Editing Human population planning (section)

===Ancient times through Middle Ages===
A number of ancient writers have reflected on the issue of population. At about 300 BC, the Indian [[political philosopher]] [[Chanakya]] (c. 350-283 BC) considered population a source of political, economic, and military strength. Though a given region can house too many or too few people, he considered the latter possibility to be the greater evil. Chanakya favored the remarriage of [[widows]] (which at the time was forbidden in India), opposed taxes encouraging emigration, and believed in restricting [[asceticism]] to the aged.<ref name="Neurath 1994 7">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=9781563244070 |pages=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

In [[ancient Greece]], [[Plato]] (427-347 BC) and [[Aristotle]] (384-322 BC) discussed the best population size for Greek [[city-state]]s such as [[Sparta]], and concluded that cities should be small enough for efficient administration and direct citizen participation in public affairs, but at the same time needed to be large enough to defend themselves against hostile neighbors. In order to maintain a desired population size, the philosophers advised that [[procreation]], and if necessary, immigration, should be encouraged if the population size was too small. Emigration to colonies would be encouraged should the population become too large.<ref name=" Neurath 1994 6"/> Aristotle concluded that a large increase in population would bring, "certain poverty on the citizenry and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil." To halt rapid population increase, Aristotle advocated the use of [[abortion]] and the exposure of newborns (that is, [[infanticide]]).<ref>{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=9781563244070 |pages=6–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

[[Confucius]] (551-478 BC) and other Chinese writers cautioned that, "excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife." Some Chinese writers may also have observed that "mortality increases when food supply is insufficient; that premature marriage makes for high infantile mortality rates, that war checks population growth."<ref name="Neurath 1994 6">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=9781563244070 |pages=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref> It is particularly noteworthy that Han Fei (281-233 BC), long before Malthus, had already noted the conflict between a population growing at the exponential rate and a food supply growing at the arithmetic rate. <ref>{{cite book |last1=Schwermann |first1=Christian |last2=Sabattini |first2=Elisa Levi |title=Between Command and Market.Economic Thought and Practice in Early China|date=2022 |publisher=Brill |location=London |isbn=978-90-04-44863-6 |page=24}}</ref> Not only did he conclude that overpopulation was the root cause of the intensification of political and social conflict, but he also reduced traditional morality to an evolutionary product of material surplus rather than having any objective value. Nevertheless, during the Han Dynasty, the emperors enacted a large number of laws to encourage early marriage and childbirth.

[[Ancient Rome]], especially in the time of [[Augustus]] (63 BC-AD 14), needed manpower to acquire and administer the vast [[Roman Empire]]. A series of laws were instituted to encourage early marriage and frequent childbirth. Lex Julia (18 BC) and the Lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9) are two well-known examples of such laws, which among others, provided tax breaks and preferential treatment when applying for public office for those who complied with the laws. Severe limitations were imposed on those who did not. For example, the surviving spouse of a childless couple could only inherit one-tenth of the deceased fortune, while the rest was taken by the state. These laws encountered resistance from the population which led to the disregard of their provisions and to their eventual abolition.<ref name="Neurath 1994 7"/>

[[Tertullian]], an early Christian author (ca. AD 160-220), was one of the first to describe famine and war as factors that can prevent overpopulation.<ref name=" Neurath 1994 7"/> He wrote: "The strongest witness is the vast population of the earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs; as our demands grow greater, our complaints against Nature's inadequacy are heard by all. The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars, and [[earthquake]]s have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race."<ref name="Neurath94-page8"/>

[[Ibn Khaldun]], a North African [[polymath]] (1332–1406), considered population changes to be connected to economic development, linking high birth rates and low death rates to times of economic upswing, and low birth rates and high death rates to economic downswing. Khaldoun concluded that high [[population density]] rather than high absolute population numbers were desirable to achieve more efficient division of labour and cheap administration.<ref name=Neurath94-page8 >{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=9781563244070 |pages=8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

During the [[Middle Ages]] in Christian Europe, population issues were rarely discussed in isolation. Attitudes were generally pro-[[natalist]] in line with the [[Biblical]] command, "Be ye fruitful and multiply."<ref name=Neurath94-page8 />

When Russian explorer [[Otto von Kotzebue]] visited the [[Marshall Islands]] in Micronesia in 1817, he noted that Marshallese families practiced [[infanticide]] after the birth of a third child as a form of population planning due to frequent [[famine]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hezel |first=Francis X. |date=1983 |title=The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-colonial Days, 1521–1885 |series=Pacific Islands Monograph Series |location=Honolulu |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |pages=92–94 |isbn=9780824816438}}</ref>