilised andcivilised races. In the poorest districts of China female infants are often destroyed by their parents immediately after their birth, chiefly on account of poverty.164Though disapproved of by educated Chinese, the practice is treated with forbearance or indifference by the mass of the people, and is acquiesced in by the mandarins.165â€œWhen seriously appealed to on the subject,â€ says the Rev. J. Doolittle, â€œthough all deprecate it as contrary to the dictates of reason and the instincts of nature, many are ready boldly to apologise for it, and declare it to be necessary, especially in the families of the excessively poor.â€166However, infanticide is neither directly sanctioned by the government, nor agreeable to the general spirit of the laws and institutions of the Empire;167and it is prohibited both by Buddhism and Taouism.168According to Dr. de Groot, the belief that the spirits of the dead may, with authorisation of Heaven, take vengeance on the living, has a very salutary effect on female infanticide in China. â€œThe fear that the souls of the murdered little ones may bring misfortune, induces many a father or mother to lay the girls they are unwilling to bring up in the street for adoption into some family, or into a foundling-hospital.â€169

164Gutzlaff,Sketch of Chinese History, i. 59. Wells Williams,Middle Kingdom, ii. 240sqq.Douglas,Society in China, p. 354sqq.Doolittle,Social Life of the Chinese, ii. 206.

165Doolittle,op. cit.ii. 203, 208sq.Wells Williams,op. cit.i. 836; ii. 242. Douglas,Society in China, p. 354. Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 262.

166Doolittle,op. cit.ii. 208.

167Staunton, in his translation ofTa Tsing Leu Lee, p. 347 n. *

168ThÃ¢i Shang, 4. Giles,Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 377. Douglas,Confucianism and Taouism, p. 267.Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 164.

169de Groot,Religions System of China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 457sqq.

In ancient times the Semites, or at least some of them, not only practised infanticide, but, under certain circumstances, approved of it or regarded it as a duty. According to an ancient Arabic proverb, it was a generous deed to bury a female child;170and we read of Ê¿Oá¹£aim the Fazarite who did not dare to save alive his daughter LacÃ®á¹a, without concealing her from the people, although she was his only child.171Considering that among thenomads of Arabia, who suffer constantly from hunger during a great part of the year, a daughter is a burden to the poor, we may suppose, with Professor Robertson Smith, that â€œinfanticide was as natural to them as to other savage peoples in the hard struggle for life.â€172It was condemned, however, by the Prophet:â€”â€œSlay not your children for fear of poverty: we will provide for them; beware! for to slay them is ever a great sin.â€173In the Mosaic Law, on the other hand, infanticide is never touched upon, and, in all probability, it hardly occurred among the Hebrews in historic times. But we have reason to believe that, at an earlier period, among them as also among other branches of the Semitic race, child-murder was frequently practised as a sacrificial rite.174

170Freytag,Arabum Proverbia, i. 229.

171Robertson Smith,Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 293.

172Ibid.p. 294.

173Koran, xvii. 33; also,ibid.vi. 141, 152, and lxxxi. 8sq.

174Seeinfra, onHuman Sacrifice.

The murder of female infants, whether by the direct employment of homicidal means, or by exposure to privation and neglect, has for ages been a common practice, or even a genuine custom, among various Hindu castes.175Yet they are well aware that it is prohibited by their sacred books; according to the Laws of Manu, the King shall put to death â€œthose who slay women, infants, or BrÃ¢hmanas.â€176Even the Rajputs, whoâ€”out of family pride and owing to the expenses connected with the marriage ceremonyâ€”were particularly addicted to infanticide, considered that a family in which such a deed had been perpetrated was, in consequence, an object of divine displeasure. On the twelfth day, therefore, the family priest was sent for, and, by suitable gratuities, absolution was obtained. In the room where the infant was born and destroyed, he also prepared and ate some food with which the family provided him; this was considered ahom, or burnt offering, and, by eating it in that place, the priest was supposed to take the wholehutteea, or sin, upon himself, and to cleanse the family from it.177

175Wilkins,Modern Hinduism, 431. Chevers,Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India, p. 750sqq.

176Laws of Manu, ix. 232.

177â€˜Oude as it was before the Annexation,â€™ inChurch Missionary Intelligencer, xi. 81sq.

Exposure of new-born children was practised by the people of the Vedic age,178as also by other so-called Aryan peoples in ancient times.179The Teutonic father had to decide whether the child, whilst still lying on the ground, should be accepted as a member of the family, or whether it should be exposed. If he lifted it up, and some water was poured over it, or a drop of milk or honey passed its lips, it was generally safe. But apart from these restrictions, custom seems to have been in favour of exposure only under certain circumstances, exactly similar to those in which infanticide is practised among many modern savages: if the child was born out of wedlock, or if it was deformed or sickly, or if it was born on an unlucky day, or in case of twinsâ€”one of whom was always supposed to be illegitimateâ€”or if the parents were very poor. The exposed infant, however, was not necessarily destined to die, but was, in many cases, adopted by somebody who could afford to rear it.180

178Kaegi,Rigveda, p. 16.

179Strieker, â€˜Ethnographische Notizen Ã¼ber den Kindermord und die kÃ¼nstliche Fruchtabtreibung,â€™ inArchiv fÃ¼r Anthropologie, v. 451 (Celts and Slavs).

180Grimm,Deutsche RechtsalterthÃ¼mer, p. 455sq.Wilda,Strafrecht der Germanen, pp. 704, 725. Maurer,Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammesii. 181. Weinhold,Altnordisches Leben, p. 261. NordstrÃ¶m,Bidrag till den svenska samhÃ¤lls-fÃ¶rfattningens historia, ii. 44. Stemann,Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.â€™s Lov, p. 359.

The exposure of deformed or sickly infants was undoubtedly an ancient custom in Greece; in Sparta, at least, it was enjoined by law. It was also approved of by the most enlightened among the Greek philosophers. Plato condemns all those children who are imperfect in limbs, as also those who are born from depraved citizens, to be buried in some obscure and unknown place; he maintains, moreover, that when both sexes have passed the age assigned for presenting children to the State, no child is to be brought to light, and that any infant which is by accident born alive, shall be done away with.181Aristotle not only lays down the law with respect to the exposing or bringing up of children, that â€œnothing imperfect or maimed shall be brought up,â€ but proposes thatthe number of children allowed to each marriage shall be regulated by the State, and that, if any woman be pregnant after she has produced the prescribed number, an abortion shall be procured before the fetus has life.182These views were in perfect harmony with the general tendency of the Greeks to subordinate the feelings of the individual to the interest of the State. Confined as they were to a very limited territory, they were naturally afraid of being burdened with the maintenance of persons whose lives could be of no use. It is necessary, says Aristotle, to take care that the increase of the people should not exceed a certain number, in order to avoid poverty and its concomitants, sedition and other evils.183Yet the exposure of healthy infants, which was frequently practised in Greece, was hardly approved of by public opinion, although tolerated,184except at Thebes, where it was a crime punishable with death.185

181Plato,Respublica, v. 460sq.

182Aristotle,Politica, vii. 16, p. 1335.

183Ibid.ii. 6, p. 1265.

184Schmidt,Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 138, 463. Hermann-Blumner,Lehrbuch der griechischen PrivatalterthÃ¼mer, p. 77.

185Aelian,Varia HistoriÃ¦, ii. 7.

In Rome custom or law enjoined the destruction of deformed infants. According to a law of the Twelve Tables, referred to by Cicero, monstrous abortions were not suffered to live.186With reference to a much later period Seneca writes, â€œWe destroy monstrous births, and we also drown our children if they are born weakly or unnaturally formedâ€; he adds that it is an act of reason thus to separate what is useless from what is sound.187But there was no tendency in Rome to encourage infanticide beyond these limits. It has been observed that, whilst the Greek policy was rather to restrain, the Roman policy was always to encourage, population.188Being engaged in incessant wars of conquest, Rome was never afraid of being over-populated, but, on the contrary, tried to increase the number of its citizens by according special privileges to the fathers of many children, and exempting poor parents from mostof the burden of taxation.189The power of life and death which the Roman father possessed over his children undoubtedly involved the legal right of destroying or exposing new-born infants; but it is equally certain that the act was frequently disapproved of.190An ancient â€œlaw,â€ ascribed to Romulusâ€”which, as Mommsen suggests, could have been merely a priestly direction191â€”enjoined the father to bring up all his sons and at least his eldest daughter, and forbade him to destroy any well-formed child till it had completed its third year, when the affections of the parent might be supposed to be developed.192In later times we find the exposure of children condemned by poets, historians, philosophers, jurists. Among nefarious acts committed in sign of grief on the day when Germanicus died, Suetonius mentions the exposure of new-born babes.193Epictetus indignantly opposes the saying of Epicurus that men should not rear their children:â€”â€œEven a sheep will not desert its young, nor a wolf; and shall a man? â€˜What! will you have us to be silly creatures, like the sheep?â€™ Yet they desert not their young. â€˜Or savage, like wolves?â€™ Yet even they desert them not. Come, then, who would obey you if he saw his little child fall on the ground and cry?â€194Julius Paulus, the jurist, pronounced him who refused nourishment to his child, or exposed it in a public place, to be guilty of murder195â€”a statement which is to be understood, not as a legal prohibition of exposure, but only as the expression of a moral opinion.196On the other hand, though the exposure of healthy infants was disapproved of in Pagan Rome, it was not generally regarded as an offence of very great magnitude, especially if the parents were destitute.197During the Empire it was practised on an extensive scale, and in the literature of the time it is spoken of with frigid indifference. Since the life of the victim was frequently saved by some benevolent person or with a view to profit,198it was not regarded in the same light as downright infanticide, which, in the case of a healthy infant, seems to have been strictly prohibited by custom.199

186Cicero,De legibus, iii. 8.

187Seneca,De ira, i. 15.

188Lecky,History of European Morals, ii. 27.

189Montesquieu,De lâ€™esprit des lois, 20sqq.(Å’uvres, p. 398sqq.). Lecky,History of European Morals, ii. 27.

191Mommsen,RÃ¶misches Strafrecht, p. 619.

192Dionysius of Halicarnassus,Antiquitates RomanÃ¦, ii. 15.

193Suetonius,Caligula, 5.

194Epictetus,Dissertationes, i. 23.

195Digesta, xxv. 3. 4.

196Noodt, â€˜Julius Paulus, sive de partus expositione et nece apud veteres,â€™ inOpera omnia, i. 465sqq.Walter,Geschichte des RÃ¶mischen Rechts, Â§ 538, vol. ii. 148sq.Spangenberg, â€˜Verbrechen des Kindermords und der Aussetzung der Kinder,â€™ inNeues Archiv des Criminalrechts, iii. 10sqq.Mommsen,RÃ¶misches Strafrecht, p. 620, n. 1.

197Quintilian,Declamationes, 506. Plutarch,De amore prolis, 5.

199Mommsen,RÃ¶misches Strafrecht, p. 619.

As is generally the case in the savage world, so among semi-civilised and civilised nations whose customs allow or tolerate infanticide, the child, if not suffered to live, has to be killed in its earliest infancy. Among the Chinese200and Rajputs201it is destroyed immediately after its birth. In the Scandinavian North the killing or exposure of an infant who had already been sprinkled with water was regarded as murder.202At Athens parents were punished for exposing children whom they had once begun to rear.203

200Gutzlaff,op. cit.i. 59.

201Church Missionary Intelligencer, xi. 81. Chevers,op. cit.p. 752.

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