The first chapter of The Dying Citizen is titled Peasants. In it, Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) details the history of what Peasant means. He talks about ancient Greek Culture and the Roman Empire. He contrasts this with citizenship or what it means to be a citizen. Peasants were wholly dependent on the upper class. Whether it was a ruling class, the wealthy, the elite, or the military.
How can the new sophisticated urban dweller, or the college educated, or the renter with a big-screen television and smartphone possibly be compared to what we have called precitizens — mere residents before the rise of Western citizenship — given their distaste for the large families of the traditional peasant and their supposed cosmopolitanism so at odds with agrarian parochialism.
One, child, or indeed childlessness altogether, ostensibly expanded the career opportunities of women and ensured more disposable family income for leisure, travel, and recreation.
These ideas that traditionally larger families o…
