ABSTRACT
The theory of homeostatic adjustment to population pressure has been newly applied to human societies. The critical issue, of course, is restraint on reproduction, because threats to species survival appear more imminent from Overexploitation of the ecological niche than from dying out because of failure to replace numbers. The general theory that population processes respond to environmental cues about abundance or scarcity of resources was developed through observations of animal societies. Demographic and resource variables have been introduced in order to show that rules regulating marriage and premarital sex or sexuality within marriage, contraception, abortion, infanticide, widow murder, social stratification, excessive sexual modesty, small family size norms, and life-styles offering alternatives to family formation have at some time and place been elaborated in response to population pressure against resources. Demographic analysis of trends in the United States provides a final example of gradually falling fertility, although there is the theoretically complicating factor of a simultaneous rise in prosperity.
