THE DEMAND FOR KNOWLEDGE AND FROM WHOM TO OBTAIN IT
Even the brief survey given in the first chapter will have suggested
to the reader that the people who ask for knowledge seek it for
various reasons. Indeed, the first thing that strikes anyone who gives
consideration to the subject is the difference in type and
circumstance of the people for whom relief is claimed. We begin to
realise at once that the subject of conception control is an intimate
and individual one, and can only really be dealt with by advice which
is given to the individual and not to the public at large.
This is perhaps most obvious in the first group mentioned on page 17,
where the woman is suffering from chronic or acute disease, and the
necessity for preventing conception is clear to her medical adviser.
If disease renders child-bearing a danger to the life and health of
the mother, it becomes a positive duty of her doctor to prevent such a
catastrophe--but the method advised will differ according to the
special nature of the case.
Again, where in the case of husband or wife there is a serious
inheritance of mental or physical disease, and especially when the
same weakness exists in both families, it is justly regarded as a duty
by the married pair not to bring children into the world. It may be
contended that men and women with such an inheritance should not
marry, but that is a matter for the decision of the individuals
concerned. It not infrequently happens that marriage has taken place
before they know of the inherited tendency. In such cases clearly the
advice of the family doctor should be given as to the best course to
pursue in order to avoid conception.
The case of the overworked and burdened mother with a large and
increasing family is nearly allied to that of a woman with disease,
though in her case the causes for ill-health are more complicated.
While it is true that ill-health and premature ageing in working women
are the result of many causes, yet where child-bearing still further
injures health it is essential that she should consult her medical
adviser on this point, for she not only needs treatment to restore her
health, but also advice specially suitable to her own case, as to the
best method to avoid conception for the time being, and such advice
will vary according as the disability is temporary or permanent.
It is, happily, as possible for the poor woman to obtain advice in all
matters of health as it is for the rich. The mothers of the country
are in touch everywhere with maternity clinics, where doctors advise
them on all questions of health relating to pregnancy, and treat each
woman as a separate individual.
But the case of the poor working woman overburdened with work which
she cannot accomplish--yet with the added burden of bearing more
children than her more fortunate sisters, deserves some further
consideration.
What is it that prematurely ages so many of these women of the
slums--is it child-bearing alone?
The answer to that is immediately in the negative, for women in
comfortable circumstances may have large families, with no sign of
weariness and dejection. No, the causes of ill-health and debility
are diverse, and to pretend to solve the question by conception
control is a mockery, for it salves the conscience of the community
without really dealing with the question of the disabilities of the
working woman, or the true cause of her excessive fertility.
Ill-health in working-class mothers often has its origin in inherited
weakness and lack of care in childhood. It is further accentuated by
overwork, with no labour-saving devices; lack of suitable food; too
few, if any, hours of recreation, and hence very little out-door
exercise. Badly ventilated homes deprive the mother of necessary
supplies of oxygen, and insufficient sleep is often the last straw
which breaks down the patient burden bearer. A true and haunting
picture is given in a recently published book called _The Woman in the
Little House_ (which first appeared in a series of articles in the
journal "Time and Tide"), describing the anxiety of a working woman at
night to keep her baby quiet that the husband may sleep.
Now it is quite true that a small family instead of a large one will
diminish the work and anxieties of such a mother, but it will not give
her the remedies which she needs, nor will it diminish the excessive
sexual demands made upon her.
Everyone who knows these women intimately realises what an exhausting
feature is this habit of excess due to lack of knowledge or
self-restraint on the part of the husband.
I believe if facilities were provided whereby the woman could do her
laundry with modern appliances outside her own home, if family meals
were arranged in service rooms equivalent to the arrangements in
service flats, and if there were crêche rooms where children might be
left for an hour or two in safety while necessary work was done--we
should find a greatly increased standard of comfort even in existing
homes, and a great improvement in dietary for the whole family. Such
relief, added to teaching both to husband and wife as to the times of
conception, would revolutionise the life of women more than any
teaching of artificial birth control, and would lift it up to a higher
level instead of degrading it to the grossly physical.
We come to very different considerations in group 4, p. 18, where
choice rather than necessity impels the parents to limitation of the
family. The teaching now being advocated by certain books and
pamphlets advises deliberate delay in child-bearing for a period after
marriage, and the spacing of certain periods between the births of
such children as are allowed to come into the world, with limitation
of the number in each family.
Teaching on these lines, if followed, would involve an artificial mode
of sex life always--natural spontaneous union would find no place.
Already young wives are seeking advice for some relief from methods of
preparation which they say have destroyed in them all spontaneous
desire. The tragedy of it all is that even to attain the end in
view--moderation in the size of families--such methods are to a large
extent unnecessary. Not to every young married couple does a child
arrive at the end of a year. Some, using no artificial checks, wait
two or three years before the first baby comes. Even if it does come,
however, at the end of a year, there are many advantages to
counterbalance the small means and perhaps hard living of the young
pair. For when people are young they can put up with small means,
because they are strong enough to work hard and help each other;
indeed, the demand for little work and many luxuries in youth is not a
healthy one, it is a sign of decadence in the race.
Moreover, even though an early family involve real hardship for
awhile, it has the great advantage that parents and children later on
are still young together, and that means far more to the child in
understanding friendship and helpfulness during the most critical
period of life than extra comforts or pleasures would have meant to
the parents, and if young parents realised this, would they not put
the child first?
The so-called advantages of a few years between one child and the next
so that the parents may give fuller care and attention to each, are
far outweighed from the child's point of view by the advantages of
playmates in the nursery of nearly its own age, who are a source of
education in the give and take of life such as no adult can supply. If
parents wish to have only three or four children, it is to the
advantage of the mother as well as of the children, to have the little
family early in life--they are then all in the nursery together, and
later all at school, and her life work is in this way so arranged
that she may give most service to the world in addition to carrying on
the race.
Our conclusion is that for mothers and children it is very desirable
that no contraceptives should be used in the early years of married
life.
In the vast majority of families where no restrictions or unnatural
means are used and where mothers nurse their children for eight or
nine months, children only come every two years. Even if a young
couple decide that they cannot afford to bring up more than four
children, they have first to prove that four children will be given
them--in many cases they will not have so many, and as years go by the
fertility of the mother becomes progressively less, so that if
child-bearing is postponed till after thirty, in a certain number of
families no children are born. There are many men and women who
bitterly regret having let the years go by in which children might
have been born to them, and it is only fair that young couples of
to-day should fully understand this risk.