Dr. Bluhm's repeated assertion, which is regarded by many as a dogma, that economic conditions cannot be deliberately influenced (+i.e.+, that they are of the character of a law of nature) must not remain uncontradicted as a principal. It is absolutely unproved, though the difficulty of influencing our economic life cannot be denied; the economic order has been created by man and +must+ be altered if it proves harmful for the race.
The adverse influence of female labour on the progeny is shown from a somewhat different point of view in Table C 101--"+premature births and abortions in different callings+." The most serious fact shown here is that a low birth rate may frequently be found in conjunction with a high rate for miscarriage and premature birth; as the compiler of these statistics points out, this conjunction is most apparent in those callings which demand frequent intercourse with the public, such as domestic service, that is to say in cases where pregnancy is particularly inconvenient. Probably in these cases artificial prevention of pregnancy goes hand in hand with the procuring of abortion!
Race-hygiene does not aim at an indiscriminate motherhood insurance of married and unmarried mothers, but it aims at the economic subvention and encouragement of legitimate fertility of healthy and able parents, connected with, and rendered possible by, a reduction of female labour away from the home. Marriage is one of the most important hygienic institutions for the individual as well as for the race, and it is folly to allow its decay and to replace it by substitutes.
+The importance of marriage for the health to married persons+ is shown by figure C 102--"+condition with regard to marriage and mortality in Prussia, 1894-97+," as given in Prinzing's book. That we have to deal here with an actual favourable influence of marriage, and not with a selection of the healthy at the time of marriage, is proved by the fact that the low death rate of the married is maintained through all age classes and that the widowed and divorced show throughout the highest death rate.
"+Condition with regard to marriage and mortality, cases of death from tuberculosis+," after Weinberg, also confirms with regard to tuberculosis the favourable influence of marriage on the health of men. With women the mortality from tuberculosis up to the age of 60 is lowest among the unmarried. Pregnancy and suckling act here adversely, but by far the worst position is also held here by widows and divorced women.