TWO CLASSES OF WOMEN
Thus far we have been discussing mainly one class in America--the
workers. Most women who belong to the workers' families have no
accurate or reliable knowledge of contraceptives, and are, therefore,
bringing children into the world so rapidly that they, their families
and their class are overwhelmed with numbers. Out of these numbers, as
has been shown, have grown many of the burdens with which society in
general is weighted; out of them have come, also, the want, disease,
hard living conditions and general misery of the workers.
The women of this class are the greatest sufferers of all. Not only do
they bear the material hardships and deprivations in common with the
rest of the family, but in the case of the mother, these are
intensified. It is the man and the child who have first call upon the
insufficient amount of food. It is the man and the child who get the
recreation, if there is any to be had, for the man's hours of labor
are usually limited by law or by his labor union.
It is the woman who suffers first from hunger, the woman whose
clothing is least adequate, the woman who must work all hours, even
though she is not compelled, as in the case of millions, to go into a
factory to add to her husband's scanty income. It is she, too, whose
health breaks first and most hopelessly, under the long hours of work,
the drain of frequent childbearing, and often almost constant nursing
of babies. There are no eight-hour laws to protect the mother against
overwork and toil in the home; no laws to protect her against ill
health and the diseases of pregnancy and reproduction. In fact there
has been almost no thought or consideration given for the protection
of the mother in the home of the workingman.
There are no general health statistics to tell the full story of the
physical ills suffered by women as a result of too great
reproductivity. But we get some light upon conditions through the
statistics on maternal mortality, compiled by Dr. Grace L. Meigs, for
the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor. These
figures do not include the deaths of women suffering from diseases
complicated by pregnancy.
"In 1913, in this country at least 15,000 women, it is estimated, died
from conditions caused by childbirth; about 7,000 of these died from
childbed fever and the remaining 8,000 from diseases now known to be
to a great extent preventable or curable," says Dr. Meigs in her
summary, "Physicians and statisticians agree that these figures are a
_great underestimate_."
Think of it--the needless deaths of 15,000 women a "great
underestimate"! Yet even this number means that virtually every hour
of the day and night two women die as the result of childbirth in the
healthiest and supposedly the most progressive country in the world.
It is apparent that Dr. Meigs leaves out of consideration the many
thousands of deaths each year of women who become pregnant while
suffering from tuberculosis. Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, addressing the
forty-fourth annual convention of the American Public Health
Association, in Cincinnati in 1916, called attention to the fact that
some authors hold that "65 per cent of the women afflicted with
tuberculosis, even when afflicted only in the relatively early and
curable stages, die as the result of pregnancy which could have been
avoided and their lives saved had they but known some means of
prevention." Nor were syphilis, various kidney and heart disorders and
other diseases, often rendered fatal by pregnancy, taken into account
by Dr. Meigs' survey.
Still, leaving out all the hundreds of thousands of women who die
because pregnancy has complicated serious diseases, Dr. Meigs finds
that "in 1913, the death rate per 100,000 of the population from all
conditions caused by childbirth was little lower than that from
typhoid fever. This rate would be almost quadrupled if only the group
of the population which can be affected, women of child-bearing ages,
were considered. In 1913, childbirth caused more deaths among women 15
to 44 years old than any disease except tuberculosis."
From what sort of homes come these deaths from childbirth? Most of
them occur in overcrowded dwellings, where food, care, sanitation,
nursing and medical attention are inadequate. Where do we find most of
the tuberculosis and much of the other disease which is aggravated by
pregnancy? In the same sort of home.
The deadly chain of misery is all too plain to anyone who takes the
trouble to observe it. A woman of the working class marries and with
her husband lives in a degree of comfort upon his earnings. Her
household duties are not beyond her strength. Then the children begin
to come--one, two, three, four, possibly five or more. The earnings of
the husband do not increase as rapidly as the family does. Food,
clothing and general comfort in the home grow less as the numbers of
the family increase. The woman's work grows heavier, and her strength
is less with each child. Possibly--probably--she has to go into a
factory to add to her husband's earnings. There she toils, doing her
housework at night. Her health goes, and the crowded conditions and
lack of necessities in the home help to bring about disease--especially
tuberculosis. Under the circumstances, the woman's chances of
recovering from each succeeding childbirth grow less. Less too are
the chances of the child's surviving, as shown by tables in another
chapter. Unwanted children, poverty, ill health, misery, death--these
are the links in the chain, and they are common to most of the
families in the class described in the preceding chapter.
Nor is the full story of the woman's sufferings yet told. Grievous as
is her material condition, her spiritual deprivations are still
greater. By the very fact of its existence, mother love demands its
expression toward the child. By that same fact, it becomes a necessary
factor in the child's development. The mother of too many children, in
a crowded home where want, ill health and antagonism are perpetually
created, is deprived of this simplest personal expression. She can
give nothing to her child of herself, of her personality. Training is
impossible and sympathetic guidance equally so. Instead, such a mother
is tired, nervous, irritated and ill-tempered; a determent, often,
instead of a help to her children. Motherhood becomes a disaster and
childhood a tragedy.
It goes without saying that this woman loses also all opportunity of
personal expression outside her home. She has neither a chance to
develop social qualities nor to indulge in social pleasures. The
feminine element in her--that spirit which blossoms forth now and then
in women free from such burdens--cannot assert itself. She can
contribute nothing to the wellbeing of the community. She is a
breeding machine and a drudge--she is not an asset but a liability to
her neighborhood, to her class, to society. She can be nothing as long
as she is denied means of limiting her family.
In sharp contrast with these women who ignorantly bring forth large
families and who thereby enslave themselves, we find a few women who
have one, two or three children or no children at all. These women,
with the exception of the childless ones, live full-rounded lives.
They are found not only in the ranks of the rich and the well-to-do,
but in the ranks of labor as well. They have but one point of basic
difference from their enslaved sisters--they are not burdened with the
rearing of large families.
We have no need to call upon the historian, the sociologist nor the
statistician for our knowledge of this situation. We meet it every day
in the ordinary routine of our lives. The women who are the great
teachers, the great writers, the artists, musicians, physicians, the
leaders of public movements, the great suffragists, reformers, labor
leaders and revolutionaries are those who are not compelled to give
lavishly of their physical and spiritual strength in bearing and
rearing large families. The situation is too familiar for discussion.
Where a woman with a large family is contributing directly to the
progress of her times or the betterment of social conditions, it is
usually because she has sufficient wealth to employ trained nurses,
governesses, and others who perform the duties necessary to child
rearing. She is a rarity and is universally recognized as such.
The women with small families, however, are free to make their choice
of those social pleasures which are the right of every human being and
necessary to each one's full development. They can be and are, each
according to her individual capacity, comrades and companions to their
husbands--a privilege denied to the mother of many children. Theirs is
the opportunity to keep abreast of the times, to make and cultivate a
varied circle of friends, to seek amusements as suits their taste and
means, to know the meaning of real recreation. All these things remain
unrealized desires to the prolific mother.
Women who have a knowledge of contraceptives are not compelled to make
the choice between a maternal experience and a marred love life; they
are not forced to balance motherhood against social and spiritual
activities. Motherhood is for them to choose, as it should be for
every woman to choose. Choosing to become mothers, they do not thereby
shut themselves away from thorough companionship with their husbands,
from friends, from culture, from all those manifold experiences which
are necessary to the completeness and the joy of life.
Fit mothers of the race are these, the courted comrades of the men
they choose, rather than the "slaves of slaves." For theirs is the
magic power--the power of limiting their families to such numbers as
will permit them to live full-rounded lives. Such lives are the
expression of the feminine spirit which is woman _and all of her_--not
merely art, nor professional skill, nor intellect--but all that woman
is, or may achieve.