It becomes important, then,
to compare the quality of the non-combatants and those combatants who
survive and return home, since their absence during the war period of
course decreases their reproduction as compared with the non-combatants.
The marked excess of women over men, both during the war and after,
necessarily intensifies the selection of women and proportionately
reduces that of men, since relatively fewer men will remain unmated.
This excess of women is found in all classes. Among superiors there are,
in addition, some women who never marry because the war has so reduced
the number of suitors thought eligible.
The five years' war of Paraguay with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina
(1864-1869) is perhaps the most glaring case on record[158] in recent
years of the destruction of the male population of a country. Whole
regiments were made up of boys of 16 or less. At the beginning of the
war the population of Paraguay had been given as 1,337,437. It fell to
221,709 (28,746 men, 106,254 women, 86,079 children); it is even now
probably not more than half of the estimate made at the beginning of the
war. "Here in a small area has occurred a drastic case of racial ravage
without parallel since the time of the Thirty Years' War.
Pages:
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520