登陆注册
15450300000050

第50章 Chapter 7(6)

When once this family is formed, justice and humanity require that they submit to the same constraints which single people undergo. On considering how small is the number 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 generation 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 virtue, 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 imposes 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 is the object 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, after 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 persons 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 general at least three births are required to give two such individuals 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 government 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 exposed to misery, suffering, and death.

When peasants are proprietors, the agricultural population 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 family, 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-cultivators, 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.

When the land, instead of being cultivated by its proprietors, is cultivated by farmers, metayers, day-labourers, the condition of the latter classes becomes more precarious, and their multiplication is not so necessarily adjusted to the demand for their labour. They are far worse informed than the peasant-proprietor, and yet they are called to perform a much more complicated calculation. Living under the risk of being dismissed at a day' s notice from the land they till, it is less a question with them what this land will give, than what is their chance of being employed elsewhere. They calculate probabilities in place of certainties, and commit themselves to fortune with regard to what they cannot investigate. They depend on being happy; they marry much younger; they bring into the world many more children, precisely because they know less distinctly how those children are to be established.

Thus metayers, day-labourers. all peasants depending on a master, being more imperfectly able to judge of their situation by themselves, ought to be guided and protected by government.

Landed proprietors wield all the force of monopoly against them; whilst day-labourers, acting in competition with each other, are finally reduced to work for the most wretched subsistence. Those measures are wise, therefore, which have been adopted by legislators to fix the minimum share that should fall to each peasant. It would, in general, be a beneficent law which should permit no division of a metairie below a certain limit, no reduction below a half on the metayer's part. It is a beneficent law which has fixed the peasant's lot in Austria; a law which should invariably fix the Russian peasant's capitation to his landlord, would be equivalent to an emancipation from serfage, and free from all the convulsions of such a step. The Russian nation could not, perhaps, receive a greater benefit from its government. The statute of Elizabeth, in fine, was wise in prohibiting a cottage from being built without at least four acres of land being allotted to it. Had this law been executed in England and Ireland, no marriage could have happened among day-labourers without a cottage to shelter the family, no cottager would have been reduced to the last degree of penury.

The industrious population which inhabit towns have still fewer data than those of the country, for calculating the lot of the succeeding generation. The workman knows only that he has lived by his labour; he naturally believes that his children will do so likewise. How can he judge of the extent of the market, or the general demand for labour in his country, whilst the master who employs him is incessantly mistaken on these points?

同类推荐
  • 本草择要纲目

    本草择要纲目

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 凤洲杂编

    凤洲杂编

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 莅蒙平政录

    莅蒙平政录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 卷施阁文乙集

    卷施阁文乙集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 寓圃雜記

    寓圃雜記

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 千玺,我是你的拽妃

    千玺,我是你的拽妃

    林语曦:“既来之则安之。易烊千玺,怎么说我也是你的正牌王妃,面子一定要给足我,否则丢的也是你的脸。”易烊千玺:“夫人,你要我给足你面子,那你就要先给足我面子,难道你还要休了我?哈哈”
  • 彼岸无岸

    彼岸无岸

    人面桃花春不负,灼灼衣袂为君舞。我愿给你我的所有,这不是承诺,这是爱的守候……
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 百变小农民

    百变小农民

    一张皮纸,舞动乾坤。画里画外,屌丝称雄。一个穷屌丝,处处遭人白眼,时时被人算计。但是——没眼的耗子天照顾,得到了一张百变图之后,穷屌丝的生活开始了逆袭。神医,神算,神功,要啥有啥,想啥来啥。小看我的人,我看着你病死。算计我的人,我把你咒死。欺压我的人,绝不让你好死。
  • 笛泪

    笛泪

    裁云落影空遗恨,玉笛吹雪暗梅生。他,遗弃于家族,收养于朝廷,潜伏在武林。十五年后,伊人已嫁,暗梅独香,他倚剑独醉,剑指何方?她,一笛梅落,一曲雪舞,玉容娇嫩,春风拂柳。那么多年,多重身份,一种人生,她想笑,却总在黑夜杀人后哭。家族、朝廷、武林、侠义……谁落无情泪,一曲清秋远?
  • 血染彼岸:灵之幻暝约

    血染彼岸:灵之幻暝约

    彼岸花又名曼珠沙华,它的花语――无尽的爱情,死亡的前兆,地狱的召唤。世人只知道事情的表面,但又有谁会发现他们,相见,相识,相爱的经历。莫忘幽要走开一小会的时候~”幽儿,我们拉钩钩保证......“"……"幼不幼稚啊你!我又不是不回来了!海枯石烂心不变,是他们之间的承诺。上穷碧落下黄泉,代表那永恒的誓言。PS:小米欢迎所有人跳坑(?>ω<*?)
  • 花千骨之双生爱恋

    花千骨之双生爱恋

    花千骨苏醒了,因此,冰清界复苏!这次,花千骨和花千骨的孪生妹妹~花千莹,会发生怎么样的事情呢?
  • 万里江山,明日天涯

    万里江山,明日天涯

    机智的软妹:【师兄师兄,我喜欢上了一个男生!】三千:【哦?谁?】机智的软妹:【咱们师门的一个汉子!=3=他又萌又蠢,可棒了!】三千:【那你去告白啊。】机智的软妹:【QWQ我怕他不答应我怎么办!】三千:【仇杀他,悬赏他,让他在A服呆不下去!】机智的软妹:【QWQ我打不过他啊!】三千:【那师兄替你打。】机智的软妹:【……真的么?】三千:【恩。】机智的软妹:【那……师兄。】三千:【恩?】机智的软妹:【师兄我喜欢你!我们在一起吧!】三千:【……】机智的软妹:【师兄你敢不同意么!】三千:【其实,我从来就没打算拒绝你。】
  • 禁忌游戏:与恶魔缠绵较量

    禁忌游戏:与恶魔缠绵较量

    灰姑娘被王子钦点入豪门,可新婚夜王子变身恶魔,她惨遭蹂躏。决心报复,却发现他眼里浓烈的爱。当梦中缠绵的美男子出现,爱情夹着疑雾,前世今生,天使恶魔,爱至残忍究竟谁是归宿?华丽妖娆的故事!放肆禁忌的深情!禁忌游戏,禁情,忌爱。
  • 夺辰

    夺辰

    天地颤动,风起云涌,乾坤扭转,时空错乱....修真界发生异变,一个恐怖的界限笼罩在修真大陆上。“异象现,灵气泄,空间裂,大地陷,云星泣,血雨下。”“灵魂现,本源破,残魂存,世界塌。逆天行,夺本源,破残魂,则重生”。本来只注重灵力修为的修真者们在修真界掀起了灵力与灵魂的修真新篇章。一位修真者“傲然”在机缘巧合之下把爆菊特工队(情圣·风魔少年·帅哥王子)带到了修真界,在修真界开启了修真之旅,欲与天同在,要逆天而行,夺辰而玄,武动而行。“蹋天路,逆天行,强者之路布荆棘。辰而玄,武而行,血染晴空铸万古。”揭开了一重重神秘的未解之谜.....................................