Records of an Arts Management Student

Sex-selective abortion is the act of aborting an unborn child at the stage of a foetus based on its gender, usually with the preference of male children over female children. Globally, the two countries most guilty of sex-selective abortion are India and China. Europe, USA and several other countries also share a similar pattern of preference of males of females but for discursive reasons, China will be used as a case study.

Largely frowned upon in the 21st century, this essay aims to understand why sex-selective abortions were enacted, how such actions have affected current and future issues and why such practices should be discontinued.

Why Boys over Girls?

The root cause of discriminative sex-selective abortions can be summarised as a preference for sons over daughters. Traditionally, this is due to reasons of lineage, asset and liability, productivity and legal constitutions.

In 2004, the gender gap report for China indicated a sex ratio of 121.2 : 100, boys to girls (South China Morning Post). Whilst not wholly responsible, the reason for this discrepancy in numbers as compared to the international standard of 100.1 : 100 is largely on account of the one-child policy as a method of family planning, passed in 1979 after the second world war, driven by fear of economic growth becoming negated by an unrestrained growth in population. However, the efforts proved over-effective, as China now faces a severe threat of underpopulation.

Should the firstborn be a daughter, it is possible to apply for a permit to have a second child at the cost of 500USD, in the rural areas. The penalty for birthing a second child without a permit would be 1,500USD, an estimated number between 3 – 9 times of the family’s annual income.  For poorer families living in rural China who earn their livelihood through jobs that do not garner much income, the cost of giving birth to a child as well as raising him or her into adulthood could prove to be overwhelming with total expenses considered – as of 2015, the new policy of two children instead of one have been applied, but the aftermaths of the one-child policy are still observable.

Patrilineality is practiced by families in most parts of the world and China is no exception. One of the strongest advocates of a patriarchal system where family names are passed down from  generation to generation by male members of the family; sons are considered assets to the family, as they ‘bring in’ a wife when they marry, adding onto the family and bearing the responsibility of taking care of elderly parents, whereas daughters are ‘given away’ in exchange and therefore considered a liability as they do not contribute to the family which they are borne of.

In terms of finances, men are also considered to be the breadwinners as many families who live outside of the city operate their own farmlands, with sons considered more physically competent to work in farms as compared to daughters, who are conventionally more suited for housework.

Another possible reason for the disparaging numbers reflected by China’s gender gap report would be due to an underreport of children born. A demographic report from 2000 by Daniel Goodkind explains how 19% of adolescents between 0 – 4 years of age are not registered as citizens, hence creating unaccountable faults in studies of sex ratio in China which make it difficult to collate credible information, interfering with the statistics of birth in China itself. Nevertheless, China is not the only guilty offender of prevailing irregularities in human figures – India, another country also renowned for overpopulation shares similar anomalies in relation to numbers, issues of same-sex abortion, and the overpowering preference of bearing sons to daughters.

A victim of one of the most privatised and skewed healthcare systems in the world, foeticide and femicide are one of the many unfortunate by-products of the disastrous environment created by India’s corrupted culture of its Dowry System.  

As a main factor as to why sons are preferred over daughters, a dowry in olden times referred to gifts from the father of a bride to his son-in-law, as a voluntary form of blessings and well-wishes to his daughter’s union with her husband, but in a modern day context, the dowry has been bastardized by inflated requests and demands by grooms and their families to extract a high amount of earnings through the marriage, which spirals to dowry violence and the unjust treatment of women in India because of their families being unable to pay the price of dowry.  In 1986, a campaign against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-selection fought against the discrimination of female foetus abortion in Mumbai and revealed that many expecting mothers would choose an abortion in the case of a female child as they would rather spend a small fee on abortion than their entire fortunes on their daughter’s weddings.

Laws have been implemented since 1961 banning demands of dowry, but most reports of dowry violence are overlooked and many brides married into such families often suffered in silence. Consequentially, a National Family Health Survey in 2002 revealed a disproportionately large amount of male births in specific populations, with an estimated number of 100,000 female foetuses said to be aborted annually in India once the gender of the child was discovered.

The Cost of Sex-Selective Abortion

Sex-selective foeticide is a sex crime against girls as the reasons for termination are purely based on gender and costs of these actions have already began to show through illegal human trafficking, unreported abortions, and behavioural problems in the surplus of men.

Human trafficking of girls into the bigger towns and states of India are have become commonplace in countries geographically close to India, such as Bangladesh and Nepal, or from poorer areas outside of cities and towns, with each girl being sold into marriage for an estimated 200USD, where the vicious cycle continues. The decreasing numbers of women in such societies are driven by the abortion of female children and even if denied the accessibility to safe abortion, many to-be mothers turn to illegal, riskier means of terminating their pregnancies, with many doctors already suspended due to the operations of such illegal clinics. With the lack of legal enforcements around the laws surrounding abortion, gathering concise data to gauge how much assistance the community needs becomes a challenge, which only proves to aggravates the problem of a missing gap in sex ratio.

Other than regular statistical numbers that are affixed to the controversial topic of same sex abortion, researchers neglect to address the long term psychological effect on members of communities exuding such problematic behaviour, with most studies focused on the problems surfacing from underlying issues but little actual quantifiable research done on the psychological effects for the adult humans caught up in the mess. This is in part due to costs as well as the fear of infringing on the rights of women involved as it advocates an almost ‘pro-life’ message that takes much mitigation and additional research into the strata of feminism, sex crimes, psychology, and sociology amongst several other related areas that would complicate matters substantially.

Nevertheless, 50 million girls are already missing as of 2011, based on the Canadian Medical Association. And as one of the most populated countries in the world, an imbalance in future reproductivity could be detrimental to future plans and expansions of the country.

While the numbers are speculative, there is little disagreement upon the fact that India and China will be facing a surplus of young male bachelors ranging between 10-20% in the next 20 years. Unable to find a female spouse, these men will likely face severe threats to their self-esteems and quality of life, as both China and India embrace the idea of marriage being a form of status, that starting a family indicates a promotion of adulthood and maturity. When deficient supply meets an overpowering amount of demand, women – the supply in question – go to the highest ‘bidders’. Following evolutionary rules, many poor, uneducated peasant men end up literally not being able to afford themselves a marriage, or a wife, as women now get to pick and choose while men fight for their attentions, the woman picking whomever she deems as most ‘attractive’. To summarise, marriage has turned into a rat race of a competition thanks to the one-child policy that brought same-sex abortion into practice.

Another separate issue China will face in the future would be an aging population. In 1995, China’s largest age group was 20-29 and its median age 27, but The American Enterprise predicts the largest age group to be 50-59 and its median age 40 by 2025. A long-term shortage of fertile women would lead to a decline in working manpower, hence challenging China’s ability to grow economically.

As a nation that rose rapidly in ranks due to its unprecedented increase in work force, it is predicted for China’s manpower to shrink by 10 million by 2025 and this begs the question; How would a nation facing aging population care for its elderly when the only form of social security in place for China’s poorer citizens are their family members?  

Pension funds are not readily available to people who live outside of the cities, where coincidentally, happens to be home to most of China’s poorer folks and by 2025, the children birthed during the period of the one child policy would be working to support their aged parents, signifying a decreased number of children to care for their parents in old age. Some may not even have surviving children to care for them, and left with scarce amounts of assistance to facilitate them in their later years, how will an entire generation be able to retire?

But is Same-Sex Abortion worth it?

However, some arguable pros have come out of Same Sex Abortion.

The access to prenatal sex determination results have increased the proportion of wanted births despite also increasing chances of same-sex abortion. Parents seeking help during the period of the mother’s pregnancy can receive aid from hospitals properly equipped to deal with gynaecology, with a report in 2001 (Junhong, Chu) confirming majority of hospitals in counties and towns in China to be equipped with ultra-sound machines and skilled technicians. This in turn helped to identify early signs of problems in pregnancies for interventions to be made before even the second trimesters, lowering mortality rates for mothers and children.

Sexual liberation of women due to an escalation of social statuses make them highly valuable and provided opportunities to choose potential husbands and to make decisions to their best interest, improving the woman’s self-esteem, mental health and well-being, including reduced preferences for sons, minimizing sex-selective abortions ultimately rebalancing the sex ratio in the long run.

The imbalance in sex ratio could also be a way to reduce growth and counter overpopulation, which was originally the intended effect of the one child policy in China.

However, Improved healthcare and better facilities for pregnant women should be a given, and not a way for expectant parents to get rid of unwanted daughters. Women should not have to be prized as a competitive tool for men to ascend into society via marriage and should be respected based on their own merits and accomplishments – the same being said for men who should not be ostracized because of a lack of opportunities which puts them at an unfair disadvantage, and finally, as much as overpopulation was a problem faced by both India and China, China especially has outdone itself in its efforts for population control, now instead facing underpopulation as an urgent concern that would affect all citizens of the country.

In conclusion, same-sex abortion is a traditional notion stirred by concerns of overpopulation, economic growth, and a lack of hindsight. In the current day and age, it is an irrational and indolent method of dealing with problems on part of the parties involved and it has garnered attention only recently due to the discrepancies in sex ratios that economists across the world have reported would be largely destructive to the economy.

To agree to practices of same-sex abortion, would be agreeing to the decimation of an entire country’s structure, from its working force, to its family values. Unless the Chinese government is prepared to face backlash from an entire country for its backwards policies that have put the moral grounds and wealth of the nation at risk, additional solutions to alleviate the inevitable impacts of same-sex abortion should be put forward as soon as possible to counter the damage done by decades of poorly-planned population control.

BLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF CITATIONS:

1.       Agnivesh, Swami, et al. "Missing: 50 million Indian girls; Female foeticide." International Herald Tribune, 25 Nov. 2005, p. 8. Global Issues in Context, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A139108729/GIC?u=wash89460&xid=d5485808. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

2.       “China Restricts Sex-Selective Abortion.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 11, no. 22, 2003, pp. 200–200., www.jstor.org/stable/3776080. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

3.       Dalvie, Suchitra S. “Second Trimester Abortions in India.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 16, no. 31, 2008, pp. 37–45., www.jstor.org/stable/25475399. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

4.       Eberstadt, Nicholas. "Demographic clouds on China's horizon." The American Enterprise, vol. 9, no. 4, 1998, p. 54+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA20850417&asid=b854f18cb499581ec83c16c339c49d3b. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

5.       Goodkind, Daniel. “Child Underreporting, Fertility, and Sex Ratio Imbalance in China.” Demography, vol. 48, no. 1, 2011, pp. 291–316., www.jstor.org/stable/41237721. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

6.       Hesketh, Therese, et al. "The consequences of son preference and sex-selective abortion in China and other Asian countries." CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 6 Sept. 2011, p. 1374+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA267609577&asid=9d89d3fa33d62beb2c7c07a48bbc629c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

7.       Jain, Anita. “Sex Selection and Abortion in India: Efforts to Curb Sex Selection Must Not Retard Progressive Safe Abortion Policies.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 346, no. 7902, 2013, pp. 8–8., www.jstor.org/stable/23494527. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

8.       Junhong, Chu. “Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China.” Population and Development Review, vol. 27, no. 2, 2001, pp. 259–281., www.jstor.org/stable/2695209. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

9.       Murray, Charles. "Measuring abortion." Public Interest, no. 158, 2005, p. 131+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA126552329&asid=5257ced4ce0b25bfdc1ccf068c7a8c3d. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

10.   PATEL, VIBHUTI. “A Long Battle for the Girl Child.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 46, no. 21, 2011, pp. 18–20., www.jstor.org/stable/23017217. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

11.   "The damage done by the sex-selection panic, India." Reproductive Health Matters, May 2014, p. 219. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA398828918&it=r&asid=75385b40ca5d6f3c078750dc8f3751c7. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

12.   Tucker, Catherine, and Jennifer Van Hook. “Surplus Chinese Men: Demographic Determinants of the Sex Ratio at Marriageable Ages in China.” Population and Development Review, vol. 39, no. 2, 2013, pp. 209–229., www.jstor.org/stable/41857593. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

13.   Zhu, Wei Xing, et al. “China's Excess Males, Sex Selective Abortion, and One Child Policy: Analysis of Data from 2005 National Intercensus Survey.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 338, no. 7700, 2009, pp. 920–923., www.jstor.org/stable/20512658. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

Sex-selective abortion is the act of aborting an unborn child at the stage of a foetus based on its gender, usually with the preference of male children over female children. Globally, the two countries most guilty of sex-selective abortion are India and China. Europe, USA and several other countries also share a similar pattern of preference of males of females but for discursive reasons, China will be used as a case study.

Largely frowned upon in the 21st century, this essay aims to understand why sex-selective abortions were enacted, how such actions have affected current and future issues and why such practices should be discontinued.

Why Boys over Girls?

The root cause of discriminative sex-selective abortions can be summarised as a preference for sons over daughters. Traditionally, this is due to reasons of lineage, asset and liability, productivity and legal constitutions.

In 2004, the gender gap report for China indicated a sex ratio of 121.2 : 100, boys to girls (South China Morning Post). Whilst not wholly responsible, the reason for this discrepancy in numbers as compared to the international standard of 100.1 : 100 is largely on account of the one-child policy as a method of family planning, passed in 1979 after the second world war, driven by fear of economic growth becoming negated by an unrestrained growth in population. However, the efforts proved over-effective, as China now faces a severe threat of underpopulation.

Should the firstborn be a daughter, it is possible to apply for a permit to have a second child at the cost of 500USD, in the rural areas. The penalty for birthing a second child without a permit would be 1,500USD, an estimated number between 3 – 9 times of the family’s annual income.  For poorer families living in rural China who earn their livelihood through jobs that do not garner much income, the cost of giving birth to a child as well as raising him or her into adulthood could prove to be overwhelming with total expenses considered – as of 2015, the new policy of two children instead of one have been applied, but the aftermaths of the one-child policy are still observable.

Patrilineality is practiced by families in most parts of the world and China is no exception. One of the strongest advocates of a patriarchal system where family names are passed down from  generation to generation by male members of the family; sons are considered assets to the family, as they ‘bring in’ a wife when they marry, adding onto the family and bearing the responsibility of taking care of elderly parents, whereas daughters are ‘given away’ in exchange and therefore considered a liability as they do not contribute to the family which they are borne of.

In terms of finances, men are also considered to be the breadwinners as many families who live outside of the city operate their own farmlands, with sons considered more physically competent to work in farms as compared to daughters, who are conventionally more suited for housework.

Another possible reason for the disparaging numbers reflected by China’s gender gap report would be due to an underreport of children born. A demographic report from 2000 by Daniel Goodkind explains how 19% of adolescents between 0 – 4 years of age are not registered as citizens, hence creating unaccountable faults in studies of sex ratio in China which make it difficult to collate credible information, interfering with the statistics of birth in China itself. Nevertheless, China is not the only guilty offender of prevailing irregularities in human figures – India, another country also renowned for overpopulation shares similar anomalies in relation to numbers, issues of same-sex abortion, and the overpowering preference of bearing sons to daughters.

A victim of one of the most privatised and skewed healthcare systems in the world, foeticide and femicide are one of the many unfortunate by-products of the disastrous environment created by India’s corrupted culture of its Dowry System. 

As a main factor as to why sons are preferred over daughters, a dowry in olden times referred to gifts from the father of a bride to his son-in-law, as a voluntary form of blessings and well-wishes to his daughter’s union with her husband, but in a modern day context, the dowry has been bastardized by inflated requests and demands by grooms and their families to extract a high amount of earnings through the marriage, which spirals to dowry violence and the unjust treatment of women in India because of their families being unable to pay the price of dowry.  In 1986, a campaign against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-selection fought against the discrimination of female foetus abortion in Mumbai and revealed that many expecting mothers would choose an abortion in the case of a female child as they would rather spend a small fee on abortion than their entire fortunes on their daughter’s weddings.

Laws have been implemented since 1961 banning demands of dowry, but most reports of dowry violence are overlooked and many brides married into such families often suffered in silence. Consequentially, a National Family Health Survey in 2002 revealed a disproportionately large amount of male births in specific populations, with an estimated number of 100,000 female foetuses said to be aborted annually in India once the gender of the child was discovered.

The Cost of Same-Sex Abortion

Sex-selective foeticide is a sex crime against girls as the reasons for termination are purely based on gender and costs of these actions have already began to show through illegal human trafficking, unreported abortions, and behavioural problems in the surplus of men.

Human trafficking of girls into the bigger towns and states of India are have become commonplace in countries geographically close to India, such as Bangladesh and Nepal, or from poorer areas outside of cities and towns, with each girl being sold into marriage for an estimated 200USD, where the vicious cycle continues. The decreasing numbers of women in such societies are driven by the abortion of female children and even if denied the accessibility to safe abortion, many to-be mothers turn to illegal, riskier means of terminating their pregnancies, with many doctors already suspended due to the operations of such illegal clinics. With the lack of legal enforcements around the laws surrounding abortion, gathering concise data to gauge how much assistance the community needs becomes a challenge, which only proves to aggravates the problem of a missing gap in sex ratio.

Other than regular statistical numbers that are affixed to the controversial topic of same sex abortion, researchers neglect to address the long term psychological effect on members of communities exuding such problematic behaviour, with most studies focused on the problems surfacing from underlying issues but little actual quantifiable research done on the psychological effects for the adult humans caught up in the mess. This is in part due to costs as well as the fear of infringing on the rights of women involved as it advocates an almost ‘pro-life’ message that takes much mitigation and additional research into the strata of feminism, sex crimes, psychology, and sociology amongst several other related areas that would complicate matters substantially.

Nevertheless, 50 million girls are already missing as of 2011, based on the Canadian Medical Association. And as one of the most populated countries in the world, an imbalance in future reproductivity could be detrimental to future plans and expansions of the country.

While the numbers are speculative, there is little disagreement upon the fact that India and China will be facing a surplus of young male bachelors ranging between 10-20% in the next 20 years. Unable to find a female spouse, these men will likely face severe threats to their self-esteems and quality of life, as both China and India embrace the idea of marriage being a form of status, that starting a family indicates a promotion of adulthood and maturity. When deficient supply meets an overpowering amount of demand, women – the supply in question – go to the highest ‘bidders’. Following evolutionary rules, many poor, uneducated peasant men end up literally not being able to afford themselves a marriage, or a wife, as women now get to pick and choose while men fight for their attentions, the woman picking whomever she deems as most ‘attractive’. To summarise, marriage has turned into a rat race of a competition thanks to the one-child policy that brought same-sex abortion into practice.

Another separate issue China will face in the future would be an aging population. In 1995, China’s largest age group was 20-29 and its median age 27, but The American Enterprise predicts the largest age group to be 50-59 and its median age 40 by 2025. A long-term shortage of fertile women would lead to a decline in working manpower, hence challenging China’s ability to grow economically.

As a nation that rose rapidly in ranks due to its unprecedented increase in work force, it is predicted for China’s manpower to shrink by 10 million by 2025 and this begs the question; How would a nation facing aging population care for its elderly when the only form of social security in place for China’s poorer citizens are their family members?  

Pension funds are not readily available to people who live outside of the cities, where coincidentally, happens to be home to most of China’s poorer folks and by 2025, the children birthed during the period of the one child policy would be working to support their aged parents, signifying a decreased number of children to care for their parents in old age. Some may not even have surviving children to care for them, and left with scarce amounts of assistance to facilitate them in their later years, how will an entire generation be able to retire?

But is Same-Sex Abortion worth it?

However, some arguable pros have come out of Same Sex Abortion.

The access to prenatal sex determination results have increased the proportion of wanted births despite also increasing chances of same-sex abortion. Parents seeking help during the period of the mother’s pregnancy can receive aid from hospitals properly equipped to deal with gynaecology, with a report in 2001 (Junhong, Chu) confirming majority of hospitals in counties and towns in China to be equipped with ultra-sound machines and skilled technicians. This in turn helped to identify early signs of problems in pregnancies for interventions to be made before even the second trimesters, lowering mortality rates for mothers and children.

Sexual liberation of women due to an escalation of social statuses make them highly valuable and provided opportunities to choose potential husbands and to make decisions to their best interest, improving the woman’s self-esteem, mental health and well-being, including reduced preferences for sons, minimizing sex-selective abortions ultimately rebalancing the sex ratio in the long run.

The imbalance in sex ratio could also be a way to reduce growth and counter overpopulation, which was originally the intended effect of the one child policy in China.

However, Improved healthcare and better facilities for pregnant women should be a given, and not a way for expectant parents to get rid of unwanted daughters. Women should not have to be prized as a competitive tool for men to ascend into society via marriage and should be respected based on their own merits and accomplishments – the same being said for men who should not be ostracized because of a lack of opportunities which puts them at an unfair disadvantage, and finally, as much as overpopulation was a problem faced by both India and China, China especially has outdone itself in its efforts for population control, now instead facing underpopulation as an urgent concern that would affect all citizens of the country.

In conclusion, same-sex abortion is a traditional notion stirred by concerns of overpopulation, economic growth, and a lack of hindsight. In the current day and age, it is an irrational and indolent method of dealing with problems on part of the parties involved and it has garnered attention only recently due to the discrepancies in sex ratios that economists across the world have reported would be largely destructive to the economy.

To agree to practices of same-sex abortion, would be agreeing to the decimation of an entire country’s structure, from its working force, to its family values. Unless the Chinese government is prepared to face backlash from an entire country for its backwards policies that have put the moral grounds and wealth of the nation at risk, additional solutions to alleviate the inevitable impacts of same-sex abortion should be put forward as soon as possible to counter the damage done by decades of poorly-planned population control.

BLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF CITATIONS:

1.       Agnivesh, Swami, et al. "Missing: 50 million Indian girls; Female foeticide." International Herald Tribune, 25 Nov. 2005, p. 8. Global Issues in Context, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A139108729/GIC?u=wash89460&xid=d5485808. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

2.       “China Restricts Sex-Selective Abortion.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 11, no. 22, 2003, pp. 200–200., www.jstor.org/stable/3776080. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

3.       Dalvie, Suchitra S. “Second Trimester Abortions in India.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 16, no. 31, 2008, pp. 37–45., www.jstor.org/stable/25475399. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

4.       Eberstadt, Nicholas. "Demographic clouds on China's horizon." The American Enterprise, vol. 9, no. 4, 1998, p. 54+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA20850417&asid=b854f18cb499581ec83c16c339c49d3b. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

5.       Goodkind, Daniel. “Child Underreporting, Fertility, and Sex Ratio Imbalance in China.” Demography, vol. 48, no. 1, 2011, pp. 291–316., www.jstor.org/stable/41237721. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

6.       Hesketh, Therese, et al. "The consequences of son preference and sex-selective abortion in China and other Asian countries." CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 6 Sept. 2011, p. 1374+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA267609577&asid=9d89d3fa33d62beb2c7c07a48bbc629c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

7.       Jain, Anita. “Sex Selection and Abortion in India: Efforts to Curb Sex Selection Must Not Retard Progressive Safe Abortion Policies.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 346, no. 7902, 2013, pp. 8–8., www.jstor.org/stable/23494527. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

8.       Junhong, Chu. “Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China.” Population and Development Review, vol. 27, no. 2, 2001, pp. 259–281., www.jstor.org/stable/2695209. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

9.       Murray, Charles. "Measuring abortion." Public Interest, no. 158, 2005, p. 131+. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com.vlib.interchange.at/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA126552329&asid=5257ced4ce0b25bfdc1ccf068c7a8c3d. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

10.   PATEL, VIBHUTI. “A Long Battle for the Girl Child.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 46, no. 21, 2011, pp. 18–20., www.jstor.org/stable/23017217. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

11.   "The damage done by the sex-selection panic, India." Reproductive Health Matters, May 2014, p. 219. Academic OneFile, elibraryusa.state.gov/primo?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=wash89460&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA398828918&it=r&asid=75385b40ca5d6f3c078750dc8f3751c7. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

12.   Tucker, Catherine, and Jennifer Van Hook. “Surplus Chinese Men: Demographic Determinants of the Sex Ratio at Marriageable Ages in China.” Population and Development Review, vol. 39, no. 2, 2013, pp. 209–229., www.jstor.org/stable/41857593. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

13.   Zhu, Wei Xing, et al. “China's Excess Males, Sex Selective Abortion, and One Child Policy: Analysis of Data from 2005 National Intercensus Survey.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 338, no. 7700, 2009, pp. 920–923., www.jstor.org/stable/20512658. Accessed 27 Feb. 2017.

The First Noel is a popular Christmas Carol sung from ages old till today in the 21st century across the world, mainly during Christmas to celebrate the birth of Christ in the Christian Faith, although in more secular groups, it is regarded as a seasonal song.

This essay will trace the origins of The First Noel and its significance to the themes of Christ and the celebration of Christmas, from the beginning of its existence to a modern-day interpretation of it by a popular A capella group (Pentatonix) that now performs it to a globalised audience.

The History of Carols

To begin, a carol, simply put, is a festive folk tune. Christmas carols are mostly similar, except they revolve around Christian ideologies. There is much dispute over when exactly The First Noel was composed and performed, but it is largely agreed upon that its first official date of publication was in Carols, Ancient and Modern (1823), in London. The publication is a collection of popular Christmas Carols, edited, arranged, and compiled by William Sandys, and Davies Gilbert. Depite that, the actual origins come from far before the early 19th century, between the era of classical antiquity and the dark ages, where churches held prominent power.

To understand how the form of a Carol has evolved to its universally adored figure today, its relationship with the church – the sanctified figurehead most people associate with Christmas Carols – must first be clarified.

During the earlier days of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, ‘Paganism’ referred to all beliefs outside of its body, in basic terms. The challenge of classifying Paganism into a single religion lies in its inclusion of multiple traditions with ways of life heavily influenced by nature, which unfortunately, are associated with witches, dark rituals, and cultists due to misrepresentations by current-day media and the early church who were the first to invent the label ‘Pagan’, which was originally Paganus -  as translated in the Latin Dictionary by Charles T. Lewis and Charles Short as ‘Of or belonging to the country or to a village, rustic’. To summarise, the meaning of ‘Pagan’ can range from anything between a commoner residing in the outskirts of town to an actual follower of the Pagan beliefs.

Due to its dissenting relationship with the church, the meaning of the word ‘Pagan’ has fluctuated and changed greatly in the time since its existence. Nonetheless, the Church at that time abhorred these Carols that the Pagans sang as they were a celebration of an entire community of beliefs that went against the Catholic Christian faith.

In an article written on BBC, Burton-Hill wrote that singing and related Christmas festivities were abhorrent and sinful because they viewed celebrating Christ’s birth on 25 December as a ‘commercial’ tradition that derived – with no biblical justification – from the Roman Catholic Church, threatening their core Christian beliefs as nowhere had it been written that God had called upon mankind to celebrate Christ’s nativity in such manners. In 1644, an Act of Parliament effectively banned the festival. Following up in June 1647, the Long Parliament passed an ordinance confirming the abolition of the feast of Christmas.

Despite difficult circumstances, carols have persisted from the dark ages far into the 18th century, mostly by word of mouth, given that they did not exist in the form of a score sheet as the singers of these tunes – peasants – were often illiterate.

Fast forward into the 19th century, The First Noel is collated and published with the introduction of lyrics for the first time in history under Carols, Ancient and Modern, as mentioned before. From there, it grows into the tune of The First Noel that the world is familiar with today.

In between the 20th and 21st century, The First Noel has been performed several times and published in many commercial Christmas albums in the style of the singer in question, a few notable ones being Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and more recently, Pentatonix.

A Contemporary Interpretation of The First Noel

Pentatonix is an American-based performance group consisting 5 vocalists - Avi Kaplan, Scott Hoying, Kirstin Maldonado, Kevin Olusola, and Mitch Grassi, which reflects the pentatonic scale of five notes.

The group first rose to fame after winning NBC’s The Sing-Off in 2013. Since then, they have toured all around the world, including Singapore, where they will return again in 2017 as part of Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix’s Headlining Acts as a contemporary pop group performing in the style of A Capella singing.

A Capella is a form of music-making where a group (or at times, a soloist) of voices are unaccompanied by any other instrument in performing a piece of music

Originating from Gregorian Chants first sung in the Renaissance period in Roman Catholic churches across Western continents and composed by anonymous groups of people whose names are now lost to time, the structure – including notation, composition, and distribution of voice – has evolved greatly between the time of Gregorian Chants to what A Capella is today, though both forms still keep to the rules of producing music purely with the human voice.

With that introspective, alike Gregorian Chants, The First Noel we know today is vastly different from what it was.

For comparative purposes, the ‘original’ The First Noel that shall be used as a study against Pentatonix’s cover will be the version published in Carols, Ancient and Modern (1823).

Length-wise, the original The First Noel is much shorter, with only one stanza of combined lyrics and scores for piano and an accompanied voice:

The first Nowell that the Angel did say

Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay

In fields where they lay keeping their sheep

In a cold winter’s night that was so deep

Nowell Nowell

Nowell Nowell

Born is the King of Israel

Pentatonix’s cover is the version inherited from the New English Hymnal, with extended lines as it has already shifted from its original form, which was meant for a singular voice sung along with the piano based from its score sheet.

The New English Hymnal (1986) has rearranged The First Noel to fit the four-part harmony (Soprano Alto Tenor Bass) structure that majority of church choirs are familiar with singing, and Pentatonix has taken an excerpt of that with the lyrics mentioned beforehand along with the following:

They looked up and saw a star

Shining in the East beyond them far

And to the earth it gave great light

And so it continued both day and night

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel

Born is the King of Israel!

The old rendition of The First Noel lacks a contemporary flair introduced to its more recent cover by Pentatonix’s usage of the SATB voices interchangeably. In its predecessor’s form, there is no presence of the SATB format, given that it was not produced to be sung by four voices at that time. Instead, it resembles a series of tonal harmonies with a bass constructed purely to harmonise with the melody.

Pentatonix has the luxury of 5 flexible voices that range between a mezzo soprano to a bass along with a beatboxer who all actively play different parts, although they overlap responsibilities with melodies often being either shared all switched amongst all voices involved in the song as a stylistic decision to brand themselves as a performance group with this as their specialty. Sopranos are often the main skeleton of a melody that people hear as what the tune encompasses. The Bass Line provides the harmony to match the main tune sung by the Soprano while the Alto and Tenor are known as harmonic fillers that flesh out decoratively to give finishing touches and to fill up what otherwise would sound empty in its wake.

Based on a video on TIME, Pentatonix has broken down rearrangements for A Capella in a very simple form – introduction of the beatboxer to establish a ‘groove’, which would be a common tone constructed by beatboxing, the emptiness amongst the beats filled up by a bass line, followed by background part(s) that would also be sounds made by the mouth instead of actual lyrics, then a harmonisation to match said background part before the proper solo lyrics of the song are introduced. Decorations to individual songs are added along the way to the end of the arrangement to provide a uniquely ‘Pentatonix’ personality to each cover.

Disregarding just the altered medium of presentation, the team behind Pentatonix has completely unwrapped and redressed the original The First Noel in a fashion that was impossible in the 19th century, utilising aural and visual communication skills via publicity through social media, in the entire package of a music video on YouTube as its method of delivery to its audience.

Pentatonix’s The First Noel is targeted to its audience of a general age between early teenage years to late adulthood. Other than performing live at concerts and touring around the world, as primary consumers of the world-wide web, their audiences have easy access to YouTube, where similar covers have been published on their channel, granting them the ability to rewatch the video repeatedly to their heart’s content at no cost, thus allowing the band to monitor their fans’ reactions to everything they do from a statistical viewpoint as YouTube collects data on its watchers with precise accuracy.

Compare this to the target audience of the original The First Noel, or even the New English Hymnal’s version of only churchgoers. The target audience has changed incredibly, from being a song sung in churches to celebrate the birth of Christ to now being marketed as a seasonal song for anyone of any religion, as long as they are connected to the internet. Carols in the context of the 21st Century have advanced beyond the Pagans and the Church to reach people across all walks of life who listen not for religious reasons, but to keep up with the everchanging inclinations of society as a single unit.

Previously, The First Noel were notes on a score with words scribed into them that were an entire entity distanced away from its audience, but Pentatonix’s version has revamped the carol completely with the usage of audio-visual tools that involve cinematography in the form of a music video showing the five-member band singing at the consumer in stylised fashion attires, branding the experience as almost ‘being interpersonal with the singers’ to sell the song in way where the watcher feels as if the cover was made only for them, the marketing team going so far to involve fans in a competition designed to include audiences in a community where they are able to feel closer to their idols.  These methods have influenced how The First Noel is being received today as a Christmas Carol, as it is now promoted as a pop song with multiple marketing strategies to attract new listeners, even if in the eye of the hurricane, it is fundamentally a simple tune that has been refurbished and republished time and again.

Concluding Thoughts

Pagan carols were appropriated by the Roman Catholic church and now further appropriated by secular performance groups for a modern audience as part of entertainment. A traditional song with a religious subject is able to reach a modern-day audience through its presentation which appeals to aural and visual senses for communication. Alike a chameleon, the survivability of The First Noel has been dependant chiefly on its ability – or man’s ability – to change its form and colour to keep up with trends of different times and to cater to the demands of the public, or spending power, which used to be the Church, but now belongs to the common people.

Ultimately, it is an everlasting symbol of Christ as well as the impact of the religious affiliations by the early church, which is evident still in today’s version of The First Noel as it is still considered a celebratory seasonal piece released as covers during Christmas. Pentatonix has opened up the listening audience by blending 21st Century technology together with an old tune known by millions – a direction that will be able to bridge connections and form bonds between the old and the new.

List of Citations:

Burton-Hill, Clemency. “When Christmas carols were banned.” BBC, 19 Dec. 2014, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141219-when-christmas-carols-were-banned.  Accessed 18 Feb 2017.

Butterworth, Anna. Harmony in practice. London: Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, 2009. Print.

Greene, Richard L. “Modern Language Notes.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 48, no. 2, 1933, pp. 133–134. www.jstor.org/stable/2912275.  Accessed 18 Feb 2017.

Greene, Richard L. “Renaissance News.” Renaissance News, vol. 15, no. 3, 1962, pp. 224–227. www.jstor.org/stable/2857888.

Kephart, Rick. “Gregorian Chant Notation.” Lphrc, http://www.lphrc.org/Chant/. Accessed 18 Feb 2017.

Neale, K. Elizabeth. “Colonial Celts and Christmas Carols: Cornish Music and Identity in South Australia.” Ethnomusicology Review, 3 Sept. 2015, http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/content/colonial-celts-and-christmas-carols-cornish-music-and-identity-south-australia. Accessed 18 February 2017.

Taylor, John. “Original Correspondence.” The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, vol. 13, no. 311, 1869, pp. 647–647. www.jstor.org/stable/3353734.

““THE FIRST NOEL” FAN A CAPELLA COVERS.” PENTATONIX, http://ptxofficial.com/news_archive?page=news_item&NewsID=3765647632921&last_page=news_archive. Accessed 18 Feb 2017.

“[Official Video] The First Noel – Pentatonix.” Youtube, uploaded by PTXofficial, 15 Dec 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5UvnKlCTA

“Watch Pentatonix Break Down Their Sound.” Time, uploaded by Feeney, Nolan and Salima Koroma. http://time.com/4083364/pentatonix-interview-cheerleader-cant-sleep-love/

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the 19th Century - a time where individualism and the portrayal of emotions mattered most (Wade-Matthews 346) -  famous for three things:

His works, which consisted of Ballets, Operas, Concertos, and Symphonies.

His homosexuality

His death

(Program) Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, ‘Pathétique’ framed his death as a huge controversy in the world of Russian art due to both his fame and the suspicious events that led up to his death and the consequential rumors that are still debated today.

1. The purpose of this blog is for me to keep track of my own essays and to see how far I’ve progressed.

2. No, as much as I would like to say I make no mistakes, I wouldn’t call these essays safe for you to use as a scholarly source because chances are that they’re punched full of mistakes. Do consult my citations if you want them though! 

3. No you are NOT allowed to use my essay in class if you’re some sort of lecturer as a form of ‘don’t do this’ because again, this is mostly for myself, and while you are welcomed to peruse, please do not mock me because I take most of the essays very seriously. (even if, as mentioned beforehand, they are full of mistakes.) 

4. If you do have constructive criticism for me, however, I am all ears - inbox, or message me.