Don't Fall in Love

An Oriental paradox: Red China, unable to feed its estimated 680 million people, desperately needs to slow down a birth rate that is increasing the population by 1,650 people every hour; but it is plainly stated in Communist doctrine that population control is unnecessary and undesirable in a Marxist state.

A brief deviationist experiment with conventional contraception devices in 1957 brought disgrace to its government promoters, partly on ideological grounds, partly because the campaign made no impact on the Chinese people. Now, party dialecticians are trying a new propaganda tack--later marriage. The government lists all sorts of advantages: health, industrial efficiency, psychological adjustment, almost everything except the need to keep the birth rate down. Peking College Medical Professor Yeh Kung-shao spelled it all out explicitly in a recent issue of China Youth Daily. Wrote Yeh: "The ideal age for women [to marry] is from 23 to 25, for men 25 to 29 ... I suggest the women have their first child generally at the age of 26 or 27 and then have a second one after three to five years. If the circumstances are especially good, they may have a third one after another three to five years." To older Chinese, Yeh suggests, "Please do not exercise pressure on your children to make them marry early so that you can enjoy the pleasure of becoming grandparents." But what is to be done about the young folks who get romantic ideas? Yeh faces the problem squarely: "I feel that to oppose early marriage we must also oppose falling in love at an early age."

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