Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T23:48:22.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural explanations of fertility differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2011

J. Clyde Mitchell
J. Clyde Mitchell
Affiliation:
Department of Social Anthropology and Sociology, University of Manchester
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The reproductive behaviour of human beings, in contrast to that of other animals, is distinguished by almost universal awareness of the connection between sexual activity on the one hand and the birth of children on the other. There are, it is true, some classic examples where this connection apparently is not appreciated, as for example, the Trobrianders as described by Malinowski (1937), and the Arunta of the Central Australian desert as described by Spencer & Gillen (1927). These, however, are exceptions rather than the rule. In any case, even in them, reproductive behaviour is still constrained by custom although the connection is not appreciated. The biological potential to reproduction therefore does not, in itself, determine the level of fertility in any human population. Some individuals, or some categories of persons, may deliberately attempt to influence the natural process of reproduction, either to enhance or to inhibit its efficacy.

Type
Fertility in different populations
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 3 , supplement S3: Biosocial Aspects of Human Fertility , 1971 , pp. 53 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chandrasekar, C. (1948) Some aspects of Parsi demography. Hum. Biol. 20, 47.Google Scholar
Colson, E. (1958) Marriage and the Family among the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester University Press for Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1952) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. (First published in 1897.) (Translated by Spaulding, John A. and Simpson, George.)Google Scholar
Eaton, J.W. & Mayer, A.J. (1953) The social biology of very high fertility among the Hutterites: The demography of a unique population. Hum. Biol. 24, 206.Google Scholar
Ford, C. (1945) A Comparative Study of Human Reproduction. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 3, New Haven.Google Scholar
Hawthorn, G. (1968) Explaining human fertility. Sociology, 2, 65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorimer, F. (1954) Culture and Human Fertility, Chap. I, pp. 206, 217, 249. UNESCO, Paris.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B.M. (1937) Sex and Repression in Savage Society. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J.C. (1965) Differential fertility among urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia. Rhodes-Livingstone J. 37, 1.Google Scholar
Redfield, R. (1955) Societies and cultures as natural systems, Jl R. anthrop. Inst. 35, 20.Google Scholar
Rowntree, G. & Pierce, R.M. (1961) Birth control in Britain. Popul. Stud. 15, 3, 121, 144.Google Scholar
Spencer, B. & Gillen, F.J. (1927) The Arunta: A Study of a Stone Age People, p. 76. Macmillan, London.Google Scholar