# The Question of Population explained — Getting Married

> Chapter companion for Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw.

## What happens

This chapter examines the demographic implications of declining marriage and birth rates, weighing the need for population maintenance against the sterilizing effects of urban civilization and women's increasing refusal to bear many children. It considers economic incentives and the biological limits of human reproduction, drawing an analogy to bee colonies.

## Themes in this chapter

### Population and Social Consequences

The chapter directly addresses population decline, birth rates across classes, and the sterilizing effect of urban civilization, framing these as urgent social questions.

### Economic Dependence of Women

Discusses the possibility of making motherhood a paid profession and the opening of other livelihoods to women, linking economic independence to reproductive choices.

### Revolt Against Marriage

References the 'spreading revolt of their women against excessive childbearing' as a key factor in population decline among the rich.

## Key lines

> If we desire to maintain the population at its present figure, or to increase it, we must take immediate steps to induce people of moderate means to marry earlier and to have more children.

To keep the population stable or growing, we need to encourage middle-income people to marry sooner and have larger families.

_Highlights the policy implication of demographic concerns._

> It is harder to keep up the supply of elephants than of sparrows and rabbits; and for the same reason it will be harder to keep up the supply of highly cultivated men and women than it now is of agricultural laborers.

Just as large, complex animals reproduce more slowly than small ones, so too will educated, refined people be harder to replace than manual laborers.

_Uses a biological analogy to argue that civilization naturally reduces birth rates among the elite._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/getting_married_se/chapters/the-question-of-population
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/getting_married_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/getting_married_se/chapters