Note 299 — Chapter III · : THE PESSIMISTS
R. (Robert) Richards translation
“These considerations show that the nature of chastity is not, as some have supposed, a forced produce of artificial society; but that it has the most real and solid foundation in nature and reason; being apparently the only virtuous means of avoiding the vice and misery which result so often from the principle of population.” (P. 450.)
He also notes that this virtue has usually been especially commended to women, but that “there is no reason for supposing that the violation of the laws of chastity are not equally dishonourable for both sexes.” Malthus evidently believed in one moral law for both sexes.
Consequently whenever the reverend gentleman is reproached with encouraging blasphemy, a point upon which he is particularly sensitive—for example, when it is pointed out that God’s injunction to man was to increase and multiply—he has no difficulty in showing that if procreation is the will of Providence, chastity is dictated by Christianity, and that the glorious work of chastity is to aid Providence in keeping even the balance of life.