2. NEGLECT OF YOUR COMPANION.--Do not assume a right to neglect your
companion more after marriage than you did before.
3. SECRETS.--Have no secrets that you keep from your companion. A third
party is always disturbing.
4. AVOID THE APPEARANCE OF EVIL.--In matrimonial matters it is often that
the mere appearance contains all the evil. Love, as soon as it rises above
calculation and becomes love, is exacting. It gives all, and demands all.
5. ONCE MARRIED, NEVER OPEN YOUR MIND TO ANY CHANGE.--If you keep the door
of your purpose closed, evil or even desirable changes cannot make headway
without help.
6. KEEP STEP IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.--A tree that grows for forty years may
take all the sunlight from a tree that stops growing at twenty.
7. KEEP A LIVELY INTEREST IN THE BUSINESS OF THE HOME.--Two that do not
pull together are weaker than either alone.
8. GAUGE YOUR EXPENSES BY YOUR REVENUES.--Love must eat. The sheriff often
levies on Cupid long before he takes away the old furniture.
9. START FROM WHERE YOUR PARENTS STARTED RATHER THAN FROM WHERE THEY NOW
ARE.--Hollow and showy boarding often furnishes the too strong temptation,
while the quietness of a humble home would cement the hearts beyond risk.
{210}
10. AVOID DEBT.--Spend your own money, but earn it first, then it will not
be necessary to blame any one for spending other people's.
11. DO NOT BOTH GET ANGRY AT THE SAME TIME.--Remember, it takes two to
quarrel.
12. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF EVER TO COME TO AN OPEN RUPTURE.--Things unsaid
need less repentance.
13. STUDY TO CONFORM YOUR TASTES AND HABITS TO THE TASTES AND HABITS OF
YOUR COMPANION.--If two walk together, they must agree.
* * * * *
How to Be a Good Wife.
1. REVERENCE YOUR HUSBAND.--He sustains by God's order a position of
dignity as head of a family, head of the woman. Any breaking down of this
order indicates a mistake in the union, or a digression from duty.
2. LOVE HIM.--A wife loves as naturally as the sun shines. Love is your
best weapon. You conquered him with that in the first place. You can
reconquer by the same means.
3. DO NOT CONCEAL YOUR LOVE FROM HIM.--If he is crowded with care, and too
busy to seem to heed your love, you need to give all the greater attention
to securing his knowledge of your love. If you intermit he will settle down
into a hard, cold life with increased rapidity. Your example will keep the
light on his conviction. The more he neglects the fire on the hearth, the
more carefully must you feed and guard it. It must not be allowed to go
out. Once out you must sit ever in darkness and in the cold.
4. CULTIVATE THE MODESTY AND DELICACY OF YOUR YOUTH.--The relations and
familiarity of wedded life may seem to tone down the sensitive and retiring
instincts of girlhood, but nothing can compensate for the loss of these.
However, much men may admire the public performance of gifted women, they
do not desire that boldness and dash in a wife. The holy blush of a
maiden's modesty is more powerful in hallowing and governing a home than
the heaviest armament that ever a warrior bore.
5. CULTIVATE PERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS.--This means the storing of your mind
with a knowledge of passing events, and with a good idea of the world's
general advance. If you read nothing, and make no effort to make yourself
attractive, you will soon sink down into a dull hack of stupidity. If {211}
your husband never hears from you any words of wisdom, or of common
information, he will soon hear nothing from you. Dress and gossips soon
wear out. If your memory is weak, so that it hardly seems worth while to
read, that is additional reason for reading.
[Illustration: TALKING BEFORE MARRIAGE.]
6. CULTIVATE PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS.--When you were encouraging the
attentions of him whom you now call husband, you did not neglect any item
of dress or appearance {212} that could help you. Your hair was always in
perfect training. You never greeted him with a ragged or untidy dress or
soiled hands. It is true that your "market is made," but you cannot afford
to have it "broken." Cleanliness and good taste will attract now as they
did formerly. Keep yourself at your best. Make the most of physical
endowments. Neatness and order break the power of poverty.
7. STUDY YOUR HUSBAND'S CHARACTER.--He has his peculiarities. He has no
right to many of them, and you need to know them; thus you can avoid many
hours of friction. The good pilot steers around the sunken rocks that lie
in the channel. The engineer may remove them, not the pilot. You are more
pilot than engineer. Consult his tastes. It is more important to your home,
that you should please him than anybody else.
8. PRACTICE ECONOMY.--Many families are cast out of peace into grumbling
and discord by being compelled to fight against poverty. When there are no
great distresses to be endured or accounted for, complaint and
fault-finding are not so often evoked. Keep your husband free from the
annoyance of disappointed creditors, and he will be more apt to keep free
from annoying you. To toil hard for bread, to fight the wolf from the door,
to resist impatient creditors, to struggle against complaining pride at
home, is too much to ask of one man. A crust that is your own is a feast,
while a feast that is purloined from unwilling creditors is a famine.
* * * * *
How to Be a Good Husband.
1. SHOW YOUR LOVE.--All life manifests itself. As certainly as a live tree
will put forth leaves in the spring, so certainly will a living love show
itself. Many a noble man toils early and late to earn bread and position
for his wife. He hesitates at no weariness for her sake. He justly thinks
that such industry and providence give a better expression of his love than
he could by caressing her and letting the grocery bills go unpaid. He fills
the cellar and pantry. He drives and pushes his business. He never dreams
that he is actually starving his wife to death. He may soon have a woman
left to superintend his home, but his wife is dying. She must be kept alive
by the same process that called her into being. Recall and repeat the
little attentions and delicate compliments that once made you so agreeable,
and that fanned her love into a consuming flame. It is not beneath the
dignity of the skillful physician to study all the {214} little symptoms,
and order all the little round of attentions that check the waste of
strength and brace the staggering constitution. It is good work for a
husband to cherish his wife.
[Illustration: TALKING AFTER MARRIAGE.]
2. CONSULT WITH YOUR WIFE.--She is apt to be as right as you are, and
frequently able to add much to your stock of wisdom. In any event she
appreciates your attentions.
3. STUDY TO KEEP HER YOUNG.--It can be done. It is not work, but worry,
that wears. Keep a brave, true heart between her and all harm.
4. HELP TO BEAR HER BURDENS.--Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill
the law of love. Love seeks opportunities to do for the loved object. She
has the constant care of your children. She is ordained by the Lord to
stand guard over them. Not a disease can appear in the community without
her taking the alarm. Not a disease can come over the threshold without her
instantly springing into the mortal combat. If there is a deficiency
anywhere, it comes out of her pleasure. Her burdens are everywhere. Look
for them, that you may lighten them.
5. MAKE YOURSELF HELPFUL BY THOUGHTFULNESS.--Remember to bring into the
house your best smile and sunshine. It is good for you, and it cheers up
the home. There is hardly a nook in the house that has not been carefully
hunted through to drive out everything that might annoy you. The dinner
which suits, or ought to suit you, has not come on the table of itself. It
represents much thoughtfulness and work. You can do no more manly thing
than find some way of expressing, in word or look, your appreciation of it.
6. EXPRESS YOUR WILL, NOT BY COMMANDS, BUT BY SUGGESTIONS.--It is God's
order that you should be the head of the family. You are clothed with
authority. But this does not authorize you to be stern and harsh, as an
officer in the army. Your authority is the dignity of love. When it is not
clothed in love it ceases to have the substance of authority. A simple
suggestion that may embody a wish, an opinion or an argument, becomes one
who reigns over such a kingdom as yours.
7. SEEK TO REFINE YOUR NATURE.--It is no slander to say that many men have
wives much more refined than themselves. This is natural in the
inequalities of life. Other qualities may compensate for any defect here.
But you need have no defect in refinement. Preserve the gentleness and
refinement of your wife as a rich legacy for your children, and in so doing
you will lift yourself to higher levels. {215}
8. BE A GENTLEMAN AS WELL AS A HUSBAND.--The signs and bronze and callouses
of toil are no indications that you are not a gentleman. The soul of
gentlemanliness is a kindly feeling toward others, that prompts one to
secure their comfort. That is why the thoughtful peasant lover is always so
gentlemanly, and in his love much above himself.
9. STAY AT HOME.--Habitual absence during the evenings is sure to bring
sorrow. If your duty or business calls you, you have the promise that you
will be kept in all your ways. But if you go out to mingle with other
society, and leave your wife at home alone, or with the children and
servants, know that there is no good in store for you. She has claims upon
you that you can not afford to allow to go to protest. Reverse the case.
You sit down alone after having waited all day for your wife's return, and
think of her as reveling in gay society, and see if you can keep out all
the doubts as to what takes her away. If your home is not as attractive as
you want it, you are a principal partner. Set yourself about the work of
making it attractive.
10. TAKE YOUR WIFE WITH YOU INTO SOCIETY.--Seclusion begets morbidness. She
needs some of the life that comes from contact with society. She must see
how other people appear and act. It often requires an exertion for her to
go out of her home, but it is good for her and for you. She will bring back
more sunshine. It is wise to rest sometimes. When the Arab stops for his
dinner he unpacks his camel. Treat your wife with as much consideration.
[Illustration]
{217}
Cause of Family Troubles.
[Illustration: TIRED OF LIFE.]
1. MUCH BETTER TO BE ALONE.--He who made man said it is not good for him to
be alone; but it is much better to be alone, than it is to be in some kinds
of company. Many couples who felt unhappy when they were apart, have been
utterly miserable when together; and scores who have been ready to go
through fire and water to get married, have been willing to run the risk of
fire and brimstone to get divorced. It is by no means certain that because
persons are wretched before marriage they will be happy after it. The
wretchedness of many homes, and the prevalence of immorality and divorce is
a sad commentary on the evils which result from unwise marriages.
2. UNAVOIDABLE EVILS.--There are plenty of unavoidable evils in this world,
and it is mournful to think of the multitudes who are preparing themselves
for needless disappointments, and who yet have no fear, and are unwilling
to be instructed, cautioned or warned. To them the experience of mature
life is of little account compared with the wisdom of ardent and
enthusiastic youth.
3. MATRIMONIAL INFELICITY.--One great cause of matrimonial infelicity is
the hasty marriages of persons who have no adequate knowledge of each
other's characters. Two strangers become acquainted, and are attracted to
each other, and without taking half the trouble to investigate or inquire
that a prudent man would take before buying a saddle horse, they are
married. In a few weeks or months it is perhaps found that one of the
parties was married already, or possibly that the man is drunken or
vicious, or the woman anything but what she should be. Then begins the
bitter part of the experience: shame, disgrace, scandal, separation, sin
and divorce, all come as the natural results of a rash and foolish
marriage. A little time spent in honest, candid, and careful preliminary
inquiry and investigation, would have saved the trouble.
4. THE CLIMAX.--It has been said that a man is never utterly ruined until
he has married a bad woman. So the climax of woman's miseries and sorrows
may be said to come only when she is bound with that bond which should be
her chiefest blessing and her highest joy, but which may prove her deepest
sorrow and her bitterest curse.
5. THE FOLLY OF FOLLIES.--There are some lessons which people are very slow
to learn, and yet which are based upon {218} the simple principles of
common-sense. A young lady casts her eye upon a young man. She says, "I
mean to have that man." She plies her arts, engages his affections, marries
him, and secures for herself a life of sorrow and disappointment, ending
perhaps in a broken up home or an early grave. Any prudent, intelligent
person of mature age, might have warned or cautioned her; but she sought no
advice, and accepted no admonition. A young man may pursue a similar course
with equally disastrous results.
6. HAP-HAZARD.--Many marriages are undoubtedly arranged by what may be
termed the accident of locality. Persons live near each other, become
acquainted, and engage themselves to those whom they never would have
selected as their companions in life if they had wider opportunities of
acquaintance. Within the borders of their limited circle they make a
selection which may be wise or may be unwise. They have no means of
judging, they allow no one else to judge for them. The results are
sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy in the extreme. It is well to act
cautiously in doing what can be done but once. It is not a pleasant
experience for a person to find out a mistake when it is too late to
rectify it.
7. WE ALL CHANGE.--When two persons of opposite sex are often thrown
together they are very naturally attracted to each other, and are liable to
imbibe the opinion that they are better fitted for life-long companionship
than any other two persons in the world. This may be the case, or it may
not be. There are a thousand chances against such a conclusion to one in
favor of it. But even if at the present moment these two persons were
fitted to be associated, no one can tell whether the case will be the same
five or ten years hence. Men change; women change; they are not the same
they were ten years ago; they are not the same they will be ten years
hence.
8. THE SAFE RULE.--Do not be in a hurry; take your time, and consider well
before you allow your devotion to rule you. Study first your character,
then study the character of her whom you desire to marry. Love works
mysteriously, and if it will bear careful and cool investigation, it will
no doubt thrive under adversity. When people marry they unite their
destinies for the better or the worse. Marriage is a contract for life and
will never bear a hasty conclusion. _Never be in a hurry!_
* * * * *
{219}
Jealousy--Its Cause and Cure.
* * * * *
Trifles, light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong,
As proofs of holy writ.--SHAKESPEARE.
Nor Jealousy
Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.--MILTON.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.--SHAKESPEARE.
* * * * *
1. DEFINITION.--Jealousy is an accidental passion, for which the faculty
indeed is unborn. In its nobler form and in its nobler motives it arises
from love, and in its lower form it arises from the deepest and darkest Pit
of Satan.
2. HOW DEVELOPED.--Jealousy arises either from weakness, which from a sense
of its own want of lovable qualities is not convinced of being sure of its
cause, or from distrust, which thinks the beloved person capable of
infidelity. Sometimes all these motives may act together.
3. NOBLEST JEALOUSY.--The noblest jealousy, if the term noble is
appropriate, is a sort of ambition or pride of the loving person who feels
it is an insult that another one should assume it as possible to supplant
his love, or it is the highest degree of devotion which sees a declaration
of its object in the foreign invasion, as it were, of his own altar.
Jealousy is always a sign that a little more wisdom might adorn the
individual without harm.
4. THE LOWEST JEALOUSY.--The lowest species of jealousy is a sort of
avarice of envy which, without being capable of love, at least wishes to
possess the object of its jealousy alone by the one party assuming a sort
of property right over the other. This jealousy, which might be called the
Satanic, is generally to be found with old withered "husbands," whom the
devil has prompted to marry young women and who forthwith dream night and
day of cuck-old's horns. These Argus-eyed keepers are no longer capable of
any feeling that could be called love, they are rather as a rule heartless
house-tyrants, and are in constant dread that some one may admire or
appreciate his unfortunate slave.
5. WANT OF LOVE.--The general conclusion will be that jealousy is more the
result of wrong conditions which cause uncongenial unions, and which
through moral corruption, artificially create distrust, than a necessary
accompaniment of love.
[Illustration: SEEKING THE LIFE OF A RIVAL.]
{221}
6. RESULT OF POOR OPINION.--Jealousy is a passion with which those are most
afflicted who are the least worthy of love. An innocent maiden who enters
marriage will not dream of getting jealous; but all her innocence cannot
secure her against the jealousy of her husband if he has been a libertine.
Those are wont to be the most jealous who have the consciousness that they
themselves are most deserving of jealousy. Most men in consequence of their
present education and corruption have so poor an opinion not only of the
male, but even of the female sex, that they believe every woman at every
moment capable of what they themselves have looked for among all and have
found among the most unfortunate, the prostitutes. No libertine can believe
in the purity of woman; it is contrary to nature. A libertine therefore
cannot believe in the loyalty of a faithful wife.
7. WHEN JUSTIFIABLE.--There may be occasions where jealousy is justifiable.
If a woman's confidence has been shaken in her husband, or a husband's
confidence has been shaken in his wife by certain signs or conduct, which
have no other meaning but that of infidelity, then there is just cause for
jealousy. There must, however, be certain proof as evidence of the wife's
or husband's immoral conduct. Imaginations or any foolish absurdities
should have no consideration whatever, and let everyone have confidence
until his or her faith has been shaken by the revelation of absolute facts.
8. CAUTION AND ADVICE.--No couple should allow their associations to
develop into an engagement and marriage if either one has any inclination
to jealousy. It shows invariably a want of sufficient confidence, and that
want of confidence, instead of being diminished after marriage, is liable
to increase, until by the aid of the imagination and wrong interpretation
the home is made a hell and divorce a necessity. Let it be remembered,
there can be no true love without perfect and absolute confidence. Jealousy
is always the sign of weakness or madness. Avoid a jealous disposition, for
it is an open acknowledgment of a lack of faith.
[Illustration]
{222}
The Improvement of Offspring.
* * * * *
Why Bring Into the World Idiots, Fools, Criminals and Lunatics?
[Illustration: The Mother's Good Night Prayer.]
1. THE RIGHT WAY.--When mankind will properly love and marry and then
rightly generate, carry, nurse and educate their children, will they in
deed and in truth carry out {223} the holy and happy purpose of their
Creator. See those miserable and depraved scape-goats of humanity, the
demented simpletons, the half-crazy, unbalanced multitudes which infest our
earth, and fill our prisons with criminals and our poor-houses with
paupers. Oh! the boundless capabilities and perfections of our God-like
nature and, alas! its deformities! All is the result of the ignorance or
indifference of parents. As long as children are the accidents of lust
instead of the premeditated objects of love, so long will the offspring
deteriorate and the world be cursed with deformities, monstrosities,
unhumanities and cranks.
2. EACH AFTER ITS KIND.--"Like parents like children." "In their own image
beget" they them. In what other can they? "How can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit?" How can animal propensities in parents generate other
than depraved children, or moral purity beget beings other than as holy by
nature as those at whose hands they received existence and constitution?
3. AS ARE THE PARENTS, physically, mentally and morally when they stamp
their own image and likeness upon progeny, so will be the constitution of
that progeny.
4. "JUST AS THE TWIG IS BENT THE TREE'S INCLINED."--Yet the bramble cannot
be bent to bear delicious peaches, nor the sycamore to bear grain.
Education is something, but _parentage_ is _everything_; because it "_dyes
in the wool_," and thereby exerts an influence on character almost
infinitely more powerful than all other conditions put together.
5. HEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.--Thoughtless mortal! Before you allow
the first goings forth of love, learn what the parental conditions in you
mean, and you will confer a great boon upon the prospective bone of your
bone, and flesh of your flesh! If it is in your power to be the parent of
beautiful, healthy, moral and talented children instead of diseased and
depraved, is it not your imperious duty then, to impart to them that
physical power, moral perfection, and intellectual capability, which shall
ennoble their lives and make them good people and good citizens?
6. PAUSE AND TREMBLE.--Prospective parents! Will you trifle with the
dearest interests of your children? Will you in matters thus momentous,
head-long rush
"Where angels dare not tread?"
Seeking only mere animal indulgence?--Well might cherubim shrink from
assuming responsibilities thus momentous! Yet, how many parents tread this
holy ground completely unprepared, and almost as thoughtlessly and
ignorantly as brutes--entailing even loathsome diseases and {224} sensual
propensities upon the fruit of their own bodies. Whereas they are bound, by
obligations the most imperious, to bestow on them a good physical
organization, along with a pure, moral, and strong intellectual
constitution, or else not to become parents! Especially since it is easier
to generate human angels than devils incarnate.
7. HEREDITARY DESCENT.--This great law of things, "Hereditary Descent,"
fully proves and illustrates in any required number and variety of cases,
showing that progeny inherits the constitutional natures and characters,
mental and physical, of parents, including pre-dispositions to consumption,
insanity, all sorts of disease, etc., as well as longevity, strength,
stature, looks, disposition, talents,--all that is constitutional. From
what other source do or can they come? Indeed, who can doubt a truth as
palpable as that children inherit some, and if some, therefore all, the
physical and mental nature and constitution of parents, thus becoming
almost their fac-similes?
8. ILLUSTRATIONS.--A whaleman was severely hurt by a harpooned and
desperate whale turning upon the small boat, and, by his monstrous jaws,
smashing it to pieces, one of which, striking him in his right side,
crippled him for life. When sufficiently recovered, he married, according
to previous engagement, and his daughter, born in due time, and closely
resembling him in looks, constitution and character, has a weak and sore
place corresponding in location with that of the injury of her father.
Tubercles have been found in the lungs of infants at birth, born of
consumptive parents,--a proof, clear and demonstrative, that children
inherit the several states of parental physiology existing at the time they
received their physiological constitution. The same is true of the
transmission of those diseases consequent on the violation of the law of
chastity, and the same conclusion established thereby.
9. PARENT'S PARTICIPATION.--Each parent furnishing an indispensable portion
of the materials of life, and somehow or other, contributes parentally to
the formation of the constitutional character of their joint product,
appears far more reasonable, than to ascribe, as many do, the whole to
either, some to paternity, others to maternity. Still this decision go
which way it may, does not affect the great fact that children inherit both
the physiology and the mentality existing in parents at the time they
received being and constitution.
10. ILLEGITIMATES OR BASTARDS also furnish strong proof of the correctness
of this our leading doctrine. They are generally lively, sprightly, witty,
frolicsome, knowing, {225} quick of perception, apt to learn, full of
passion, quick-tempered, impulsive throughout, hasty, indiscreet, given to
excesses, yet abound in good feeling, and are well calculated to enjoy
life, though in general sadly deficient in some essential moral elements.
11. CHARACTER OF ILLEGITIMATES.--Wherein, then, consists this difference?
First, in "novelty lending an enchantment" rarely experienced in sated
wedlock, as well as in power of passion sufficient to break through all
restraint, external and internal; and hence their high wrought
organization. They are usually wary and on the alert, and their parents
drank "stolen waters." They are commonly wanting in moral balance, or else
delinquent in some important moral aspect; nor would they have ever been
born unless this had been the case, for the time being at least, with their
parents. Behold in these, and many other respects easily cited, how
striking the coincidence between their characters on the one hand, and, on
the other, those parental conditions necessarily attendant on their origin.
12. CHILDREN'S CONDITION depends upon parents' condition at the time of the
sexual embrace. Let parents recall, as nearly as may be their circumstances
and states of body and mind at this period, and place them by the side of
the physical and mental constitutions of their children, and then say
whether this law is not a great practical truth, and if so, its importance
is as the happiness and misery it is capable of affecting! The application
of this mighty engine of good or evil to mankind, to the promotion of human
advancement, is the great question which should profoundly interest all
parents.
13. THE VITAL PERIOD.--The physical condition of parents at the vital
period of transmission of life should be a perfect condition of health in
both body and mind, and a rigorous condition of all the animal organs and
functions.
14. MUSCULAR PREPARATION.--Especially should parents cultivate their
muscular system preparatory to the perfection of this function, and of
their children; because, to impart strength and stamina to offspring they
must of necessity both possess a good muscular organization, and also bring
it into vigorous requisition at this period. For this reason, if for no
other, let those of sedentary habits cultivate muscular energy preparatory
to this time of need.
15. THE SEED.--So exceedingly delicate are the seeds of life, that, unless
planted in a place of perfect security, they must all be destroyed, and our
race itself extinguished. And what place is as secure as that chosen, where
they can {226} be reached only with the utmost difficulty, and than only at
the peril of even life itself? Imperfect seed sown in poor ground means a
sickly harvest.
16. HEALTHY PEOPLE--MOST CHILDREN.--The most healthy classes have the most
numerous families; but that, as luxury enervates society, it diminishes the
population, by enfeebling parents, nature preferring none rather than those
too weakly to live and be happy, and thereby rendering that union
unfruitful which is too feeble to produce offspring sufficiently strong to
enjoy life. Debility and disease often cause barrenness. Nature seems to
rebel against sickly offspring.
17. WHY CHILDREN DIE.--Inquire whether one or both the parents of those
numerous children that die around us, have not weak lungs, or a debilitated
stomach, or a diseased liver, or feeble muscles, or else use them but
little, or disordered nerves, or some other debility or form of disease.
The prevalence of summer complaints, colic, cholera infantum, and other
affections of these vital organs of children is truly alarming, sweeping
them into their graves by the million. Shall other animals rear nearly all
their young, and shall man, constitutionally by far the strongest of them
all, lose half or more of his? Is this the order of nature? No, but their
death-worm is born in and with them, and by parental agency.
18. GRAVE-YARD STATISTICS.--Take grave-yard statistics in August, and then
say, whether most of the deaths of children are not caused by indigestion,
or feebleness of the bowels, liver, etc., or complaints growing out of
them? Rather, take family statistics from broken-hearted parents! And yet,
in general, those very parents who thus suffer more than words can tell,
were the first and main transgressors, because they entailed those
dyspeptic, heart, and other kindred affections so common among American
parents upon their own children, and thereby almost as bad as killed them
by inches; thus depriving them of the joys of life, and themselves of their
greatest earthly treasure!
19. ALL CHILDREN MAY DIE.--Children may indeed die whose parents are
healthy, but they almost must whose parents are essentially ailing in one
or more of their vital organs; because, since they inherit this organ
debilitated or diseased, any additional cause of sickness attacks this part
first, and when it gives out, all go by the board together.
20. PARENTS MUST LEARN AND OBEY.--How infinitely more virtuous and happy
would your children be if you should be healthy in body, and happy in mind,
so as to beget in {227} them a constitutionally healthy and vigorous
physiology, along with a serene and happy frame of mind! Words are utterly
powerless in answer, and so is everything but a lifetime of consequent
happiness or misery! Learn and obey, then, the laws of life and health,
that you may both reap the rich reward yourself, and also shower down upon
your children after you, blessings many and most exalted. Avoid excesses of
all kinds, be temperate, take good care of the body and avoid exposures and
disease, and your children will be models of health and beauty.
21. THE RIGHT CONDITION.--The great practical inference is, that those
parents who desire intellectual and moral children, must love each other;
because, this love, besides perpetually calling forth and cultivating their
higher faculties, awakens them to the highest pitch of exalted action in
that climax, concentration, and consummation of love which propagates their
existing qualities, the mental endowment of offspring being proportionate
to the purity and intensity of parental love.
22. THE EFFECTS.--The children of affectionate parents receive existence
and constitution when love has rendered the mentality of their parents both
more elevated and more active than it is by nature, of course the children
of loving parents are both more intellectual and moral by nature than their
parents. Now, if these children and their companions also love one another,
this same law which renders the second generation better than the first,
will of course render the third still better than the second, and thus of
all succeeding generations.
23. ANIMAL IMPULSE.--You may preach and pray till doomsday--may send out
missionaries, may circulate tracts and Bibles, and multiply revivals and
all the means of grace, with little avail; because, as long as mankind go
on, as now, to propagate by animal impulse, so long must their offspring be
animal, sensual, devilish! But only induce parents cordially to love each
other, and you thereby render their children constitutionally talented and
virtuous. Oh! parents, by as much as you prefer the luxuries of concord to
the torments of discord, and children that are sweet dispositioned and
highly intellectual to those that are rough, wrathful, and depraved, be
entreated to "_love one another_."
[Illustration]
* * * * *
{229}
Too Many Children.
[Illustration: JUST HOME FROM SCHOOL.]
1. LESSENING PAUPERISM.--Many of the agencies for lessening pauperism are
afraid of tracing back its growth to the frequency of births under wretched
conditions. One begins to question whether after all sweet charity or
dignified philanthropy has not acted with an unwise reticence. Among the
problems which defy practical handling this is the most complicated. The
pauperism which arises from marriage is the result of the worst elements of
character legalized. In America, where the boundaries of wedlock are
practically boundless, it is not desirable, even were it possible, that the
state should regulate marriage much further than it now does; therefore
must the sociologist turn for aid to society in his struggle with
pauperism.
2. RIGHT PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS OF BIRTH.--Society should insist
upon the right spiritual and physical conditions for birth. It should be
considered more than "a pity" when another child is born into a home too
poor to receive it. The underlying selfishness of such an event should be
recognized, for it brings motherhood under wrong conditions of health and
money. Instead of each birth being the result of mature consideration and
hallowed love, children are too often born as animals are born. To be sure
the child has a father whom he can call by name. Better that there had
never been a child.
3. WRONG RESULTS.--No one hesitates to declare that it is want of
self-respect and morality which brings wrong results outside of marriage,
but it is also the want of them which begets evil inside the marriage
relation. Though there is nothing more difficult than to find the
equilibrium between self-respect and self-sacrifice, yet on success in
finding it depends individual and national preservation. The fact of being
wife and mother or husband and father should imply dignity and joyousness,
no matter how humble the home.
4. DIFFERENCE OF OPINION AMONGST PHYSICIANS.--In regard to teaching, the
difficulties are great. As soon as one advances beyond the simplest
subjects of hygiene, one is met with the difference of opinions among
physicians. When each one has a different way of making a mustard plaster,
no wonder that each has his own notions about everything else. One doctor
recommends frequent births, another advises against them.
5. DIFFERENT NATURES.--If physiological facts are taught to a large class,
there are sure to be some in it whose impressionable natures are excited by
too much plain {230} speaking, while there are others who need the most
open teaching in order to gain any benefit. Talks to a few persons
generally are wiser than popular lectures. Especially are talks needed by
mothers and unmothered girls who come from everywhere to the city.
6. BOYS AND YOUNG MEN.--It is not women alone who require the shelter of
organizations and instruction, but boys and young men. There is no double
standard of morality, though the methods of advocating it depend upon the
sex which is to be instructed. Men are more concerned with the practical
basis of morality than with its sentiment, and with the pecuniary aspects
of domestic life than with its physical and mental suffering. We all may
need medicine for moral ills, yet the very intangibleness of purity makes
us slow to formulate rules for its growth. Under the guidance of the wise
in spirit and knowledge, much can be done to create a higher standard of
marriage and to proportion the number of births according to the health and
income of parents.
7. FOR THE SAKE OF THE STATE.--If the home exists primarily for the sake of
the individual, it exists secondarily for the sake of the state. Therefore,
any home into which are continually born the inefficient children of
inefficient parents, not only is a discomfort in itself, but it also
furnishes members for the armies of the unemployed, which are tinkering and
hindering legislation and demanding by the brute force of numbers that the
state shall support them.
8. OPINIONS FROM HIGH AUTHORITIES.--In the statements and arguments made in
the above we have not relied upon our own opinions and convictions, but
have consulted the best authorities, and we hereby quote some of the
highest authorities upon this subject.
9. REV. LEONARD DAWSON.--"How rapidly conjugal prudence might lift a nation
out of pauperism was seen in France.--Let them therefore hold the maxim
that the production of offspring with forethought and providence is
rational nature. It was immoral to bring children into the world whom they
could not reasonably hope to feed, clothe and educate."
10. MRS. FAWCETT.--"Nothing will permanently offset pauperism while the
present reckless increase of population continues."
11. DR. GEORGE NAPHEYS.--"Having too many children unquestionably has its
disastrous effects on both mother and {231} children as known to every
intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr.
Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. There are also women
to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is
nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before
marriage--The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day.
It is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the
dissolute women of pagan Rome--This wholesale, fashionable murder, how are
we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist
by this slaughter of the innocent."
12. REV. H. R. HAWEIS.--"Until it is thought a disgrace in every rank of
society, from top to bottom of social scale, to bring into the world more
children than you are able to provide for, the poor man's home, at least,
must often be a purgatory--his children dinnerless, his wife a
beggar--himself too often drunk--here, then, are the real remedies: first,
control the family growth according to the family means of support."
13. MONTAGUE COOKSON.--"The limitation of the number of the family--is as
much the duty of married persons as the observance of chastity is the duty
of those that are unmarried."
14. JOHN STUART MILL.--"Every one has aright to live. We will suppose this
granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supported
by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must
renounce all pretension to the last. Little improvement can be expected in
morality until the production of a large family is regarded in the same
light as drunkenness or any other physical excess."
15. DR. T. D. NICHOLLS.--"In the present social state, men and women should
refrain from having children unless they see a reasonable prospect of
giving them suitable nurture and education."
16. REV. M. J. SAVAGE.--"Some means ought to be provided for checking the
birth of sickly children."
17. DR. STOCKHAM.--"Thoughtful minds must acknowledge the great wrong done
when children are begotten under adverse conditions. Women must learn the
laws of life so as to protect themselves, and not be the means of bringing
sin-cursed, diseased children into the world. The remedy is in the
prevention of pregnancy, not in producing abortion."
* * * * *
{232}
Small Families and the Improvement of the Race.
1. MARRIED PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.--It is the fashion of those
who marry nowadays to have few children, often none. Of course this is a
matter which married people must decide for themselves. As is stated in an
earlier chapter, sometimes this policy is the wisest that can be pursued.
[Illustration]
2. DISEASED PEOPLE.--Diseased people who are likely to beget only a sickly
offspring, may follow this course, and so may thieves, rascals, vagabonds,
insane and drunken persons, and all those who are likely to bring into the
world beings that ought not to be here. But why so many well-to-do folks
should pursue a policy adapted only to paupers and criminals, is not easy
to explain. Why marry at all if not to found a family that shall live to
bless and make glad the earth after father and mother are gone? It is not
wise to rear too many children, nor is it wise to have too few. Properly
brought up, they will make home a delight and parents happy.
3. POPULATION LIMITED.--Galton, in his great work on hereditary genius,
observes that "the time may hereafter arrive in far distant years, when the
population of this earth shall be kept as strictly within bounds of number
and suitability of race, as the sheep of a well-ordered moor, or the plants
in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we can to encourage
the multiplication of the races best {233} fitted to invent and conform to
a high and generous civilization."
4. SHALL SICKLY PEOPLE RAISE CHILDREN?--The question whether sickly people
should marry and propagate their kind, is briefly alluded to in an early
chapter of this work. Where father and mother are both consumptive the
chances are that the children will inherit physical weakness, which will
result in the same disease, unless great pains are taken to give them a
good physical education, and even then the probabilities are that they will
find life a burden hardly worth living.
5. NO REAL BLESSING.--Where one parent is consumptive and the other
vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous or
consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no comfort to
their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they had better, in
most cases, avoid parentage.
6. WELFARE OF MANKIND.--The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most
intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid
abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil,
but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On
the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage,
while the reckless marry, the inferior members will tend to supplant the
better members of society.
7. PREVENTIVES.--Remember that the thousands of preventives which are
advertised in papers, private circulars, etc., are not only inefficient,
unreliable and worthless, but positively dangerous, and the annual
mortality of females in this country from this cause alone is truly
horrifying. Study nature, and nature's laws alone will guide you safely in
the path of health and happiness.
8. NATURE'S REMEDY.--Nature in her wise economy has prepared for
overproduction, for during the period of pregnancy and nursing, and also
most of the last half of each menstrual month, woman is naturally sterile;
but this condition may become irregular and uncertain on account of
stimulating drinks or immoral excesses.
[Illustration]
{234}
The Generative Organs.
[Illustration]