THE
UNWELCOME CHILD;
OR,
THE CRIME OF AN UNDESIGNED AND UNDESIRED
MATERNITY.
BY HENRY C. WRIGHT,
AUTHOR OF “MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE.”
EIGHTH EDITION.
BOSTON:
COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS,
9 MONTGOMERY PLACE.
1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
HENRY C. WRIGHT,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE, 5
INTRODUCTORY LETTER: A Husband to Henry C. Wright—Inquiries
respecting the Laws of Nature designed to govern Parentage, 9
LETTER I.—THE MOTHER’S POWER OVER HER CHILD: Maternity, its
bearing on the Character and Destiny of the Race—Two great facts
relating to the Ante-Natal Development and Education of the
Child, 13
LETTER II.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY:—Crime against the Mother—How it
affects her towards the Father of her Child—Who is responsible
for the Existence of Children, God or the Parents?—Has the Woman
a right to say when she shall assume the office of Maternity, or
subject herself to the relation that leads to Maternity?—A
certain method to secure the purity, peace, and happiness of
Home, 23
LETTER III.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the
Child—Ante-Natal Claims of the Child—Bearing of the Ante-Natal
History of a Child on its Post-Natal Character and
Destiny—Whatever injuriously affects the Mother must injuriously
affect the Child—A Child struggling into life against the spirit
of Murder in the heart of its Mother, 37
LETTER IV.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the Child as
affecting its Ante-Natal Education—The most intense and potent
of all human relations—Man in three States—Ante-Natal Education,
its bearing on the future Man or Woman, on Society, on Church
and State—The Guilt of Husbands, 51
LETTER V.—THE WIFE’S APPEAL AND THE HUSBAND’S RESPONSE: The last
link of Marriage—A Word to Wives—A Word to Maidens—How both may
save themselves from deepest degradation and wretchedness, 72
LETTER VI. WORDS FITLY SPOKEN, by one who speaks with Authority:
Passive Obedience of Wives to Husbands in regard to the relation
that leads to Maternity—The Authority of Nature in regard to
Maternity—The indignant protest of Humanity against the
legalized Sensualism of Husbands, 88
LETTER VII. THE DREAD ALTERNATIVE: Ante-Natal Murder, or an
Unwelcome Child, 100
PREFACE.
Maternity, the relation that leads to it, and the responsibilities,
anxieties, and agonies generally connected with it,—the right of Woman
to decide for herself when she shall assume the responsibilities, and be
subjected to the sufferings, of Maternity, and to the relation in which
it originates,—Man, without regard to the wishes and conditions of his
wife, heedless of the physical and spiritual welfare of his offspring,
and solely for his own gratification, imposing on his wife Maternity,
with all its attendant anguish of body and soul,—the crime of earth,—the
greatest outrage one human being can perpetrate on another,—ante-natal
murder,—the ante-natal history of a human being, and its bearing on his
post-natal character and destiny, in the body and out of it,—such are
the topics which are presented and discussed in the following pages.
The author has aimed so to present these subjects that no intelligent
and pure-minded man or woman need to misunderstand or misconstrue his
meaning, or be offended by his words and modes of expression. These
subjects belong to the holy of holies of human existence. With them is
associated all that is nearest and dearest to the heart of man and
woman. In the inmost sanctuary of Home, these should be the topics of
freest and most anxious conversation. All that is pure, lovely,
beautiful, and ennobling, in the relations of Husband and Wife, and
Parent and Child, is directly connected with these subjects, and the
views entertained of them by men and women in and out of legal marriage.
But that which transpires during the period between conception and
birth, as the foundation of character in the future man or woman, as an
index to their thoughts, feelings, plans, motives, actions, to their
virtues and vices, to successes and failures in life’s conflict, has
been entirely overlooked by biographers and historians, by poets and
novelists, in their efforts to delineate human life as manifested in
individuals, or in civil and ecclesiastical combinations. Yet all admit
that physical, intellectual, and social tendencies and conditions are
organized into the body and soul of every child, during that period,
that must give tone and direction to the man or woman in all their
future life. In their relations as husbands and wives, fathers and
mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and
neighbors, in all their commercial, social, civil, and ecclesiastical
relations, their feelings, and their treatment of all with whom they may
be associated, must depend greatly on these ante-natal influences and
tendencies.
The life of every good man and the life of every bad man, the life of a
teetotaller and the life of a drunkard, a life of love and a life of
hatred, a life of forgiveness and a life of revenge, a life of truth,
justice, and purity, and a life of falsehood, injustice, and impurity,
the life of Jesus and the life of Napoleon,—who can determine to what
extent all these have been, are, or will be, controlled by birthright
tendencies, and by influences that, before they were born, bore upon
those who live these lives? Certain it is that, to a great extent, the
diseases, sufferings, and premature deaths, and many of the individual,
social, governmental, and ecclesiastical thefts, robberies, and murders,
committed in the post-natal state of our being, are but the natural, if
not the necessary results of these ante-natal organic and constitutional
conditions and tendencies.
To all Husbands and Wives, to all Fathers and Mothers, and to all who
hope to enter into these most ennobling and most potent of all human
relations, are the following pages earnestly commended, by
THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTORY LETTER.
A Husband to Henry C. Wright.
BOSTON, January 10, 1857.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
It is twenty years since I first heard you discourse on the Mission and
Relation of the Sexes. You stated then, in substance, that the sexes had
power, each over the other, to save or to destroy; that all rational
hope of the elevation and perfection of human nature must rest upon a
knowledge of, and obedience to, the laws of Nature, designed to govern
those relations; that man must look to _generation_, rather than to
_re_generation, to bring the race into perfect union and harmony with
the Divine; that no power could save either man or woman, in isolation
from, or in false relations with, each other; and that if either sinks
or rises, the other must follow.
I was but a boy when I first heard you utter such sentiments. I did not
then understand their full import. They had not entered into the
experience of my inner or outer life. Yet I took the impression, that
woman would be to man just what he chose and had power to make her; and
that it depended on man to say whether woman should be to him a
purifying and ennobling influence, or a source of degradation and ruin.
From that time I had a desire, so far as woman is concerned, to place
myself in such relations to her, that her influence on my life might be
pure and ennobling. I have studied to get clear and definite views of my
nature and needs as a man, and how woman can most perfectly accomplish
her mission of love and salvation to me.
I am now a husband; made so, not by any enactment, ceremony or license
of Church or State (though my marriage is placed upon record, as an
historical fact); nor by the consent of any third party; nor by any
formal contract or bargain between me and the woman to whom I hold this
relation; but by a law or necessity of my being; by a power, unseen, but
ever present, and ever potent to guide, like that which binds the needle
to the pole, or the soul to God.
All that qualifies me to be a husband and a father, I have consecrated
to the development and happiness of my wife, and of the children who may
result from our union. I have done this, not because she demands it as
her right, but solely because I find in myself a necessity for so doing.
She make no demands on me as a right; she asks of me only what I feel
the necessity of giving. My love for her gives me no rights over her
property, her person, or her affections. It makes no demands on her, as
a right, but it makes great demands on my own manhood. True conjugal
love never creates rights over the loved one, but necessities in the one
who loves. This necessity is laid upon me, not by any arbitrary decree
of Church or State, but solely by the concentrated, exclusive love,
which, as a husband, I bear to my wife. The purity and dignity of my
nature are involved in my yielding to this necessity.
I would consecrate my manhood to the perfection and happiness of my
wife, and of the children who may be born of our union, in the home
which, by our united efforts, we hope to create. Your conversation with
me, as a boy and a youth, and your counsel, have been invaluable in the
regulation of my life in my relations with women. I have read your work,
entitled “MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE; or, the Reproductive Element in Man as
a Means of his Elevation and Happiness.” To us, in the home of our love,
your teachings will ever be as divine oracles, to regulate our relations
as husband and wife. We would embody in our lives your “ERNEST” and
“NINA,” especially in regard to parentage, and the relation that leads
to it; believing that those who do actualize that ideal husband and
wife, cannot fail to receive a divine reward, in an ever-growing and an
ever-ennobling love and trust. To that husband who shall embody your
Ernest, the love, the respect and trust of his wife, will be as the sun
and dew of heaven to the opening buds of spring; they will expand and
beautify his manly soul, and cause his manhood to give out all its
beauty and fragrance, and shed a bright and steady light on the pathway
of his wife, and bring enduring rest to her heart in the home of her
wedded love. We would live in and for each other, and in and for our
offspring. We would be represented in the great human family by those
whom we shall be proud to call our children, and whom all of human kind
shall feel honored to recognize as brothers and sisters. We would not
see our nature degraded, nor our glory tarnished, in ourselves or our
posterity, but we would see that glory made brighter, and that nature
more noble.
I know that on the government of my passional relations with my wife
depends her health and life of body and soul, the health of our
children, and the beauty and happiness of our home. I know, if she ever
is made to fear my passion, and to shrink from the personal intimacies
of her husband, home, from that hour, becomes desolate and repulsive, no
matter what may be the natural or artistic elegance of our material
surroundings. I know that in proportion as she cherishes a loving and
trusting respect for all that constitutes me a man, will she lovingly
and calmly rest in the bosom of her husband; and that the most sacred
sanctuary of our home, instead of being an altar of cruel and merciless
sacrifice of her health and life, will be a fountain of eternal life and
peace to us both,—a temple consecrated to all true manifestations of an
unselfish conjugal and parental love.
I feel the responsibility that rests upon me. I would have my wife
associate my manhood with her own purity, and not with my selfish
gratification. I would have her assured that my nature, as a man, is
under the control of conscience and reason, and held in subjection to
her perfect development, and that of our children. I would be an
unselfish, noble husband, and a true and happy father; a husband and
father who can stand in the pride and dignity of conscious nobility
before his wife and children. I would be a MAN; one whose soul,
vitalized and ennobled by the presence and power of conjugal and
paternal love, shall never cower before its own consciousness, nor in
the presence of its God.
If you can give me your thoughts and feelings in regard to parentage,
and the relation that leads to it, you will confer a favor on one whose
love and respect for you will never end.
Yours,
A HUSBAND.
THE
CRIME OF AN UNDESIRED MATERNITY
Letters to a Husband.
LETTER I.
THE MOTHER’S POWER OVER HER CHILD.
MY FRIEND:
I have read your letter with deep interest. Your inquiries respecting
the mission of the sexes, and the government of your passional relations
with your wife, seem right and proper, and what every man, who would
secure and perpetuate the love and respect of his wife, and the purity
and happiness of his home, will make, and on which, above all other
subjects, he will seek for light. They shall receive frank and candid
answers, so far as I can give them. I thank you for proposing them, as,
in answering, I shall take occasion to give my views on a subject which,
of all others, most directly concerns the organization and development,
the character and destiny of the men and women of the future, and which
involves the purity and peace of home, and the growth and prosperity of
society.
Here let me say, that on no subject should a man and woman, as they are
being attracted into conjugal relations, be more open and truthful with
each other than on this. No woman, who would save herself and the man
she loves from a desecrated and wretched home, should enter into the
physical relations of marriage with a man until she understands what he
expects of her as to the function of maternity, and the relation that
leads to it. If a woman is made aware that the man who would win her as
a wife regards her and the marriage relation only as the means of a
legalized gratification of his passions, and she sees fit to live with
him as a wife, with such a prospect before her, she must take the
consequences of a course so degrading and so shameless. If she sees fit
to make an offering of her body and soul on the altar of her husband’s
sensuality, she must do it; but she has a right to know to what base
uses her womanhood is to be put; and it is due to her, as well as to
himself, that he should tell her beforehand precisely what he wants and
expects of her.
Too frequently man shrinks from all allusion, during courtship, to his
expectations in regard to future passional relations. He fears to speak
of them, lest he should shock and repel the woman he would win as a
wife. Being conscious, it may be, of an intention to use the power he
may acquire over her person for his own gratification, he shuns all
interchange of views with her, lest she should divine the hidden
sensualism of his soul, and his intention to victimize her person to it,
the moment he shall get the license. A woman had better die at once than
enter into or continue in marriage with a man whose highest conception
of the relation is, that it is a means of licensed animal indulgence. In
such a relation, body and soul are sacrificed. “Let there be light” as
to what constitutes a natural, divine parentage!
I shall not, in answering your queries, attempt to point out minutely
what I think to be the fixed laws of human nature for the government of
human parentage. I have some things to say to you, and to all who are,
or hope to be, husbands, respecting the _crime of an undesigned and an
undesired Maternity_. From what I shall say on this subject, it may be
that you will get some hints as to the regulation of your passional
relations with your wife.
You are a husband; you hope to be a father, and to make for yourself,
your wife and children, a pure and happy home, where perfect freedom,
perfect love and trust shall dwell, and where your entire nature shall
expand and be perfected in all purity and nobleness. You would elevate
and perfect the nature you bear in yourself and in your children. This
you hope to do, not through your relations to Church or State, but
through your relations as a husband and father, and by obedience to
those laws of Nature which are designed to control your life in those
relations. As compared with the question of _the right use of the
reproductive element_,—its bearing on the growth, elevation and
happiness of your entire being, in this and in all states of your
present and future existence,—all questions of wealth, of reputation, of
religion, and government, sink into insignificance. Your treatment of
your wife in regard to Maternity, and to the relation from which it
results, must shape your destiny and hers, at home and abroad. How can
you respect yourself, knowing that your disregard of her rights, in
reference to this most sacred function, has destroyed all respect for
you in the heart of your wife?
MATERNITY is the subject under consideration. Ought it ever to exist
except at the desire of the woman, and when her nature calls for it? Can
it be right for man to impose on her this most sublime and overwhelming
of all human responsibilities, when her nature recoils from the burden?
She is not prepared to take charge of the germ of a new life, and to
meet the suffering and the responsibility of developing and giving birth
to a child, if her body and soul shrink from it. Under such
circumstances, can it be right for man to urge on her a suffering and
responsibility so much dreaded, or subject her to the possibility of a
maternity against which her soul so earnestly protests?
It may be asked,—Why confine the discussion to _Maternity_? Why not look
at the broad question of _Parentage_, and include the responsibility of
the father, as well as of the mother? For the reason, that Maternity
holds a far more intimate relation to the organization and character
than Paternity. The mother has a more direct control over human destiny
than the father. Woman is far more liable than man to suffer deep and
enduring wrong in the office of perpetuating the race. Man, as will be
shown, is generally the wrong-doer, when wrong exists; to woman belong
the suffering and anguish. Woman is the victim; on man rests the
responsibility. Woman’s appeal is to man to spare her this suffering and
anguish, except when her nature calls, and then will she, for his sake
and her own, joyfully meet and bear the cross. It is meet that woman’s
appeal should be sustained. I wish to sustain it; and in so doing, while
my remarks will bear mainly on Maternity, Paternity will necessarily
come under review. Maternity, when a crime, suggests the questions, Who
is the criminal? To what extent is he responsible for the consequences?
So, in fact, the whole subject of Parentage is open, as involving the
conduct and responsibility of both parents.
But, before proceeding to consider this wrong and outrage upon woman,
and its influence on her, I wish to allude to two facts bearing directly
on the subject.
1. _That which forms the body and soul of the child must come to it,
previous to birth, through the maternal organism._
Pause, my friend, and contemplate this fact, in its bearing on the
birthright tendencies, the character and destiny, of your child. You and
your wife wish to have a child. She prepares herself cheerfully and
bravely to bear the sufferings and responsibilities of Maternity. The
germ, so small when she takes charge of it, in a brief space assumes the
form of a human being, and is increased in size and in weight hundreds
of thousands of times.
How did the substance reach it which constituted its growth? Every
particle of matter that reaches it to form its brain, its nerves, its
heart, its lungs, its blood, its bones and sinews, was prepared in the
maternal organism, and was carried to it through the medium of her
blood. Whatever is received into her system, in the shape of food,
drink, air, and various gases, and which goes to nourish her brain,
heart, nerves, and other organs, and keep them in healthful activity,
must go to form the corresponding portions of the child’s body. The
material that nourishes the brain of the mother forms, from the
beginning, the brain of the child; that which nourishes the lungs and
nerves of the mother forms also the lungs and nerves of the child. So of
every organ and portion of the body. From whatever the mother takes into
her system must come the body and soul of her child.
2. _This substance, as it passes through the maternal system, must
receive the impress of her mental and physical conditions._
Ponder this fact, see its bearing on the character and destiny of your
child, of all children, and of the race, and see if its importance can
be over-estimated. That it is a fact, in the science of Embryology and
Fœtal Development, is not denied. Whatever _temporarily_ affects the
maternal blood, must _permanently_ affect the organic conditions and
constitutional tendencies, and of course the post-natal character and
destiny, of the child. This is much insisted on by writers on the laws
and function of reproduction. Thus Carpenter, in his “Principles of
Human Physiology,” says: “That many of the organic functions are
directly influenced by the nervous system, is a matter which does not
admit of dispute,—sometimes in exciting, sometimes in checking, and
sometimes in otherwise modifying them.”—(Sec. 946.)
Whatever, then, affects the nervous system, affects the organic
functions. That the nervous system is deeply affected by the kind and
quality of our food and drink, and by mental impressions, cannot be
doubted. Witness the influence of tea, alcohol, opium, tobacco, and
various kinds of food, on the nerves, and also of anger, grief, revenge,
fear, love, hate, &c. As Carpenter says, “The influence of particular
conditions of the mind in exciting various secretions is a matter of
daily experience.” He instances the increased secretion and flow of
saliva by the idea of food, the secretion and flow of tears by joy,
tenderness, or grief, and the influence of the love of offspring on the
mammary secretions.
“The sexual secretions,” he says, “are strongly influenced by the
conditions of the mind;” instancing the effects of a “fitful temper,”
“fits of anger,” “grief,” “anxiety of mind,” “fear,” “terror,” on the
mammary secretions, and showing that these emotions often so poison the
mother’s milk as permanently to affect the health, and sometimes destroy
the life of the nursing child.—(Sec. 948.)
Weigh well the following sentiments of Carpenter: “That the mental state
of the mother can produce important alterations in her own blood, seems
demonstrated by the considerations previously adduced in regard to its
effects upon the process of nutrition and secretion, and that such
alterations are _sufficient to determine modifications in the
developmental processes of the embryo_, TO WHICH HER BLOOD FURNISHES THE
MATERIAL, can scarcely admit a question, when we recollect what
influence the presence or absence of particular substances has in
modifying the growth of parts of the adult.” In regard to cases where
children are marked before birth, he says: “The effect must be produced
upon the maternal blood, and _transmitted through it to the fœtus_,
since there is no nervous communication between the parent and
offspring.”
On every hand, life is full of facts illustrative of the influence of
the mental and physical conditions of the mother on the organic
structure and constitutional tendencies of the body and soul of her
unborn child. As the maternal blood is healthfully or otherwise affected
by what she eats and drinks, and by her mental conditions, so will the
organization of her child be healthful or diseased. If the mass of blood
from which the fœtus is nourished and receives its material for growth
is filled with disease, from any cause, the child must be similarly
affected.
This is a fearful fact, when viewed in its bearing on the post-natal
health and happiness of the child, and on the character and destiny of
the human family. One can scarcely avoid the query, Is it just to place
the destiny of one human being so entirely in the power of another? The
power of the mother over her child, previous to birth, is absolute.
Through what she eats and drinks, during gestation, she can fix the
organic and constitutional tendencies of her child to health or disease,
to good or evil, to happiness or misery, and thus control its character
and destiny after it is born, during its infancy, childhood, youth and
manhood. Not only through the character of what she eats and drinks, but
through her _mental_ emotions and conditions, through her amusements,
her anxieties, her joys, her sorrows, her loves and hates, her
exaltation and depression, her hopes and fears, can she affect the
birthright physical and spiritual tendencies of her child, and thus
control its destiny. She may doom her child to drunkenness, to lying, to
revenge, and make him or her a thief, a liar, a drunkard, a glutton, a
miser, a warrior, a slaveholder, a robber, a murderer, a pirate, or an
assassin, before its birth, and while it is all unconscious of the doom
which the mother is preparing for it, and totally incapable of resisting
the fatal influence that is shaping its destiny.
The mother has a fearful power. It is absolute for good or evil.
Terrible is the doom of that child whose organization and development,
before birth, were controlled by the mother’s ignorance, folly, or
hatred. Emphatically, as she is true to herself, she is true to her
unborn child. It seems a mystery that the character and destiny of a
human being should so materially depend on the food, drink, thoughts,
feelings and passions of the mother during that brief period; but such
is the fact, and we can only bow in silence to the fiat of God, being
assured that whatever power the mother has for evil, she has the same
for good; and that the question whether she shall use that power for
good or evil over her child is one which may be settled mainly, if not
solely, by the father, as will hereafter be shown. I will only say here,
that the answer to the question, Will the mother use her power over her
child for good or for evil? depends on the answer to a previous
question—Is her maternity a willing or unwilling one? This question it
is generally in the power of the husband and father to answer.
Now, my friend, contemplate the bearing of these two facts on the
post-natal character and destiny of your child. The germ is placed in
the maternal system, there to be nourished and to be developed through
the substances conveyed to it by the maternal blood. Whatever the mother
eats and drinks directly affects the nutrition and organization of her
child. Whatever thoughts, feelings and passions agitate her mind, leave
their traces on that which goes to form its body and soul. How
important, then, to the health, character and happiness, of the future
man or woman, that the mother, during gestation, should receive into her
system only the purest and most healthful food and drink, and into her
mind only bright, cheerful, happy, peaceful thoughts and feelings! To
her husband, woman looks for sympathy and support to enable her truly
and bravely to meet this great demand upon her nature. She should be
encircled by a tender, consecrating love. To the father of her child she
looks for this. Shall she look in vain, or be left to bear the cross
alone?
Thine,
HENRY C. WRIGHT.
LETTER II.
THE CRIME AGAINST THE MOTHER.—HOW IT AFFECTS HER TOWARDS THE FATHER OF
HER CHILD.
MY FRIEND:
Before considering the wrong done to the mother, I would state two
points which I shall take for granted:
1. That parents, alone, are responsible for the _existence_ of their
children.
2. That woman, alone, has a right to say when, and under what
circumstances, she shall assume the office of maternity, or subject
herself to the _liability_ of becoming a mother.
These two positions seem to me so self-evident, that no arguments can
make them more clear and certain. Who is responsible for the _existence_
of children, God or the parents? Who shall say how many children a woman
shall have, and under what circumstances she shall have them, the wife
or the husband? Who shall say how often, for what purposes, and under
what conditions, the wife shall subject her person to a relation which
renders her _liable_ to become a mother, and to the suffering and
anguish of developing and giving birth to a child? To ask these
questions is to answer them. Nature makes but one reply, and that will
be found in the consciousness of every true husband and wife, and father
and mother.
What is the influence of an undesired maternity on the mother, in regard
to the father of her child? is my first inquiry. What is it? It is felt,
but seldom spoken. It cannot be expressed in words, as it is felt in the
heart.
A woman comes into the relation of a legal wife. At once, it may be, the
husband reveals himself to her in a way she did not anticipate, and she
is made to know what he expects of her, and for what he married her. She
yields her person to his passion, not in obedience to a call in her own
nature, but because she thinks that such is the right conferred by law
and custom on the husband over the wife. She has, it may be, been duly
taught that the only way to secure and strengthen his love is to yield
to his passion, whenever it demands indulgence. So she yields, and
before she is aware, and before her mind is prepared to meet them, the
responsibilities, anxieties and sufferings of maternity are upon her.
Grief, anguish, and a dread of some unknown, but terrible suffering,
overwhelm her. Consternation seizes the heart, so recently buoyant with
the hopes and joys of a loving and trusting bride.
How will this new and dreaded experience affect her mind towards her
husband and the father of her child? As a lover, he had been so gentle,
so delicate, and so considerate of her slightest wish, so thoughtful of
her happiness, and so unwilling to say or do anything to grieve her
spirit; as a bridegroom, he had promised to love and cherish her as his
own soul; and she fondly trusted that no wrong or suffering would ever
reach her through him; when, behold! in the very beginning of their
united life, and before, physically or mentally, she was prepared to
meet the great demand, he has imposed on her the necessity of yielding
up her body and soul to the keenest suffering to which she can be
subjected; and that without consulting her wishes, and contrary, it may
be, to her earnest prayer. As she ponders on her situation, and the
experience through which she must pass, and from which death to herself,
or her child, or to both, is the only door of escape, how must she feel
towards him who has placed her in this fearful condition? He has
subjected her to the necessity, for weary months, of drinking the
bitterest cup of life, and of passing through the valley and shadow of
death, heart-sick, desponding and shrinking from the final result; and
all this, not because she wished to be a mother, or he a father, nor
that they might blend their bodies and souls in a new and beautiful
life, to be an honor to themselves and the world,—no such motive
prompted the relation in which conception originated; but solely his
momentary gratification. She feels that his indulgence was had at her
expense. No conscious pride and sense of matronly dignity, no high and
noble aspirations, sustain her, as she reflects on her condition. Can
she continue to love and respect him? He has done her the greatest
wrong. He heeded not her prayers that he would control his passion, and
spare her until she was ready joyfully to enter upon an office so grand
in its nature, and so sublime in its bearing on the destiny of an
immortal soul. To meet the responsibilities of such an office, and the
physical and mental pain and anguish necessarily pertaining to it, what
woman but needs a preparation? Who is sufficient for these things? Yet
the dread liabilities are upon her, without a moment’s warning, and
without, it may be, any interchange of thoughts and feelings with her
husband and the father of her child. She knows not even that he wants a
child, nor whether he will receive it with a blessing or a curse. She
knows not what heart-support she will receive from him in the moment of
her trial and her anguish. He has had no conversation with her on these
subjects, and given her no assurance as to the natural results to her of
his passional relations with her; expressed no anxiety, no expectations,
no hopes, as to her liability to become a mother. He has had no further
wish or anxiety, except for his own selfish gratification. He has, it
may be, avoided, as indelicate and improper, all allusion to questions
so vital to the life and happiness of his newly-wedded wife. All she has
to rest upon is the indefinite assurance, given before God and man, that
he will cherish, protect and care for her. _Why_ he promised to protect
and care for her, whether as a mere means of sensual gratification, or
for holier and more exalted purposes, she has no assurance. Not one
word, it may be, has he ever spoken to her respecting the motives that
have prompted him to seek her as a wife. O, woman! woman! how dare you
enter into such a relation with a man, without knowing what he expects
of you?
The wife, in such a situation, cannot cherish loving and tender thoughts
of her husband when absent, nor receive his caresses with rapture when
present. She bears in herself the result of the wrong he has inflicted
on her. It is ever present to her thoughts and emotions. She cannot
escape from it but by an outrage on herself and child; and as, in her
moments of solitary suffering and anguish, she reflects on her
condition, and why she must endure them, how can she regard the author
of them with loving respect? The sense of the wrong done her is ever
present,—can she tenderly cherish the wrong-doer, especially when he
continues to demand of her a constant renewal of the relation in which
her present afflictions and forebodings of future sorrows originated?
She cannot; for he, by inflicting on her a maternity which her own soul
cannot sanction, and from which, perhaps, she shrinks with horror, has
rendered himself unworthy of her love and respect.
It is in vain to urge a woman thus situated to love and honor her
husband. At no command of God or man can she, as a wife, love and
cherish him. Indeed, no wife can love her husband at the word of
command. If she loves him at all, it is because she must, not because
she is ordered to do it. Her love will flow out to him as a necessity of
her being, not by the command of a third party. If he has no power to
call it out and concentrate it on himself, it will not go out to him.
Nothing can force it out. She is not to blame if she does not love him.
She gives him all he has power to awaken and call out,—all the love he
has power to take; more he has no right to ask, more she cannot give.
Her love for him will correspond to his lovableness in her eyes; he will
seek to render himself lovable to her, just in proportion to the value
he sets on her love. Expect no love from a woman because she is your
legal wife. The legal bond can impose on her no obligation to love you;
and if it did, she cannot love you, if your person and your passion
become disgusting to her.
Would you, my friend, increase and perpetuate the love and respect of
your wife? Then beware how you demean yourself towards her in regard to
maternity, and the relation that may, at any time, result in it. To a
true woman and a loving wife, maternity, and the passional expressions
of her husband, must ever be ennobling, or degrading. It is for him to
say which they shall be. It is for you to say whether, as the father of
her child, you shall seem to your wife altogether pure, noble and
attractive, or selfish, ignoble and repulsive. You must determine
whether the mother of your child shall see in you a generous, tender,
kingly husband, all-worthy to be the father of her child, and to rule
over the empire of her heart, or a mean, merciless tyrant, having no
purer or higher aim, in your relations with her, than that of animal
indulgence, and whom it is impossible to respect. It is for you to say
to what extent, and how long, she shall love and respect you. She must
love and honor you, if you seem to her to be worthy; she cannot, if you
seem otherwise. How can you thus seem, when she is made to feel that for
your gratification, and against her earnest appeal to you, as a man and
husband, you have imposed on her a burden which she feels unable and
unwilling to bear?
Maternity, when it exists at the call of the wife, and is gratefully
received, but binds her heart more tenderly and devotedly to her
husband. As the father of her child, he stands before her invested with
new beauty and dignity. In receiving from him the germ of a new life,
she receives that which she feels is to add new beauty and glory to her
as a woman,—new grace and attraction to her as a wife. She loves and
honors him, because he has crowned her with the glory of a mother.
Maternity, to her, instead of being repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a
crown of rejoicing, and deep, tender, and self-forgetting are her love
and reverence for him who has placed it on her brow. How noble, how
august, how beautiful, is Maternity, when thus bestowed and received!
But, in proportion as it is holy and ennobling when designedly conferred
and joyfully received, is it unholy and debasing, when undesigned and
undesired. In proportion as a mother’s heart overflows with tender
gratitude and loving reverence towards the father of her child, when
that child comes in answer to the call of her womanly and wifely nature,
will it be filled with aversion to the father of a child which she did
not want, and which she is conscious is the result of a relation sought
only for a sensual purpose.
Many wives become indifferent to, or positively and forever alienated
from, their husbands, from this cause. Nothing will so surely and so
irrevocably destroy the love of a wife for a husband, as a disregard, on
his part, of her feelings and wishes in regard to Maternity, and to the
relation from which it comes. In nothing are husbands (through
ignorance, I would fain think) so unmindful of the entreaties and wants
of their wives, as in these respects. They often demand the surrender of
their persons without any inquiry into their feelings and conditions;
consequently, before they are aware, the very life of God in their
hearts,—that is, their love and respect for their husbands,—is crushed
out of them. No wonder, when we consider what liabilities, what a sense
of self-degradation, and what a shrinking of soul, are involved, to a
true woman, in a surrender of her person to mere sensual passion, and to
a maternity so dreaded. On the contrary, how certainly and how
permanently a husband will secure the love and respect of his wife, and
her perfect trust, when he so treats her as to make her feel secure that
she is never to become a mother till her own nature calls for it; and
when, knowing his own nature, he can assure her that he shall never
subject her to the possibility of that suffering till she is able and
willing to bear it!
When a woman once feels that the power of her husband is controlled by a
tender love and reverence for her, and a desire to subject it to her
growth and happiness, rather than to promote his own selfish ends, she
rests in his bosom knowing no fear, assured that this very passion will
but intensify the holy love that encircles her. When all fear of his
passion is gone, her love and trust are perfected. But let the fear of
that once settle on her heart, and her love is gone. Love and respect
for the husband cannot exist in the heart of the wife simultaneously
with a dread of his passion.
Would you, then, secure the love and trust of your wife, and become an
object of her ever-growing tenderness and reverence, never impose on her
a maternity which her nature does not sanction; neither subject her to
the _possibility_ of enduring the suffering incident to such a
situation. Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect
respect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be in
subjection to her wishes, and that she will never be made to endure the
trials of maternity, except at the call of her own soul. How tenderly
and reverently would she, under such an assurance, regard your physical,
as well as your mental and spiritual manhood!
It is not enough that you have secured, in the heart of your wife,
respect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To maintain your
self-respect in your relations with her, to perfect your growth and
happiness as a husband, you must cause your _physical_ nature to be
tenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the sacred intimacies of
home. No matter how much she reverences your intellectual, or your
social power, if she shrinks with disgust from all contact with your
person, if by reason of your uncalled-for passional manifestations, you
have made your physical manhood disagreeable, and all personal contact
painful, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly pride
and dignity as a husband? You cannot, if you respect yourself.
One distinctive characteristic of a true and noble husband is a feeling
of manly pride in the physical elements of his manhood. His physical
manhood, as well as his soul, is dear to the heart of his wife, because
through this he can give the fullest expression to his manly power. But
if such manifestations are made when the wife is not prepared to receive
them, and when she repels them and dreads the consequences, his physical
nature becomes associated, not with the pure joy of a longed-for
maternity, but with a deep sense of shame and degradation, with an
outrage on her nature, and with the protracted suffering and anguish of
an abhorred maternity. How can she respect the person of her husband?
How can she cherish, and proudly care for, the purity, health and
comfort of his physical nature? He has made it disgusting to her. She
regards it as the deadliest enemy of her purity and peace as a wife, and
as the bane of her home. She cannot look upon his person but as the
source of her degradation and ruin. In its presence, she feels as in the
presence of some hated reptile, from which her soul and senses shrink.
How can she lovingly cherish and care for it? How can the husband
respect himself, when by his own abuse of his wife and of himself, he
has made his physical manhood thus contemptible to her?
How can you, my friend, avoid this? How can you secure for your person
the loving care and respect of your wife? There is but one way; so
manifest yourself to her, in the hours of your most endearing
intimacies, that all your manly power shall be associated only with all
that is generous, just and noble in you, and with purity, freedom and
happiness in her. Make her feel that all which constitutes you a man,
and qualifies you to be her husband and the father of her children,
belongs to her, and is sacredly consecrated to the perfection and
happiness of her nature. Do this, and the happiness of your home is made
complete in righteousness. Your _body_ will be lovingly and reverently
cared for, because the wife of your bosom feels that it is the sacred
symbol through which a noble, manly love is ever speaking to her, to
cheer and sustain her.
Woman is ever proud, and justly so, of the manly passion of her husband,
when she knows it is controlled by a love for her, whose manifestations
have regard only to her elevation and happiness. The very power which,
when bent only on selfish indulgence, becomes a source of more shame,
degradation, disease and wretchedness, to women and to children, than
all other things put together, does but ennoble her, add grace and glory
to her being, and concentrate and vitalize the love that encircles her
as a wife, when it is controlled by wisdom, and consecrated to her
highest growth and happiness, and that of her children. It lends
enchantment to her person, and gives a fascination to her smiles, her
words and her caresses, which ever breathe of purity and of heaven, and
make her all lovely as a wife and mother to her husband and the father
of her child. Manly passion is to the conjugal love of the wife like the
sun to the rosebud, that opens its petals, and causes them to give out
their sweetest fragrance, and to display their most delicate tints; or
like the frost, which chills and kills it ere it blossoms in its
richness and beauty.
Beware, then, how you perpetrate this wrong against your wife, as you
would secure her love and respect. Trifle not with the function of
Maternity in her; for as this comes to her as the crowning joy and glory
of her earthly existence, or otherwise, will be her estimate of you as
her husband and the father of her children. See to it that she is never
subjected to the possibility of becoming a mother unless she calls for
it, and is ready with joy to assume the responsibilities of maternity.
But I will let woman tell her own story. She can speak on such a theme,
and tell her own needs and wrongs, as no man can. The following extracts
from a private letter will give you an insight into the wants and
feelings of a wife and mother in regard to this subject. When woman
speaks of her feelings while suffering an undesired maternity, let man
reverently give heed to her words:
“My maternal experience has been varied. I have never been the
recipient of a _designed_ maternity, but I have that within me which
gives me an idea of what its joy and blessedness might be. I have
never been forced, with _entire_ repugnance on my part, into the
relation which resulted in conception; and yet I have suffered the
keenest agonies in view of such a result.
“In the first years of my married life, I had no thought but to submit
to the passion of my husband, without regard to the consequences to
myself. As every true woman does, living in conjugal relations, I
desired to be caressed by my husband, and to be pressed to his manly
bosom. I did not suppose it was incumbent on him to control himself.
“In an unwelcome maternity, I have _sometimes_ felt a deep repugnance
to the passion of my husband,—a sense of deep suffering and anguish
through it; but I have usually been so encircled by love as to make me
forget this, or rather, shun such thoughts as sinful. But since my
husband and I have come to a truer knowledge of parentage, I have come
to ‘love, honor and cherish’ those functions which I had before only
feared and obeyed. I think this is not the feeling that married women
usually have towards the physical manhood of their husbands. I never
heard a woman admit that her thoughts rested on the physical nature of
her husband with loving respect and womanly pride: but I have heard,
not unfrequently, expressions of disgust instead.
“I have known many instances in which the fathers of children,
unintentionally and unwillingly conceived, became so repulsive to the
mother, during gestation, that they would be made seriously ill by
coming in contact with them, in any way; though ordinarily they would
be agreeable and congenial.
“I have heard many women say they would gladly strangle their
children, born of undesired maternity, at birth, could they do so with
safety to themselves. I believe, judging from a long and intimate
acquaintance with many mothers, and from much conversation with them
on this subject, that there are many children whose existence is
undesigned by their fathers and undesired by their mothers. Yet among
those heterogeneous and unnatural combinations called marriages, there
is enough love to produce some tolerable specimens of humanity; and
when there is any thing remarkable in development, there will be found
physiological and psychological conditions sufficient to produce it.
“No words can express the helplessness, the sense of personal
desecration, the despair, which sinks into the heart of woman when
forced to submit to maternity under adverse circumstances, and when
her own soul rejects it. It is no matter of wonder that abortions are
purposely procured; it is to me a matter of wonder that a single
child, undesignedly begotten and reluctantly conceived, is ever
suffered to mature in the organism of the mother. Her whole nature
repels it. How can she regard its ante-natal development but with
sorrow and shrinking?