ABSTRACT
The observations of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychoanalysts can deepen our understanding of what prepares a human being to become a parent or to remain childless. Human birth rates are influenced by sociological forces, mediated through both human physiology and cultural practice. Thus, when an agrarian tribe moves into a nomadic phase, where children can impede travel, the birth rate falls as a result of various bodily adaptations. Girls do not menstruate until late, fertility is similarly delayed, and mothers breast-feed their children for much longer, with correspondingly reduced fecundity. When the tribe settles down again in one place, these processes reverse, and the birth rate rises again.
