In many ways the position of the illegitimately born child, always
sufficiently bad, has been rendered worse under war conditions. For one
thing, their number has increased; the illegitimate birth-rate has
steadily gone up in the war years and now is the highest on
record.[153:1] And although it is easily possible to exaggerate the
action of sexual irregularities, manifestly there can be no doubt that
this war has acted directly as, indeed, war always does in increasing
illegitimate births. Indirectly also the effect, after a war of such
magnitude as this one has been, must be even greater in the immediate
future in consequence of the resultant inequality of the sexes. All
other factors determinant of illegitimacy are really dependent on the
ratio of the number of unmarried males capable of paternity to the
number of unmarried women capable of maternity in the community at a
given time. Whenever the circle of nubile women surrounding the virile
male becomes larger, there will be a corresponding increase in the
number of illegitimately born children.[154:1]
A further difficulty, very pressing at the present time, arises from the
fact that the supply of reliable foster-mothers has diminished
everywhere, especially in London and the large cities. Even where women
suitable for this purpose are still attainable, the weekly sum asked for
the child's keep is so high that in spite of increased wages and the
raising from 5/- to 10/- of the maximum amount allowed against the
father under an affiliation order, few mothers can afford to pay it and
live decently themselves. The bitter cry of the driven mother frequently
is, "Help me to get rid of my baby."
We have demanded too much from the unmarried mother. As a rule she is
very young. She is faced with an almost impossible task, and often she
is weak in character, incapable, without guidance of so difficult a duty
as the up-bringing of the little creature she has helped so greatly to
wrong by its very birth.