Diminishing Europe
The good life in Germany does not include children.
by Steven Ozment
10/08/2007

A  saying from the German Middle Ages suggests that a couple who cannot have children may be more burdened than a couple who do have children.

Die Kinder machen Weh und Leid Zerstören offt der Elter Frewd, Kein Kindt/Kein Sorg/klag nit so sehr ob schon dein Weib nicht Kindbar wer. (Children bring grief and woe and often disturb parental peace: 'no child, no worry.' So do not complain so much just because your wife cannot bear a child.)

Historically, couples without children have, indeed, grieved. Although birth control has been practiced since antiquity, barren couples viewed themselves as truly cursed, like Hannah in the Bible (1 Sam. 1). Yet for almost a half-century a great many postwar European families have enthusiastically embraced either a "no-child" or a "no-more-than-one-child" family model. the rest