THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
This is by far the most important branch of the question. The evils
caused by an overstocking of the world, if even inevitable, are distant;
and an abstract view of the subject, however unanswerable, does not come
home to the mind with the force of detailed reality.
What would be the probable effect, in social life, if mankind obtained
and exercised a control over the instinct of reproduction?
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend it—that the effect
would be salutary, moral, civilizing; that it would prevent many crimes
and more unhappiness; that it would lessen intemperance and profligacy;
that it would polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it
would relieve the burden of the poor, and the cares of the rich; that it
would most essentially benefit the rising generation, by enabling
parents generally more careful to educate, and more comfortable to
provide for, their offspring. I proceed to substantiate as I may these
positions.
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married persons. Is it
not notorious, that the families of the married often increase beyond
what a regard for the young beings coming into the world, or the
happiness of those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many
instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother,
of a poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at the
oar of incessant labour, toiling to live, and living only to die; when,
if their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might
have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence! How often is the health
of the mother, giving birth every year to an infant—happy, if it be not
twins!—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when nature
imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery—how often is the
mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life, thus sacrificed! Or, if care
and toil have weighed down the spirit, and at last broken the health of
the father, how often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous
intentions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming degraded
objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice!
Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and your
nursery-maids, and who leave your children at home, to frequent the
crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball-room; but you by the labour
of whose hands your children are to live, and who, as you count their
rising numbers, sigh to think how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen
those wages which are now but just sufficient to afford them
bread—fathers and mothers in humble life! to you my argument comes home,
with the force of reality. Others may impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter
experience you know and feel its truth.
It will be said, that government ought to provide for the support and
education of all the children of the land. No one is less inclined to
deny the position than I. But it _does_ not support and educate them.
And, if it did, a period must come at last, when even such an act of
justice would be no relief from the evils of overpopulation.
Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are many woman so
constituted that they cannot give birth to healthy—sometimes not to
_living_ children. Is it desirable—is it _moral_, that such women should
become pregnant? Yet this is continually the case, the warnings of
physicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought
never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to
their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that worst of
diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life of celibacy. They
marry. They become parents, and the world suffers by it. That a human
being should give birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it
hereditary disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly
to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the lives of
Shakers. Nor is it necessary: all that duty requires of them is, to
refrain from becoming parents. Who can estimate the beneficial effect
which rational moral restraint may thus have, on the health, beauty, and
physical improvement of our race, throughout future generations?
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most plainly,
clearly, incontrovertibly _desirable_, that parents _should have the
power_[13] to limit their offspring, whether they choose to exercise it
or not? Who _can_ lose by their having this power? and how many _may_
gain! may gain competency for themselves, and the opportunity carefully
to educate and provide for their children! How many _may_ escape the
jarrings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an overgrown
family too often causes in the domestic circle?
It sometimes happens, that individual instances come home to the
feelings with greater force than any general reasoning. I shall, in this
place, adduce one which came immediately under my cognizance.
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of the first
respectability, occupying a public situation in one of the western
states, a letter, requesting to know whether I could afford any
information or advice in a case which greatly interested him, and which
regarded a young woman for whom he had ever experienced the sentiments
of a father. In explanation of the circumstances to which he alluded, he
enclosed me a copy of a letter which she had just written to him and
which I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from its
simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate situation
in which not one, but thousands, in married life, find themselves
placed, I have never read.
L***, KENTUCKY, MAY 3, 1829.
DEAR SIR,
The friendship which has existed between you and my father, ever since I
can remember; the unaffected kindness you used to express towards me,
when you resided in our neighbourhood, during my childhood; the lively
solicitude you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your
benevolence and liberal character, induce me to lay before you, in a few
words, my critical situation, and ask you for your kind advice.
It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic of industrious
habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners, and agreeable features,
excessively fond of our children and of me; in short, eminently well
qualified to render himself and family and all around him happy, were it
not for the besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or
four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally or purposely, with some of
his friends, of whom, either real or pretended, his good nature and
liberality procure him many, he is sure to get intoxicated, so as to
lose his reason; and, when thus beside himself, he trades and makes
foolish bargains, so much to his disadvantage, that he has almost
reduced himself and family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a
shop of his own, but obliged to work journey work.
We have not been married quite four years, and have already given being
to three dear little ones. Under present circumstances, what can I
expect will be their fate and mine? I shudder at the prospect before me.
With my excellent constitution and industry, and the labour of my
husband, I feel able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency,
were I to have no more: but when I seriously consider my situation, I
can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear myself away from
the man who, though addicted to occasional intoxication, would sacrifice
his life for my sake; and for whom, contrary to my father’s will, I
successively refused the hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher;
or continue to witness his degradation, and bring into existence, in all
probability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, who,
on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance,
and consequent vice and misery.
The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father for my
disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for advice or any thing
else. My husband being somewhat sceptical, my father attributes his
intemperance to his infidelity; though my brother, as you know, being a
member of the same church with my father, is nevertheless, though he
does not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my husband, and
ranks among the faithful. You will therefore plainly see, that for these
and other reasons, I stand the more in need of your friendly advice; and
I do hope and believe, you will give me such advice and counsel as you
would to your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that I
am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude of your
friend,
M. W.
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this? Every feeling
mind must be touched by the amiable feeling and good sense that pervade
the letter. Every rational being, surely, must admit, that the power of
preventing, without injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under
such circumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible reply to these
facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the thing is, in itself,
immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point to the population of France,
in justification of my denial. Where will you find, on the face of the
globe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one
more punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You
will find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb.
Yet, as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked, there
is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper classes, (and seldom
even among the working classes,) such a thing as a large family; very
seldom more than three or four children, A French lady of the utmost
delicacy and respectability will, in common conversation, say as
simply—(ay, and as _innocently_, whatever the self-righteous prude may
aver to the contrary)—as she would proffer any common remark about the
weather: “I have three children; my husband and I think that is as many
as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have any more.”[14]
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who has visited
Paris, and seen any thing of the domestic life of its inhabitants, will
attempt to deny. However heterodox, then, my view of the subject may be
in this country, I am supported in it by the opinion and the practice of
the most refined and most socially cultivated nation in the world.
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is immoral?
Again I appeal to France. I appeal to the details of the late glorious
revolution—to the innumerable instances of moderation, of courage, of
honesty, of disinterestedness, of generosity, of magnanimity, displayed
on the memorable “three days,” and ever since; and I challenge
comparison between the national character of France for virtue, as well
as politeness, and that of any other nation under heaven.
It is evident, then, that to married persons, the power of limiting
their offspring to their circumstances is most desirable. It may often
promote the harmony, peace, and comfort of families; sometimes it may
save from bankruptcy and ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother
from premature death. In _no_ case can it, by possibility, be worse than
superfluous. _In no case can it be mischievous._
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were taught to
consult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those we love than our
own, how strongly would these arguments be felt? No man ought even to
_desire_ that a woman should become the mother of his children, unless
it was her express wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare,
that she should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this
matter _an imperative law_. She it is who bears the burden, and
therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely it may well be
a question whether it be desirable, or whether any man ought to ask,
that the whole life of an intellectual, cultivated woman, should be
spent in bearing a family of twelve or fifteen children; to the ruin,
perhaps, of her constitution, if not to the overstocking of the world.
No man ought to require or expect it.
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality? Alas! that
what ought to be a matter of every day practice—a common-place exercise
of the duties and charities of life—a bounden duty—an instance of
domestic courtesy too universal either to excite remark or to merit
commendation—alas! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be
reproached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem but a
fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation!
But I pass from the case of married persons to that of young men and
women who have yet formed no matrimonial connexion.
In the present state of the world, when public opinion stamps with
opprobrium every sexual connexion which has not received the orthodox
sanction of an oath, almost all young persons, on reaching the age of
maturity, desire to marry. The heart must be very cold, or very
isolated, that does not find some object on which to bestow its
affections. Thus, early marriages would be almost universal, did not
prudential considerations interfere. The young man thinks, “I must not
marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must make money first, and think
of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.”
And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved, in a few
years, to share it with her whom he now loves. But passions are strong,
and temptations great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the
company of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a
dependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses
for being what she has made them. There his health and his moral
feelings alike are made shipwreck. The affections he had thought to
treasure up for their first object, are chilled by dissipation and
blunted by excess. He scarcely retains a passion but avarice. Years pass
on—years of profligacy and speculation—and his first wish is
accomplished; his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and
resolves of his youth?
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone—and for ever!
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs at the romance of
his youth, and marries a fortune. If gaudy equipages and gay parties
confer happiness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the
stormy ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which
forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provision has been
made for a large, expected family. Had he married the first object of
his choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects
seemed to warrant it, how different might have been his lot! Until men
and woman are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when
they themselves desire it, they ever will form mercenary and
demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissipation the happiness they
might have found in domestic life.
I know that this, however common, is not a universal case. Sometimes the
heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred, at all risks; and who
shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the
consequence? Sometimes—if even rarely—the young mind _does_ hold to its
first resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and
solitary anxiety; happy, if before the best hours of life are gone, and
its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his
forbearance and his industry. But even in this comparatively happy case,
shall we count for nothing the years of ascetical sacrifice at which
after-happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor
its affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself,
desirable? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacrifice is a dead
loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us
temperately enjoy the spring-time of life, “while the evil days come
not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say, ‘We have no pleasure in
them?’”
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the
present for the future, chooses wisely between two evils, profligacy and
asceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a
good. It is _not_ good for man to be alone. It is for no man’s or
woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to
Shakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the
character. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a
life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,
restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are among
the least of these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. Even
the very instinct which is thus mortified, assumes an undue importance,
and occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature
belong to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice[15] or disease, or
even insanity, has been the result of ascetical mortification. I speak
of every day cases; and I am well convinced, that, (however wise it
often is, in the present state of the world, to select and adhere to
this alternative,) yet no man or woman can live the life of a
conscientious Shaker, without suffering, more or less, both physically,
mentally, and morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the
very noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the high-minded,
and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heavy responsibilities deters
from forming moral connexions, and encourages intemperance and
prostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit his offspring,
would, in the present state of things, save much unhappiness and prevent
many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other, and who
might wish to marry, would marry early; merely resolving not to become
parents until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead of solitary
toil or vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance
of her he had chosen as his companion; and the best years of life, whose
pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, or lost through
mortification.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have hitherto employed,
apply strictly to the present order of things, and the present laws and
system of marriage. No one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this
subject to admit and approve them. The marriage laws might all remain
for ever as they are; and yet a moral check to population would be
beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, where the knowledge of such
a check would be mischievous. If young women, it will be argued, were
absolved from the fear of consequences, they would rarely preserve their
chastity. Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom detected.
Seduction would be facilitated. Let us dispassionately examine this
argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics, Shelley, that
“Seduction, which term could have no meaning in a rational society, has
now a most tremendous one.”[16] It matters not how artificial the
penality which society has chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious
decrees. Society has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,
Public Opinion, enforces the penality, even though it cost the life of
the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence
is, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of the heart, are
the same as if her imprudence were indeed a crime of the blackest dye.
And his conduct who, for a momentary, selfish gratification, will
deliberately entail a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault,
perhaps, was her misplaced confidence in a villain, is not one whit
excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.[17] Some poet says,
“The man who lays his hands upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”
What epithet, then, belongs to him who makes it a trade to win a woman’s
gentle affections, betray her generous confidence, and then, when the
consequences become apparent, abandon her to dependence, and the scorn
of a cold, a self-righteous, and a wicked world; a world which will
forgive any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose eyes
it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and warm-hearted! I
will give my hand freely to a galley-slave, and speak to the
highway-robber as to an honest man; but there is one character with whom
I desire to exchange neither word nor greeting—the cold-hearted,
deliberate, practiced, and calculating seducer!
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction their sting,
and stamps to the world its victim? Why is it, that the man goes free
and enters society again, almost courted and applauded for his
treachery; while the woman is a mark for the finger of reproach, and a
butt for the tongue of scandal? Because she bears about her the mark of
what is called her disgrace. She becomes a mother; and society has
something tangible against which to direct its anathemas. Nine tenths,
at least, of the misery and ruin which are caused by seduction, even in
the present state of public opinion on the subject, result from cases of
pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeeling selfishness of him who fears to become
a father, administers some noxious drug to procure abortion; perhaps—for
even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps the frenzy of
the wretched mother takes the life of her infant, or seeks in suicide
the consummation of her wrongs and her woes! Or, if the little being
lives, the dove in the falcon’s claws is not more certain of death, than
we may be, that society will visit, with its bitterest scoffs and
reproaches, the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious
innocence of the child.
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we cannot
prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the world’s cruelty
entail on a sex which it ought to be our pride and honor to cherish and
defend; let us prevent as many as we can. If we cannot persuade society
to revoke its unmanly and _unchristian_[18] persecution of those who are
often the best and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to
woman what defence we may, against its violence.
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his child,
whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalized connexion, her
pregnancy would not be a frightful aggravation? I appeal to him, whether
any innocent preventive which shall save her from a situation that must
soon disclose all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of
charity, of philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair, and
her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frown upon the question,
but to the father it comes home; and, whatever his lips may say, his
heart will acknowledge the soundness and the force of the argument it
conveys.[19]
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will still demur to
the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell me, as the Committee of a
certain Society in this city lately did, that the power of preventing
conceptions “holds out inducements and facilities for the prostitution
of their daughters, their sisters, and their wives.”[20]
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, a
poor compliment! Is, then, this vaunted chastity a mere thing of
circumstance and occasion? Is there but the difference of opportunity
between it and prostitution? Would their wives, and their sisters, and
their daughters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, all become
prostitutes—all sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a level
with the most degraded? In truth, but they slander their own kindred;
they libel their own wives, sisters, and daughters. If they spoke
truth—if fear were indeed the only safeguard of their relatives’
chastity, little value should I place on virtue like that! and small
would I esteem his offence, who should attempt to seduce it.[21]
That chastity which is worth preserving is not the chastity that owes
its birth to fear and to ignorance. If to enlighten a woman regarding a
simple physiological fact will make her a prostitute, she must be
especially predisposed to profligacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few,
indeed, there are, who would continue so miserable and degrading a
calling, could they but escape from it. For one prostitute that is made
by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws—equalize the
comforts of society, and you need withhold no knowledge from your wives
and daughters. It is want, not knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
For myself, I would withhold from no sister or daughter, or wife of
mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should be to me a duty and a
pleasure to communicate to them all I knew myself: and I should hold it
an insult to their understandings and their hearts to imagine, that
their virtue would diminish as their knowledge increased. Vice is never
the offspring of just knowledge, and they who say it is, slander their
own nature. Would we but trust human nature, instead of continually
suspecting it, and guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make
it very chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world we
should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly plant, ever
exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to be scorched and
blasted even by the free light of heaven; of precarious growth; and,
even if at last artificially matured, of little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to withhold from
their children—especially from their daughters—facts the most
influential on their future lives, and the knowledge of which is
essential to every man and woman’s well-being.[22] Such a course has
ever appeared to me ill-judged and productive of very injurious effects.
A girl is surely no whit the better for believing, until her marriage
night that children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden.
The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on the
stretch; and that which, if simply explained, would have been
recollected only as any other physiological phenomenon, assumes all the
rank and importance and engrossing interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well
convinced, that mere curiosity has often led ignorant young people into
situations, from which a little more confidence and openness on the part
of their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured them.
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was taught and believed,
that all the imaginations and all the thoughts of man are only evil
continually—when it was deemed right and proper to secure the submission
of the mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to read and
write—in those days, it was all very well to shut up the physiological
page, and tell us, that on the day we read therein we should surely die.
But those times are past. In this nineteenth century, men and women
read, think, discuss, enquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter
days, there is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of
knowledge and of free enquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We _cannot_
prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we would; we _ought_
not, even if we could.
This book will make its way through the whole United States. Curiosity
and the notoriety which has already been given to the subject, will
suffice at first to obtain for it circulation. The practical importance
of the subject it treats of will do the rest. It needed but some one to
start the stone; its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.
But, if we _could_ prevent the circulation of truth, why _should_ we? We
are not afraid of it ourselves. No man thinks _his_ morality will suffer
by it. Each feels certain that his virtue can stand any degree of
knowledge. And is it not the height of egregious presumption in each to
imagine that his neighbour is so much weaker than himself, and requires
a bandage which he can do without? Most of all, is it presumptuous to
suppose, that that knowledge which the man of the world can bear with
impunity, will corrupt the young and the pure-hearted. It is the sullied
conscience only that suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence.
Speak to them openly. Show them that you respect them, by treating them
with confidence; and they will quickly learn to respect and to govern
themselves. You enlist even their pride in your behalf; and you will
soon see them make it their boast and their highest pleasure to _merit_
your confidence. But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but
once—and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as long as
bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The world was never made for
a prison-house; it is too large and ill-guarded: nor were parents ever
intended for goal-keepers; their very affections unfit them for the
task.
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family among whom
there are no secrets and no reserves: where the young people confide
every thing to their elder friends—for such to them are their
parents—and where the parents trust every thing to their children; where
each thought is communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge
given, as simply as it is received. If the world contain a prototype of
that Paradise, where nature is said to have known no sin or impropriety,
it is such a family; and if there be a serpent that can poison the
innocence of its inmates, that serpent is SUSPICION.
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and companion of
young beings whose innocence shall speak to me as unreservedly as it
thinks to itself; of young beings who shall never imagine that there is
guilt in their thoughts, or sin in their confidence; and to whom, in
return, I may impart every important and useful fact that is known to
myself. Their virtue shall be of that hardy growth, which _all_ facts
tend to nourish and strengthen.
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human nature, and such a
mode of treating it, be not in accordance with the noblest feelings of
their hearts. I put it to them, whether they have not felt themselves
encouraged, improved, strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when
they were generously trusted; and whether they have not felt abased and
degraded, when they were suspiciously watched, and spied after, and kept
in ignorance. If they find such feelings in their own hearts, let them
not self-righteously imagine, that they only can be won by generosity,
or that the nature of their fellow-creatures is different from their
own.
There are other considerations connected with this subject, which
farther attest the social advantages of the control I advocate. Human
affections are mutable, and the sincerest of mortal resolutions may
change.[23] Every day furnishes instances of alienations, and of
separations; sometimes almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In
such cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable that
there should be offspring; and the power of refraining from becoming
parents until intimacy had, in a measure, established the likelihood of
permanent harmony of views and feelings, must be confessed to be
advantageous.
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to this little
treatise, permit me not to meet every argument in detail, which
ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If the world were not actually
afraid to think freely or to listen to the suggestions of common sense,
three-fourths of what has already been said would be superfluous; for
most of the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any
rational, reasoning being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a
measure, every thing to learn on this subject. The world seems to me
much to resemble a company of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful
repast, first very punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under
sanction of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with
impunity; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin. So it is
with popular customs and popular morality. Every thing is permitted, if
external forms be but respected. Legal roguery is no crime, and
ceremony-sanctioned excess no profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to
the form, the virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its
head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so he knows how
to avoid the penitentiary and escape the hangman. In like manner, the
world seldom thinks it worth while to enquire whether a man be temperate
or intemperate, prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform
itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox requirements; and,
if he does, all is right. Thus men too often learn to consider an oath
an absolution from all subsequent decencies and duties, and a full
release from all after responsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,
the offence is venal; for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an
“honest woman.” If a married father neglect his children, it is a
trifle; for grace was regularly said, before they were born.
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to throw out the
idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings, and much of the
indifference and carelessness of each others’ feelings that is exhibited
in married life, might be traced to the almost universal custom (in this
country though not in France) of man and wife continually occupying the
same bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too frequent
familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms and pleasures, and
diminish the respectful regard and deference, which ought ever to
characterize the intercourse of human beings—if, I say, some heretical
preferrer of things to forms were to light upon and express some such
unlucky idea as this, ten to one the married portion of the community
would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent intermeddler in
their most legitimate rights and prerogatives.
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason. After
listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me short by reminding
me, that nature herself declares it to be right and proper, that we
should reproduce our species without calculation or restraint. I will
ask, in reply, whether nature also declares it to be right and proper,
that when the thermometer is at 96°, we should drink greedily of cold
water, and drop down dead in the streets? Let the world be told, that if
nature gave us our passions and propensities, she gave us also the power
wisely to control them; and that, when we hesitate to exercise that
power we descend to a level with the brute creation, and become the
sport of fortune—the mere slaves of circumstance.[24]
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while to advert, but
that it has been already speciously used to excite popular prejudice. It
has been said, that to recommend to mankind prudential restraint in
cases where children cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor
man; since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might provide
amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all _ought_ to be so
circumstanced; but all _are_ not. And there would be just as much
propriety in bidding a poor man to go and take by force a piece of
Saxony broadcloth from his neighbour’s store, because he _ought_ to be
able to purchase it, as to encourage him to go on producing children,
because he _ought_ to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert
every nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results
from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so, let us not,
for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which grievously aggravates
the evil; which increases the burden on the present generation, and
threatens with neglect and ignorance the next.
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I
have placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of
which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them
bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it
important that we should know how to control and govern it; that, when
we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to
prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from
suffering or misery; that by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous
connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it,
early marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction
of its sharpest sting: that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin,
and woman from desolating dishonour; that by it the first pure
affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or
destroyed—let them call to mind all this, and then let them say, whether
the possession of such control be not a blessing to man.
It shocks the mind of a woman at the first thought; but once practiced,
all prejudice flies, and gratification must be the consequence. To weak
and sickly females, to those to whom parturition is dangerous, and who
never produce living or healthy children, the discovery is a great
blessing. And it is also a real blessing in all other cases, where
children are not desired. It will become the very bulwark of love and
wisdom, of beauty, health, and happiness.