I cannot tell you all my sufferings during the time of motherhood. I
thought, like hundreds of women do to-day, that it was only natural,
and you had to bear it. I was left an orphan, and having no mother to
tell me anything, I was quite unprepared for marriage and what was
expected of me.
My husband being some years my senior, I found he had not a bit of
control over his passions, and expected me to do what he had been in
the habit of paying women to do.
I had three children and one miscarriage within three years. This left
me very weak and suffering from very bad legs. I had to work very hard
all the time I was pregnant.
My next child only lived a few hours. After the confinement I was very
ill, and under the care of a doctor for some time. I had inflammation
in the varicose veins; the doctor told me I should always lay with my
legs above my head. He told my husband I must not do any work for some
time. I had either to wear a bandage or an elastic stocking to keep my
legs so that I might get about at all. I am still suffering from the
varicose veins now, although my youngest child is fourteen; at times
I am obliged to keep my legs bandaged up. With each child I had they
seemed to get worse, and me having them so quickly never allowed my
legs to get into their normal condition before I was pregnant again. I
do wish there could be some limit to the time when a woman is expected
to have a child. I often think women are really worse off than beasts.
During the time of pregnancy, the male beast keeps entirely from the
female: not so with the woman; she is at the prey of a man just the
same as though she was not pregnant. Practically within a few days of
the birth, and as soon as the birth is over, she is tortured again. If
the woman does not feel well she must not say so, as a man has such a
lot of ways of punishing a woman if she does not give in to him....
_Wages 30s. average; seven children, two miscarriages._