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Too Many Babies. By last week, with the situation thoroughly out of hand, official party publications were full of pleas for a return to conjugal continence. "Shameless licentiousness," cried one writer, "is the capitalist way. We young people must uphold the principles of Communist morality." But it was not morality that was worrying the minds of the practical men—and women—at the head of Peking's government as they watched the effect of their new marriage law on millions of young people suddenly freed from the taboos of their ancestors. It was the simple fact that the situation was resulting in too many babies.
With food already scarce, Red China's population of 630 million is increasing by an alarming 15 million every year. This not only means extra mouths to feed, it means taking time off to feed them. In one Shanghai textile mill alone 7,000 men and women workers produced exactly 7,000 children during the seven years of the law. In another factory, 17% of the women got pregnant twice within one year.
Recently, government statisticians estimated that without strict birth control China's population will reach 855 million in 15 years' time, pointed out that even with all the country's remaining virgin land broken up and cultivated, there would still not be enough food for all mouths. "Without planned childbirth," said China's brisk, close-cropped (female) Minister of Health Li Teh-chuan, "China will never be truly free."
Many teen-age couples, afraid that the government is about to raise the age of consent to the mid-twenties (it is now 20 for men, 18 for women), are rushing into what the Peking People's Daily last week lambasted as "commando marriages." Another factor worrying Peking's Communist moralists is the rising divorce rate. The Workers' Daily recently had sharp words for a man who sought divorce on the ground that his wife was "too revolting to look at." "In fact," said the Workers' Daily, "this man has already been married for 20 years, has six children, and besides his wife is a People's Deputy."