MILLION WOMEN TOO MANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1920, Page 6

MILLION WOMEN TOO MANY.

1930 HUSBAND HUNT. DR. MURRAY LESLIE ON GIRL REBELS. "There are now morn than a million excess females of reproductive age." declared Dr. R. Murray Leslie, lecturing in February last at the Institute of Hygiene, London, on "the disproportion of the sexes and the consequences;" There could be no real social rest without feminine contentment," he said, and in our own: country, where women formed the bnllciftif the population, the effect of their sep preponderance seemed to be almost wholly injurious and to have little compensating advantage. The female excess was greater in Great Britain thaa elsewhere, and the war had aggravated this disturbing factor because the men who had fallen all, belong to the age-group which represented either potential or actual husuands and fathers.

In all countries more boys were born than girls, but there was greater mortality among male infants. In Great Britain tlie excess of boy babies was smaller than in any other Eur'opean»'country and the relative male mortality hieher. There was also an immense annual male migration, particularly of the rafore virile age and class.

GIRLS AND MARRIED MEN. The social effects of sex disproportion were seen in the crumbling of the old ethical standards. The freedom of the modern, independent girl from the supervision of her parents; the tendency to rebel against discipline and conventional trammels; the cry of pleasure for pleasure's sake—ail these tended to encourage a lowered standard of morality. It was in regard to marriage and family life that female preponderance was playing the most important part. Never had there been so many unhappy marriages. Many married women were demanding divorce by mutual consent, as it was contended that the present rigid law condemned many to the society of an utterly uncongenial companion, while married men often sought happier relations among the numerous unattached women. ~ 0 Speaking from, his own medical experience, he had. no hesitation in saying that much of the e\'istins unhappincss was traceable to clandestine relations between young women and married men, POSTPONED MARRIAGES. With the increased cost of living, marriage was longer and longer postponed,, and it had become impossible for the average father to maintain his daughters in idleness. Young women were accordingly faced with the alternative of either a dull, monotonous, povertystricken future or of going into the world to earn their own living, and the best women naturally chose the latter.

Female preponderance resulted in a large and increasing number of the physically and iiitellwtually fittest women being forced into the labor market, while less provident women of the unskilled workers' class married and had large families. The nation was tlins deprived of the best potential mothers and the birth-rate was smallest in the best elements of the population. With a weafer sense' of personality woman was now probably better fitted to be a mate selector. She wouW have opportunity, this year, although there was some justification for the young woman who recentjy remarked that, In view of the great scarcity of bachelors and their low percentage of eligibility, this Leap Year privilege was not worth having.

YOUNG MEN AND "BUTTERFLIES." The social butterfly type had probably never been bo prevalent as at present. It comprised the frivolous, scantily clad, "jazzing flapper," irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with n car, were of more importance than the fate of nations. The type contained a large proportion of physically attractive girls with strong reproductive instincts, and they were ever vying and competing with each other for the scarce and elusive male. In many cases they strove by means of dress, or the lack of it, to appeal to man's lower nature instead of exercising the power to elevate his ideals. Young men had dance invitations four and five, deep, and were being spoilt before our eves.

There were supporters of polygamy who argued that the modern civilised man needed one woman as his intellectual companion and another to be the mother of his children. But this proffered solution of the problem might be dismissed with some contempt; the real need was to educate girls in a way to develop equally their emotional and intellectual natures.

The most immediately practical method of reducing female preponderance was the encouragement of female emigration. Our land girls were fine healthy specimens of womanhood who should be most valuable as wives in the colonies.

"Why not adopt boy babies?" asked the lecturer. There were many middleaged people without children who shrank from the prospect of having no share in the future. Ho therefore suggested the adoption of boy babies by women of the leisured classes as a measure of personal and of national benefit.