Fertility and Fertility Control in Pre-Revolutionary China

Wolf, Arthur P.; Engelen, Theo

doi:10.1162/jinh.2008.38.3.345

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January 01 2008

Fertility and Fertility Control in Pre-Revolutionary China

Arthur P. Wolf,

Arthur P. Wolf

Arthur P. Wolf is David and Lucile Packard Foundation Professor in Human Biology, Stanford University. He is the author of Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association: A Chinese Brief for Edward Westermarck (Stanford, 1995); editor, with William H. Durham, of Incest, Inbreeding, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century (Stanford, 2005).

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Theo Engelen

Theo Engelen is Professor of Historical Demography, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is the author, with Hsieh Ying-Hui, of Life at the Extremes. III. Two Cities, One Life: Marriage and Fertility in Lugang and Nijmegen (Amsterdam, 2007); editor of “Labor Strategies of Families,” a special issue of History of the Family, IX (2004), 123–251.

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Author and Article Information

Arthur P. Wolf

Arthur P. Wolf is David and Lucile Packard Foundation Professor in Human Biology, Stanford University. He is the author of Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association: A Chinese Brief for Edward Westermarck (Stanford, 1995); editor, with William H. Durham, of Incest, Inbreeding, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century (Stanford, 2005).

Theo Engelen

Theo Engelen is Professor of Historical Demography, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is the author, with Hsieh Ying-Hui, of Life at the Extremes. III. Two Cities, One Life: Marriage and Fertility in Lugang and Nijmegen (Amsterdam, 2007); editor of “Labor Strategies of Families,” a special issue of History of the Family, IX (2004), 123–251.

Online ISSN: 1530-9169

Print ISSN: 0022-1953

2007

The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2008) 38 (3): 345–375.

https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2008.38.3.345

Abstract

A revisionist view argues that despite early and nearly universal marriage, fertility in pre-Revolutionary China was no higher than in Europe because of deliberate control within marriage. The evidence, however, confirms the received view: Because of early and universal marriage, fertility in China was far higher than that in Europe and would have been even higher had it not been for what Thomas Malthus called “positive checks.” Little or no deliberate birth control took place in China during the period in question.

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