The Issue of Having Only One Child

The Hungarian society, already burdened by the consequences of World War I, faced the threat of a "second war" of destruction: the prevalence of having only one child, emigration, and tuberculosis. What would become of the Hungarian people? This was the most pressing existential question. Lajos Fülep, a Reformed minister, drew attention to these problems in his writings (1929).

Every year, twenty thousand Hungarians—8-10 thousand villages—disappear. We are confronted with an unrestrictedly destructive force whose devastation increases year by year. Decline outpaces growth, destruction exceeds construction. The survival of the Hungarian nation is at risk. The danger has been emphasized for years, but no action has been taken. There is talk of a "one-child law" and settlement plans, but no concrete steps have been made by the government. The issue is most devastating in Baranya, Tolna, and Somogy. There are villages where Hungarians no longer exist; in their place remains a void or the settlements are taken over by Germans. The entire Transdanubian region is at risk, and even parts of the Great Hungarian Plain are affected.

One reason for this trend is the fear of dividing landholdings. Nowadays, rather than dividing them, the estates are transferred intact into foreign, often German, hands.

The moral devastation caused by the one-child practice is the most appalling. This world of having only one child represents a separate moral order, a unique worldview. Its foundation is selfishness, the mockery of all ideals, and the desire to live in comfort and carelessness. This world is indifferent to public affairs, the nation, the church, the past, and the future.

The practice of having only one child has been present in Hungary for a century. Its causes have been studied since then. The decline of the Hungarian population has been attributed to the idea that the Hungarian people have naturally aged and weakened over time. This cannot be a valid explanation, as other nations are not younger than we are. Moreover, our decline is not natural but artificial: childbirth is being suppressed. It is not nature that interferes but human action and moral factors. The custom of having only one child arrived in certain regions as a foreign import. The Hungarians in Baranya learned it from the Serbs, and they were not deterred even when the Serbs in the area died out. However, such examples only take root when the ground is adequately prepared.

Economic motives are considered the most well-known cause. Smallholders, unable to expand their holdings, limit the number of their descendants to match their limited wealth. However, this explanation is insufficient, as there are other means of livelihood beyond land ownership. Small plots of land could be utilized more effectively, and some land remains unused. The one-child practice is not a consequence of poverty but of wealth. Where there is no wealth, there is no one-child practice; where there is wealth, there is.

The weakening of faith in God has also been cited as a cause. It is true that religion and the one-child practice are mutually exclusive. The one-child trend is present among adherents of all churches. The existing explanations are all symptomatic.

The real cause lies deeper; it is a moral phenomenon that kills the will to live. The moral order and system of values have been disrupted. The evaluation of family, work, intellectual assets, and national vocation has changed in relation to material and hedonistic values. Comfort, prosperity, a life free of worries, and luxury have taken the place of the highest values. A new world has been created in place of the old, one in which everything serves the coldest, most blind selfishness, even leading to suicide and the extermination of the nation. Moral values have been catastrophically devalued.

Everything else is merely a symptom: the decline resembling senility, the eager following of destructive examples, economic weakening, the decay of religion, and the one-child practice. These symptoms later function as causes themselves, acting as dreadful destructive forces.

The foundation of a nation's existence is the family, the cornerstone upon which everything is built. It is here that it is decided whether the nation will have farmers, citizens, and soldiers, and what kind they will be. The one-child practice attacks and destroys the family. It eradicates the sense of belonging, the love between siblings. It annihilates the desire of the race to survive and, ultimately, the race itself.

In households with only one child, there is never enough labor. The estate demands early marriages. Spoiled only children wish to enjoy life. Fertility regulation begins. If a woman becomes pregnant, she may harm herself. This could lead to death or even lifelong disability. In some places, people do not want even one child, unwilling to be burdened. Natural laws are arbitrarily regulated—everything is allowed, everything is permissible. The value system is reversed. The guilty one is not the person who terminates their pregnancy but the one who keeps it. Those who conceive a second child are deemed immoral and disgraceful.

Homes fall silent, streets grow quiet, and thus the Hungarians perish in South Baranya, South Somogy, and Tolna.

Fülep Lajos: "A magyarság pusztulása", Magvető kiadó, Budapest, 1984