Race Suicide (1916)

Following a prologue which shows that animals frequently desert their young, a jilted prehistoric suitor murders the child of the woman he loves. During the age of the Roman Empire, a soldier has a brief affair with a shepherdess, and long after he has left, she has their child. The shepherdess looks for the father, but returns brokenhearted after finding him with another woman, and then dies while saving her child from a poisonous snake. During the Elizabethan era, a wayward son seeks spiritual redemption through war, and is killed in battle. In modern times, a young, impoverished husband refuses to start a family, despite the pleadings of his wife. Then, when he finally starts earning enough money to consider children, his wife has an accident that makes it impossible for her to become pregnant.