Among the Roman nobility with families beginning to die out. For the Roman Empire in general the problem of demographic collapse came later. Demographic collapse usually precedes societal collapse. If people aren’t having enough kids to sustain the population, that is a vote of no confidence in the future. The sacred authors of the Bible saw this, and understood that the fruit of the womb was a gift from God, and that families were the building blocks of all civilizations.
Yep
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Musk continues to surprise me. We are in the midst of labour shortage, imagine if the millions of babies over the last 5 decades were not aborted or if women hadn’t lived by the mantra of birth control? These humans would today be contributing citizens of their nations with families of their own- and the contribution would have kept going and going. Abortion and “population control” is such a short sighted solution for any civilisation. Ask China how it’s going for them.
[…] J.D. Cardinal Cupich Suppresses the TLM, But Allows This Abomination – Fr. Z’s Blog Demographic Collapse – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic Government Had Access to Your DM’s, […]
A friend has been doing a lot of research into how the soldiers at the time of Christ got married– partly inspired by your Pontius Pilate fic– and has a couple of stories, starting with the Roman Centurions son.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1342039/maryh10000
Thing is, the kid is recorded as both son, and boy, and slave… and he couldn’t be legally married, in a full marriage. (Which got her going.)
Fascinating. Yep, throughout the history of the Empire Legionnaires faced restrictions on their ability to get married, from outright bans, to seeking permission from their co. As always, informal alliances sprung up as a result as nature can never be subject to military discipline.
“If people aren’t having enough kids to sustain the population, that is a vote of no confidence in the future.”
Well, it’s kind of hard to blame people for thinking that, between lefties being spooked by climate change and right leaning people having everything they believe in being constantly stomped on. Many Christians, including Catholics, seem to be genuinely convinced that the Antichrist and the end of the world, or at least the end of Western Civilization, are just around the corner. Why WOULD anyone want to marry or have children if they truly believed that?
The World has usually been a mess and people have had kids. The idea that bad times is an excuse for not having kids is a modern heresy. Be fruitful and multiply has never been restricted to good times.