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I'm honestly scratching my head here and am wondering how you strangely seem to admit the point I'm making with simultaneously denying it's significance. I think there's some profound illogic going on here.
No single factor explanation was ever the cause for anything out there. What you do in any responsible analysis is to examine what it's contribution to the problem was. I'm granting that you're arguing in good faith here, but if it's a body of historical research that you're looking for, the work has been done. And sexual libertinism continues to haunt Russian demographics today. It wasn't responsible for the casualty rate of the Eastern Front. What it 'is' responsible for on January 5th, 2023, is privileging an independent and selfish lifestyle over the continued survival of the community you live in.
And so you'll suggest in one breath SR played no role in weakening the USSR, but (conservative) Islamic theocracy is singularly to blame because they haven't reversed their demographic trend? Seems to not be the case in Afghanistan, which certainly isn't a bastion of liberalism in the Middle East. Wasn't the case with General Franco in Spain, certainly not the bastion of liberalism in Europe. I don't get what this is supposed to prove in your view.
The only way I see that someone can conclude that is that they haven't read the data or are indifferent to it. I think this is a good place to leave this conversation.
That wasn't the point I was making.
This is exactly the attitude many conservatives have taken. It's also the same reason why religious factions like Conservative and Reform Judaism will be looked at as a historical footnote in upcoming generations. Precisely because it's the ultra-conservative ones that are reproducing themselves. It definitely isn't the alternative. Even the most cynical conservatives I've known here have told me it's a mistake to insist that their liberal/progressive political opponents be concerned with their own reproductive fall off. They'd prefer they all die off in a generation or two. I'm not saying 'every' conservative solution to the problem will be guaranteed to work. I'm saying that 'only' a conservative solution in nature will be guaranteed to work.
If you require no further examination of data, I can see why you would support this conclusion. I see little value in continuing it. Be well.
There are 100 men and 100 women. A a thousand years later, 50 of those women have living descendants, while only 10 of the men do. This does not mean only 10 of those men ever reproduced, it means only 10 of those men established lineages that persisted for 1000 years and were not wiped out at some point over the centuries. It does not mean that, of those 100 original men, 95 died childless.
Having never read the book, what kind of historical data does Unwin work with to establish the sexual continence or lack thereof of pre-modern civilizations?
I have no point except that theocracy in Iran manifestly does not keep fertility above replacement, and I only brought it up because you suggested Iranian adultery laws as a model.
I spent my whole OP discussing data.
What point was it?
If life was going to continue pretty much as it is today for the next century, then the “Haredim and Amish will inherit the earth” people might be right, but it almost certainly isn’t.
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