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102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
wealth and standing regarding an obligatory minimum
number of children, and where the services of a doctor are
required in order to counteract sterility, such services
should be enforced. Single men who are able to marry
should not be allowed to carry on a life useless to progeny.
The case of so-called illegitimate children deserves special
attention. Up to the present, children born out of wedlock
are regarded as pariahs of society, although they
themselves are in no way responsible for the slur of their
illegitimacy of birth. Illegitimacy of birth is, of course, a
purely conventional conception and has nothing to do with
nature’s laws. If State and Society recognise the birth of
sound children, who may become useful citizens, to be
desirable and necessary for their purposes, there is no reason
why " illegitimate " children should be restricted from the
full rights of citizenship. The title Wohlgeboren or
HocJi-wohlgeboren, which is used in Germany to accentuate
legitimacy of birth, is in the eyes of the Englishman
superfluous and ridiculous. It is only necessary to go a little
further. The very notion of illegitimacy should be abolished.!
As soon as a woman can prove to the satisfaction of a judge
that a certain man is the father of her child, that man
should be compelled by law to marry her, and the children
born before marriage would eo ipso be legitimatised per
subsequens matrimonium. This would contribute to stamp
out the obsolete notion of illegitimacy of birth. The French
legal principle, " La recherche de la paternite est interdite,"
is immoral and should be reversed. If a man is unable to
marry owing to the fact that he already possesses a wife
in the eyes of the law, or because of too close ties of
blood-relationship, the child born out of wedlock should be
adopted by the father with full endowment by the rights
of legitimacy.
Such principles do not imply that those who for certain
valid reasons remain unmarried are of no value to the
community. In England women are in the majority to
6 or 7 per cent. ; it therefore stands to reason that each
one cannot be married. It has often been proved that
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