Voluntary and Involuntary Aspects of Childlessness

Abstract

THE Book of Genesis documents the existence of barren women in early Biblical times. Despite the age-old character of the problem, we know little about the incidence of actual sterility today. There are some data regarding the proportion of childless families among marriages of completed fertility, but such figures leave unanswered the question concerning the extent to which such childlessness is voluntary and the extent to which it represents physical inability to bear a child. In view of the researches of Reynolds and Macomber 2 and others, it must be recognized at the outset that sterility is a relative term. There is not in all cases a clear line of demarcation between voluntary and involuntary childlessness, and there is a small but constant passage of childless women from the former into the latter category. Despite this, few will deny the meaningful nature of the voluntary-involuntary dichotomy of childless families of completed fertility, and the dearth of knowledge of the relative importance of these groups is often lamented by students of medical problems, students of population, and by social scientists in general. Two investigations bearing directly upon this question appear to have yielded diametrically opposite results. On