two
facts are not incompatible.

[Sidenote: Approved by the state.]

Geographic conditions made infanticide a state measure in these crowded
communities. On the small coral atolls, where the food supply was
scantest, it was enforced by law. On Vaitupu, in the Ellice group, only
two children were allowed to a couple; on Nukufelau, only one. Any
violation of this unique sumptuary law was punished by a fine.[1008] On
the congested Gilbert atolls, a woman rarely had more than two children,
never more than three. Abortion, produced by a regular midwife, disposed
of any subsequent offspring. Affection for children was very strong
here, and infanticide of the living was unknown.[1009] In Samoa, also,
Turner found the practice restricted to the period before birth; but in
Tahiti and elsewhere it was enforced by the tribal village authorities
on the born and unborn.[1010] In pre-Christian Hawaii, two-thirds of all
children, and especially girls, were killed by their parents either
before or after birth. The result was a decay of the maternal instinct
and the custom of farming out children to strangers. This contributed to
the excess of infant mortality, the degeneration of morals and the
instability of the family.[1011] So in Japan the pressure of population
led to infanticide and the sale of daughters to a life of ignominy,
which took them out of the child-bearing class.[1012] Nor was either
custom under the ban.

The result is a deterioration of morals, an invasion of the family bond,
and a decay of the finer sentiments therewith connected. Captain Cook in
1770 found in Tahiti _Eareeoie_ or _Arreoys_ societies, which were
free-love associations including in their number "over half of the
better sort of the inhabitants." The children begotten of these
promiscuous unions were smothered at birth. Obscene conversations,
indecent dances and frank unchastity on the part of girls and women were
the attendant evils of these loose morals.[1013] Cook was sure that
"these societies greatly prevent the increase of the superior classes of
people of which they are composed." Malthus reports a similar
association in the Marianne Islands, distinguished by a similar name,
devoted to race suicide.[1014] Everywhere in Oceanica marriage is
unstable, and with few exceptions unchastity prevails. Stevenson thinks
it chiefly accountable for the decline of population in the
islands.[1015] However, in the detailed _taboos_ laid upon women in Fiji,