C
Curious_Hobbit
Guest
Marcus Aurelius states at one point that almost every other day there was a wealthy person dying who was the last person in their blood line. People didn’t want to spend their wealth on raising children and passing on their wealth to them at an old age. Augustus tried to make family reforms to deal with the poor birth rate and poor family life. Augustus gave tax breaks to married couples who had children, but this didn’t help much because Roman citizens had become used to their freedom from family duties. While Augustus was trying to pass family reforms he couldn’t even stop members of his own family from constantly committing adultery. Many kinds of different sexual practices became accepted. Julius Caesar was called “Every woman’s man, and every man’s woman” and Nero married a young man. People would eat herbs that made them sterile. People would have abortions if they weren’t up to the task of raising the child. If the child wasn’t the gender that the parents wanted or if the child had any kind of deformity the parents would go leave the child out in the wild to die.
This change in the conception of the family from a personal sacrifice on the parents for the greater good of the whole family to a rise in individual freedom to marry who ever you wanted, whenever you wanted, and not care about raising any children had a huge effect. That combined with the wide acceptance of many forms of sexual activity that deviated from the marriage of man and woman for the purpose of raising children had a serious effect on the birth rate. Both Rome and Greece experienced a huge decline in birth rates as a result of the transition into the atomistic family. Eventually the more urban areas of Rome weren’t reproducing themselves and they were being filled by Roman citizens from more rural parts of Rome who hadn’t been as accustomed to the effects of atomistic Rome. It got so bad that the Roman citizens themselves weren’t reproducing a sustainable population and the only way the population stayed stable was by immigrants from foreign regions moving to Rome, and by barbarians, slaves, and captives reproducing. Rome had to hire mercenaries from neighboring provinces to help fill the ranks of the Roman military because the military was shrinking so much. The situation became so bad because true Roman citizens weren’t reproducing themselves and immigrants moving in combined with slaves/captives/ barbarians sustaining the population changed the culture in Rome. Instead of proud Roman citizens filling the country their were many people who weren’t as dedicated to Rome and didn’t share the same loyalty to Roman culture and society.
Zimmerman argues that this family situation isn’t the ONLY reason why Rome fell and Greece experienced such a decline, but this was the one problem that exacerbated all other problems. If it hadn’t been for this decline in familism then the other issues that facing the civilizations would have been manageable.
Zimmerman noted 11 parallels between atomism in Greece/Rome and Modern Western civ.
This change in the conception of the family from a personal sacrifice on the parents for the greater good of the whole family to a rise in individual freedom to marry who ever you wanted, whenever you wanted, and not care about raising any children had a huge effect. That combined with the wide acceptance of many forms of sexual activity that deviated from the marriage of man and woman for the purpose of raising children had a serious effect on the birth rate. Both Rome and Greece experienced a huge decline in birth rates as a result of the transition into the atomistic family. Eventually the more urban areas of Rome weren’t reproducing themselves and they were being filled by Roman citizens from more rural parts of Rome who hadn’t been as accustomed to the effects of atomistic Rome. It got so bad that the Roman citizens themselves weren’t reproducing a sustainable population and the only way the population stayed stable was by immigrants from foreign regions moving to Rome, and by barbarians, slaves, and captives reproducing. Rome had to hire mercenaries from neighboring provinces to help fill the ranks of the Roman military because the military was shrinking so much. The situation became so bad because true Roman citizens weren’t reproducing themselves and immigrants moving in combined with slaves/captives/ barbarians sustaining the population changed the culture in Rome. Instead of proud Roman citizens filling the country their were many people who weren’t as dedicated to Rome and didn’t share the same loyalty to Roman culture and society.
Zimmerman argues that this family situation isn’t the ONLY reason why Rome fell and Greece experienced such a decline, but this was the one problem that exacerbated all other problems. If it hadn’t been for this decline in familism then the other issues that facing the civilizations would have been manageable.
Zimmerman noted 11 parallels between atomism in Greece/Rome and Modern Western civ.
- Increased and rapid “causeless” divorce
- Decreased number of children, population decay, and increased public disrespect for parents and parenthood.
- Elimination of real meaning of marriage ceremony
- Popularity of pessimistic doctrines about early heroes
- Rise of theories that companionate marriage or a permissible looser family form would solve the problem
- The refusal of many other people under the older family form to maintain their traditions while other people escape these obligations.
- The spread of antifamilism of the urbane and pseudo intellectual classes to the very outer limits of civilization.
- Breaking down of most of the inhibitions against adultery.
- Revolts of youth against parents so that parenthood became more and more difficult for those who did try to raise children.
- Rapid rise and spread of juvenile delinquency.
- Common acceptance of all forms of sexual perversions.