The origin and development of the moral ideas

The custom of infanticide, in its extensive form, has been attributed to various motives. Among some peoples mothers are said to kill their new-born infants on account of the trouble of rearing them,113 or the consequent loss of beauty.114 Another cause is the long suckling time, generally lasting, among savages, for two, three, four years, or even more, owing to want of soft food and animal milk.115 When, as is very commonly the case, the husband must not cohabit with his wife during the whole of this period,116 he is naturally inclined to form other connections, and this seems in some instances to induce the mother to destroy her child.117 In another respect, also, the long suckling-time is an inducement to infanticide; among certain Australian tribes an infant is killed immediately on birth “when the mother is, or thinks she is, unable to rear it owing to there being a young child whom she is still feeding.”118 Among the Pimas of Arizona, again, infanticide is said to be connected with the custom of destroying all the property of the husband when he dies. “The women of the tribe, well aware that they will be poor should their husbands die, and that then they will have to provide for their children by their own exertions, do not care to have many children, and infanticide, both before and after birth, prevails to a great extent. This is not considered a crime.”119 But there can be little doubt that the wholesale infanticide of many of the lower races is in the main due to the hardships of savage life.

The helpless infant may be a great burden to the parents both in times of peace and in times of war. It may prevent the mother from following her husband about on his wanderings in search of food, or otherwise encumber her in her work.120 Mr. Curr states of the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, with whom he was intimate for ten years, that their habit of killing nearly half of the children born resulted “principally from the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of transporting several children of tender age from place to place on their frequent marches.”121 Concerning the Abipones, Charlevoix observes:—“They seldom rear but one child of each sex, murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are strong enough to walk alone. They think to justify this cruelty by saying that, as they are almost constantly travelling from one place to another, it is impossible for them to take care of more infants than two at a time; one to be carried by the father, and the other by the mother.”122 Among the Lenguas of the Paraguayan Chaco an interval of seven or eight years is always observable between children of the same family, infants born in this interval being immediately killed. The reasons for this practice, says Mr. Hawtrey, are obvious. “The woman has the hard work of carrying food from garden and field, and all the transport to do; the Lenguas are a nomadic race, and their frequent moves often entail journeys of from ten to twenty miles a day….

Travelling with natives under these circumstances, one is forced to the conclusion that it would be impossible for a mother to have more than one young child to carry and to care for.”123 Moreover, a little forethought tells the parents that their child before long will become a consumer of provisions perhaps already too scanty for the family. Savages often suffer greatly from want of food, and may have to choose between destroying their offspring or famishing themselves. Hence they often have recourse to infanticide as a means of saving their lives; indeed, among several tribes, in case of famine, children are not only killed, but eaten.124 Urgent want is frequently represented by our authorities as the main cause of infanticide;125 and their statements are corroborated by the conspicuous prevalence of this custom among poor tribes and in islands whose inhabitants are confined to a narrow territory with limited resources.