[Camilla:]"One child ought to be enough, for any woman, if she has anything above the neck, unless she's a real neurotic with no independent sense of self esteem."
"Camilla," Ewen said very gently, "this is biological. Even back in the twentieth century, they did experiments on rats and ghetto populations and things and found that one of the first results of crucial social overcrowding was the failure of maternal behavior. It's a pathology. Man is a rationalizing animal, so sociologists called it 'Women's Liberation' and things like that, but what it amounted to was a pathological reaction to overpopulation and overcrowding. Women who couldn't be allowed to have children, had to be given some other work, for the sake of their mental health. But it wears off. Women sign an agreement, when they go to the colonies, to have a minimum of two children; but most of them, once they are out of the crowding of Earth, recover their mental and emotional health, and the average Colony family is four children - which is about right, psychologically speaking. By the time the baby comes, you'll probably have normal hormones too, and make a good mother."
"Camilla," Ewen said very gently, "this is biological. Even back in the twentieth century, they did experiments on rats and ghetto populations and things and found that one of the first results of crucial social overcrowding was the failure of maternal behavior. It's a pathology. Man is a rationalizing animal, so sociologists called it 'Women's Liberation' and things like that, but what it amounted to was a pathological reaction to overpopulation and overcrowding. Women who couldn't be allowed to have children, had to be given some other work, for the sake of their mental health. But it wears off. Women sign an agreement, when they go to the colonies, to have a minimum of two children; but most of them, once they are out of the crowding of Earth, recover their mental and emotional health, and the average Colony family is four children - which is about right, psychologically speaking. By the time the baby comes, you'll probably have normal hormones too, and make a good mother."