In a previous section I dealt with the harmful way in which
circumstances and the law, acting together, place the child born out of
wedlock wholly and terribly in the mother's power. But there is a
further aspect of the situation now to be considered. I wish to show how
destructively that power may act, stimulated in some cases by an unwise
affection as well as in others where no mother-love seems present, and
act for years to hurt and even destroy the child. To establish this and
make the facts plainer, I will now tell in detail a few cases of
illegitimate motherhood from my own knowledge. You will see then exactly
what I mean and how dangerous to the child is the power held by these
unwatched mothers; the facts of the case will, I hope, speak to you more
emotionally, and therefore more forcibly, than any further statement of
my own opinion.
_Case 1._--_A baby girl was born to a young mother of unstable though
not altogether bad character. The father was a gentleman: he did not
seduce the girl. He paid the expenses of the confinement and afterwards,
and with the mother's consent, placed the little one with good country
people, paying for her support. For more than a year and a half the baby
lived with its foster mother and grew up a very healthy and joyous
little girl. The real mother visited the child and showed most emotional
love for her. One day, without reason and without warning, she took the
child away. The foster-mother appealed to the father; he did all in his
power to have the child returned, and finally, when the mother refused,
said he would make no further contribution for the support of the child.
He knew the mother was unfit to bring up the child, but he could do
nothing to prevent her action. The mother took the child to another
town. What she did with the little one is not fully known, but when,
after nine months, the foster-mother traced her, she was in a most
pitiable condition of dirt and neglect, and, what was much worse, she
was terribly frightened. Quite plainly she had been beaten and ill-used.
The mother was not poor, so that cannot be made an excuse._
_The foster-mother offered now to adopt the child and bring it up as her
own. Her offer was accepted by the mother, but with the provision, which
unfortunately was granted, that she should still come to see the child.
Her visits always affected the child unfavorably._
_During the next three years the little girl found renewed health and
peace in her happy adopted home. Then her enemy--her mother--again took
her away. For a year she kept this delicate, nervous and well-brought-up
child with her in London under very adverse circumstances. Then she went
off, leaving her daughter, now five years old, with no proper person to
care for her and quite without means of support._
_Case 2._--_A girl of loose character, but not a regular prostitute,
found herself pregnant. She did not know certainly who among her lovers
was the father, but she decided on one man, who she knew was not the
father. He was rich and kind, or rather as she told me "he was a softy."
Accordingly she told him the baby was his. He arranged for the
confinement, afterwards he took the baby and the mother to live in the
home of his mother. They were kindly treated in every way, and the baby
flourished. But the mother was bored by goodness: one day she went off:
she did not take the baby. Unfortunately she left a letter--not I fear
from conscience, but from mischief and a desire to insult
goodness--telling the man she had tricked him and he was not the father
of the child. The man was angry, disliking the knowledge of his having
been duped; his mother was still more angry. Once more the child was the
sufferer. It was sent away from the happy and rich home to an
institution._
_Case 3._--_A working-class girl, belonging to a respectable country
family, gave birth to a baby girl. The father was a soldier, but the
girl did not know his name or where he was. During her confinement and
afterward she remained at home with her mother and brother. The baby was
ailing and became ill. The brother told his sister, the mother, that she
must take it to the Infirmary in the neighboring town. She objected on
the ground that she would have to go in with the baby. However, the
brother insisted and arranged to meet her and the baby at the Infirmary
gates the following evening. His sister was there, but not the baby. She
told him that a friend was going to take care of the baby for her. The
baby was never heard of again._
_Case 4._--_This time the mother was highly born and educated, but she
belonged naturally to the promiscuous type of lover: she ought to have
been a prostitute. She had many lovers and was strongly sexual, not
passionate so much as voluptuous. By one of her lovers, and by mistake,
a child was conceived, and though attempts were made to get rid of the
mistake, a boy was born, fairly healthy. The father, a modern tired
profligate, refused to accept the responsibilities of his fatherhood,
though he did not deny the child was his, and continued as one of the
lovers of its mother. The mother showed no sign of maternal love; the
little one was much neglected and probably would have died, but, when
about two months old, he was taken from the mother and cared for and
most tenderly loved by one of the woman's other lovers. He left her as
her indifference to her child killed his affection, but he took her
child to bring up as his own son._
_Case 5._--_A record of this very revolting case appeared recently in
the daily papers under the heading "£8000 Baby's End." I copy the story
as it was told in the "Daily Mail": the date I do not remember._
"_The love affair of a middle-aged painter, Charles Godin, with his
model Georgette Belli, aged 16, has led to a remarkable charge of
murder. Georgette became a mother, and when the painter died a few
months later he left the child £8000._
"_The girl married a young man named Emile Gourdon, and the baby was
placed in the care of a grandmother. Later, when the young mother wished
to get back her child, the grandmother refused to give it up on the
ground that the young couple meant to destroy it in order to inherit the
money, and produced letters and telegrams in support of her suspicion.
Georgette, however, got an order from a court for the surrender of the
baby, and went to live at Marseilles with her husband._
"_One day, while walking on the jetty, the woman appeared to stumble and
the child fell into the sea and was drowned. The couple have been
arrested, the woman, it is alleged, having pretended to faint in order
to make away with her child._"
Now, I know that these five cases I have recounted are not exceptional,
though some of their sordid details may be specially disagreeable. Give
but a moment's attention to the facts that stand out, and at once you
will grasp what is wrong. We are demanding too much from these unmarried
mothers, and, by leaving the full power of parenthood in their weak
hands, are jeopardizing the child's safety; we are also encouraging
conditions harmful to society. It is like leaving a loaded gun in the
hands of a little child. These cases speak for themselves. In No. 3 and
No. 5 the child was killed by the direct act of the mother; in the
former case there was some excuse from the harsh rule that the sick baby
of an unmarried mother cannot be received into a hospital unless the
mother goes in with it (the reason of this, of course, being that the
mother will use this means of ridding herself of the baby) and will
never come to reclaim it; but in the horrible case of No. 5 there is no
ray of excuse. This case is especially interesting because it makes so
abundantly plain the terrible need there is for the immediate
establishment of safe legal adoption. In cases No. 2 and No. 4 we have
the curious situation, by no means so uncommon as many might think, of
the wrong man acting the part of father to an illegitimately born child;
in the one case this was done through the trickery of the mother and was
but temporary, the child suffering, while in the other case, more
interesting and less common, vicarious fatherhood was voluntarily
adopted. I would ask you to note that in none of the five cases was bad
motherhood caused by poverty and homelessness. So frequently it is said:
"Give these mothers a chance, and their mother-love will blossom like
the rose"--or some similar and unproved tosh. It is not true. The good
mother may be a bad mother by adverse circumstances, this I acknowledge
readily, but that the most favorable circumstances can make the bad
mother into a good mother, I emphatically deny. This is why it is so
unsafe and so wrong of society to leave the child unprotected and
unwatched, for the mother to do with it what she likes.
The first case, because it shows so clearly the adverse action of the
mother's influence is, in my opinion, most instructive among the five
cases I have given. Such changeableness on the mother's part, and
interference with the child is just what is likely, and most often does
take place, and will go on taking place, until the law protects these
children by effective guardianship. I would specially point out that
this mother was not in the least indifferent to her baby. If you had
talked to her, probably your sentiment would have burned and glowed
about the hardness of her case in being separated from her baby, and
you would have said wonderful platitudes about the beauty of a mother's
love. And yet the shameful hurt she did to her child can never be
undone. Her undisciplined love was the cause of the child's undoing.
I have now, I hope, made it sufficiently plain why the illegitimately
born child should no longer be considered as belonging to the mother,
but should be recognized as a member of society, and, as such, entitled
to protection, so that it may suffer as little, and not as much, as is
possible from the disadvantages of its illegal birth. This is plain
justice. Yet before it can be done we shall need an immediate and great
reform of our bad and antiquated bastardy and affiliation laws. We shall
need also a change of heart.