her tower of strength, to shelter and be sheltered to love and be loved,
to bless and be blessed. A love that knows no fear, a trust that fears
no danger, lay her in his bosom, and prompt to and consecrate the entire
surrender of her soul and body to his manly keeping. Will you call that
man true, noble or honorable, who can take advantage of a love so pure
and a trust so boundless, to impose on her a suffering and anguish, and
a responsibility, for which she is not prepared, and from which her soul
shrinks; thus placing her in an unnatural position in regard to her
child, and thus outraging his own offspring, by giving it an existence
loathed even by the mother who give it birth? What shall be said of the
man who will commit a deed so atrocious? A husband he is not; he ignores
the first principles of a true and noble manhood. He is but a selfish,
disgusting sensualist. A father he is not, deserving tender and loving
reverence from his wife, but an ANIMAL, whose brutal gratification is
the first law of life, and one whom neither mother nor child can
respect.
But I will reserve further remarks on this subject until my next letter.
Thine, H. C. W.
LETTER IV.
THE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILD, AS AFFECTING ITS ANTE-NATAL EDUCATION.
DEAR FRIEND:
In the preceding letter, I have shown how, and to what extent, a
maternity, undesigned by the father and undesired by the mother, affects
the organization, character and destiny, of the child. I wish to pursue
the question still further.
Life is before you,—a long and happy one, I trust. May it increase in
goodness and usefulness as it does in years! Your power is great, and
will be greater. Already the minds of thousands are deeply and
permanently influenced by you. I know that MAN, and not institutions or
dogmas, is the object of your devotion; that the all-controlling, ever
present sentiment of your life is, _the supremacy of man over his
incidents_. I know that you reverence man, not his incidents. You feel,
and in your life seek to embody the truth, that _man is eternal_, his
institutions transient and ever-changing. Man is the great _fact_; his
religious, social, governmental, ecclesiastical, literary, monetary and
commercial surroundings are merely passing incidents of his existence,
to be changed or cast away as suits his growth and convenience. Man is
the substance, all else the shadow. The appendages will be laid aside,
but man will live, deathless as God. You would never sacrifice man to
his incidents; the head to the hat, or the body to the coat,—the
enduring substance to the passing shadow.
You see and worship God in man, not in his incidents. In those relations
which bear most directly and powerfully on the development, purity and
nobility of your manhood, and on your character and destiny, you
recognize the most perfect manifestation of the Divine presence and
power. In them, the great thinking intellect and pulsating heart of the
universe,—the God-element of Nature,—speak to you as in nothing else.
Of all your relations, which is most potent to develop your manhood, to
unfold to yourself, and to all, the hidden wealth and depths of your
being; to vitalize and call into manly activity all the powers of your
physical and intellectual nature? Your soul promptly answers, “That of
the HUSBAND and the FATHER.” No man who has lived in those relations can
doubt the truth of your answer. God speaks to you through your wife and
child, as through no other being of the past or present. Through those
loved ones, He, as it were, renders himself visible, audible, tangible
to you, and you meet him and talk with him face to face. They are his
natural prophets and messiahs to you—the media through which the
God-element of the universe flows into you, quickening and vitalizing,
and arousing to energetic activity, all the powers of your manhood.
Through them, an influence is thrown upon and around you, which
silently, but surely, defines and shapes your plans of life, and
quickens, expands, and ennobles your affections. In them, a PRESENCE is
ever before you, whose beauty and brightness illuminate your pathway,
and which is ever beckoning you onward and upward, and breathing into
your soul a desire and a daring to reach the sublimest height of purity
and nobleness. In truth, you may say, in your wife and child are the
hidings of God’s power, to form your character and shape your destiny.
What, then, so important to you, as a true knowledge and just
appreciation of your relations as a husband and father? As a husband and
father, you can do more to elevate and perfect the human type, and to
save yourself, than you can in any other relation: political,
ecclesiastical, commercial and social relations are insignificant, in
comparison. I know you live but to glorify the nature you bear, and to
enjoy that glorified nature forever. Such being with you the chief end
of existence, I ask you to weigh, with candor and earnestness, the
following observations on THE ANTE-NATAL EDUCATION AND HISTORY OF MAN. I
have long been accustomed to consider human beings in connection with
three states, and to think, speak and write on the comparative influence
of these states on their character and destiny:
1. The state preceding birth, which I am accustomed to call the
_Ante-Natal_ state.
2. The state between birth and death, or the embodied state.
3. The state after death, or the disembodied state. The two last, the
_Post-Natal_ spheres or states.
Religion, government, education, commerce, agriculture, mechanics,
literature, the press, the convention,—these hitherto, have confined
attention, almost exclusively, to human life in its post-natal spheres,
embodied or disembodied. They take up human beings, _after_ they are
born, and seek to do for them what they may to promote their welfare;
and much of the doing consists in trying to undo what had been done for
them in the ante-natal state. To a great extent, in promoting the
education of children, this state has been ignored, as having no
connection with the character and destiny in the post-natal spheres.
Come, my friend, go with me back to that which Church and State have
overlooked, and view human beings between conception and birth. The
period is brief; but is it not important? Is it powerless? Are no
influences exerted and no events transpiring there, of sufficient moment
to render them worthy attention, in considering the history and
estimating the character of the individual man or woman, or of states
and nations?
Many years since, the conviction was settled in my mind, that that
period, though so brief, and hidden from observation in the very holy of
holies of the temple of life, has more to do in giving tone to our
feelings, intensity, activity and character to our passions and
appetites, direction to our thoughts and plans, and in moulding our
character and shaping our destiny, in the post-natal spheres of our
being, than all that is brought to bear on us after we are born. OUR
ANTE-NATAL HISTORY IS THE KEY TO OUR POST-NATAL LIFE. There is not a man
or woman who is not a living witness to the truth of this assertion.
I think it cannot be doubted, that much of the physical disease and
suffering, and much of the idiocy, insanity, and mental and moral
obliquity of our post-natal, embodied state, is the result of our
ante-natal organization. Much, indeed, is done for us before the germs
of our being leave the _paternal_ organism. They must, to a greater or
less extent, receive the impress of the father’s conditions of body and
soul; and he will do a service to the world who shall show to fathers
their responsibilities in this matter. But _Maternity_ is the subject
under consideration; and in discussing this, my concern with the germ is
after the mother takes charge of it. _The period between conception and
birth_ is that to which I would call your attention.
From a long and critical observation of facts, and a persevering effort
to trace the physical, intellectual, social and spiritual conditions and
phenomena of the individual and social lives of children and adults, in
the many thousands of families in which, for a longer or shorter time, I
have been an inmate, I long ago came to the conclusion, that to their
ANTE-NATAL EDUCATION, men and women are more beholden for their
healthful or diseased physical conditions, sufferings or enjoyments, and
for their mental and spiritual tendencies, their peculiarities of temper
and disposition, their aptitudes to truth or falsehood, to justice or
injustice, to love or hate, to peace or war, to temperance or
drunkenness, to forgiveness or revenge, to sexual purity or impurity, to
happiness or misery, than to all the influences that are brought to bear
on them, after they are born, to whatever age they may attain. These
tendencies, whether of body or soul, are mainly, if not entirely,
organized as fixed facts of existence in the individual man or woman, in
their ante-natal state. There is not a human being, there never was one,
and never will be, whose whole life is not essentially, constantly, and
in its minutest details instigated and directed, more or less, by
gestational influences.
If this be so, where are we to look for the forming and controlling
causes of human character and destiny, and of physical, mental, and
spiritual idiosyncrasies? Where shall we go to find the true foundations
of biography and history, and the controlling elements of all religions
and governments? Where go to find the mainsprings of war, slavery,
drunkenness, polygamy, licentiousness, and of all the sufferings,
anguish and woes of marriage and domestic life, that arise from the
abuse of the sexual element? Where go to find the cause of a repulsive
and loathed maternity, and of the horrors to which it leads? Where,
indeed, but to the germs of diseases, and the aptitudes to good or evil,
that were organized into the bodies and souls of men and women, as fixed
facts and elements of life, by influences that were brought to bear upon
them, through the maternal organism, between the periods of conception
and birth?
This ante-natal education makes the man and woman, the Religion and
Government, the Church and State, the social, educational, and
commercial customs and institutions; and whoever attempts to write the
biography of an individual, or the history of a Church or State, without
reference to that education, and its controlling power over human
character and destiny, fails to present the whole truth. He fails to
trace effects to their causes, and must necessarily give a partial or
perverted view of the phenomena of life.
“_Maxima debetur pueris reverentia._” [The greatest reverence is due to
childhood.] Thus sang the Roman poet Juvenal, two thousand years ago.
Reverence childhood! If this be so important after the child is born,
how much more reverence is due to _ante-natal_ childhood? Be thy hands
clean, thy robes spotless, thy looks, thy tones, thy mien, tender,
sweet, loving, reverential, and thy heart filled and thrilled with pure
worship, as thou enterest the temple of man’s ante-natal life! With
these feelings, enter with me the very holy of holies of that temple,
over which God spreads his wings of tenderest love and highest wisdom,
as protecting cherubims and seraphims. Behold, there, the unconscious
future man or woman, in a process of gestational organization and
development, subjected to influences over which he or she has no
control, and receiving a physical, intellectual, social and spiritual
education that is to decide the character, for good or evil, for
happiness or misery, in the great future that is opening before them.
See what a future is wrapped up in that unconscious embryo man or woman!
It may be that the fates of states and empires are being inscribed, by
some unseen power, on that body and soul. Already that unformed child
may hold in its grasp the destinies of millions and of ages. But who is
the educator? Who guides the pen that is inscribing peace or war,
liberty or slavery, life or death, to those millions and those ages, and
the scroll of destiny to states and kingdoms, to religions and
governments on the soul of that unborn babe? THE MOTHER. Through her
must come every element essential to constitute the body and soul of
that child; and, as it passes through her system, it must receive the
stamp of her physical, social and spiritual conditions.
Keep in mind the great fact, that the mental states of the mother,
during gestation, must necessarily and permanently affect every particle
of that substance which goes to make the organization and growth of her
child, for good or evil. Whatever injuriously affects her thoughts and
feelings, must permanently affect the physical, social, intellectual and
moral aptitudes of her child.
Suppose that you have, undesignedly and without her consent, imposed
maternity on your wife. On discovering the fact, it becomes most
repulsive to her nature. She is not prepared to bear the cross and
endure the crucifixion. Instantly, her soul is filled with murderous
intent. She resolves to nip and crush the opening bud of life,—to
procure abortion,—that is, to commit the deed of ante-natal
child-murder. She does not feel that it is _her_ child. She may regard
it as _yours_, but she cannot acknowledge it as her own; and though it
must receive its gestational development in her organism, she cannot
tenderly and lovingly cherish and guard it, as bone of her bone, flesh
of her flesh, and soul of her soul. It is so _in fact_, but not in her
_feelings_. She asked not for it; her soul repels it as an intruder,
thrust upon her without her consent, and in contempt, it may be, of her
earnest remonstrance,—for thus it often is. The child, she feels, has no
right to an existence at her expense, and who shall say it has? An
uninvited and hated intruder is exhausting her vital energies, and
robbing her of that which no earthly treasures can ever restore or
recompense. Through her physical suffering and mental anguish, an
unbidden and loathed guest is feeding and thriving on her heart’s blood.
Desperation, and the bitterness of death, are in her heart. MURDER fills
her soul towards your unconscious and innocent babe.
Who is responsible? On whom rests the guilt? It is your work. You forced
that heavy burden upon her, and compelled her to bear it. You thrust
your child, as an intruder, into the sacred domain of her life, to
derive existence through her organism and at her expense, knowing that
she was not prepared to welcome it, and to bend the forces of her nature
to its growth and support; and contrary, it may be, to her earnest
entreaties that she might be spared this pain and anguish till she was
ready joyfully to welcome them. But you heeded not her prayer; you
assumed the right to decide for her when she was prepared to endure
these trials, and under what circumstances she should be a mother. You
must have your stated gratification; you have abused your manhood and
your wife, till this indulgence, as you think, has become as essential a
want of your life as your daily food,—as the drunkard feels that alcohol
is as essential as air to his existence and happiness; and so you impose
on her a maternity which her soul abhors. You horribly tax her vital
energies, “_without her consent_.” Murder is in her heart towards the
uninvited and hated intruder you have introduced into the sanctuary of
her life.
That mother, whose heart is thus filled with murder towards your child,
is its educator! Into her hands you committed its destiny; and in the
very act of so doing, you aroused in her heart the spirit of murder
against the unconscious, innocent being whom she is to nourish into
life. In the very act of committing the germ of the new immortal to her,
you destroyed in her the power to be its loving, nursing mother. You
knew that she would not and could not love and reverence it, and do
justice to it; that she would hate it, and kill it if she could. All
this you knew, yet you forced the charge upon her!
Suppose your child were born; would you commit its education and destiny
to one, who, as you knew, would cherish murder in her heart towards it,
who would “get rid of it” (as the phrase is), i.e., kill it, if she
could without injury to herself,—yes, and kill it although at the risk
of death to herself, such being her dread and her loathing of the
charge? You would, yourself, be the murderer, if you did. Should you
commit the _post-natal_ education and happiness of your child to such a
woman, knowing her utter repugnance to the charge, and her determination
to “get rid of it” if she could,—would you not be responsible for the
consequences, whether she killed it, or whether she preserved it alive,
only to infuse into it a deadly wrath and revenge towards you, and
towards all of human kind? You would. You knew she loathed its existence
when you thrust it upon her, and that she would destroy the young life
if she could; and that, if it lived to grow up under the training of
such a spirit, it must be at war, in heart and life, with all its
surroundings, must be unloved and unloving, hated and hating, and an
object of anxiety and dread to all with whom it might chance to be
associated.
What else do you do, when you impose on your wife a maternity unasked
and abhorred? You commit the development and education of your child,
during the most important and susceptible period of its existence, to
one who assures you she is not prepared for the charge, who entreats you
to spare her, and who loathes the very thought of its existence. Every
element of her womanly nature, for the time being, recoils from its
presence in her system. She pleads that you would spare her this burden,
at this time, and until her nature calls for it, and is prepared
joyfully to meet the martyrdom maternity must bring to her. Heedless of
her prayers, and, it may be, of threats of death to your child, you
demand the surrender of her person to your passion. Maternity ensues.
Murder enters her heart towards your child at the same time. She tries
to “get rid of it,”—to murder it. She succeeds. The young life you had
committed to her care is nipped in the bud, as you were assured it would
be before you resigned it to her keeping. Where rests the
responsibility? On you, primarily and mainly. You murdered your own
child, not, indeed, with your own hands,—you drove another to do the
desperate deed, and that other, your wife, who came to you with a loving
and trusting heart, to save and to be saved; and you, to gratify your
selfish passion, drove her to the commission of the crime of ante-natal
child-murder,—a crime that must forever weigh upon her soul like a
mountain of guilt and shame; a deed, after the doing of which, no true
woman can ever, in this life, stand proud and stainless, in conscious
innocence and dignity, before the tribunal of her womanhood. She has
done a deed for which great Nature can find no excuse but ignorance; but
which, even when done in ignorance, she regards as a violation of her
just laws, and punishes as such, with appropriate penalties,—the loss of
self-respect, and the consciousness of degradation.
Yet all this suffering, anguish, crime and conscious degradation, you,
the husband, have forced upon her, solely for the momentary, and, under
the circumstances, most unnatural, gratification of your sensual
passion,—a passion which, when controlled by manly love and wisdom, and
held in abeyance to the health, purity, and happiness of your wife and
children, would bring only honor to their hearts and to your home, but
which, when thus indulged without regard to the wishes and conditions of
your wife, and merely for your personal pleasure, spreads crime,
pollution, misery and death, all around.
How dare you, how dare any husband, commit the destiny of his child into
the hands of one, who, as he knows, thus loathes the thought of its
existence? How can you subject your child to the possibility of such a
gestational organization and development; such an ante-natal education;
or force upon your wife the suffering and anguish of a loathed and hated
maternity, or the necessity of doing a deed from which the soul of every
noble woman must shrink with sickening horror? You could not do this
wrong to your wife and child, till your manhood was sunk in the mire of
disgusting sensualism.
A loathed and hated maternity! A woman, a mother, shrinking with disgust
and horror from the thought of giving existence to her child! A mother’s
heart throbbing with murder toward the child over whose development and
education it is presiding! Do you say this is strong language?—too
strong? That it cannot be? Do you say a mother does not, cannot, hate
and loathe her unborn babe? Why, then, does she kill it? Her spirit is
known by its fruit. Is not her whole soul bent on its destruction, even
at the risk of her own health and life?
“Abortion!” “Get rid of it!” Gentle terms, these; respectable, no doubt,
as some count gentle and respectable; but used to cover a most foul,
unnatural deed. _Ante-natal child-murder_ alone can truly express the
nature of the act. If no murderous hate is in the mother’s heart, why
does she kill the child? If you saw a mother seeking to kill her child
after it was born, knowing that she did it because its existence was
hateful to her, and because she did not wish to bear the burden of its
nursing and training, would you not conclude that her heart was filled
with murder towards it? So when a woman is willing to imperil her own
life, to outrage every womanly element of her being, and forfeit the
conscious innocence and respect of her own soul, to inflict death upon
her unborn child, you may be sure that a deep and terrible loathing and
hatred are in her heart towards the new and expanding life which the
husband for mere sensual gratification, has thrust upon her.
What means the wide-spreading disposition among men and women to procure
and to palliate the murder of children before they are born? One thing
is surely indicated by it, namely, the _increasing_ sensualism of men,
and their determination to gratify it without regard to consequences to
their wives and children. It is a swift witness against their purity and
nobleness, and shows an utter recklessness in the pursuit of sensual
pleasure. It also opens the frightful depths to which woman can fall and
has fallen. How many women of New England have on their souls, at this
hour, the ineffaceable stain of ante-natal child-murder? How many bear
in their physical organism the incurable results of this crime? How many
families are now suffering from it? Go ask the men and women doctors,
who, for gold, perpetrate this crime, and who shamelessly advertise
their infamy. Tens of thousands of wives and mothers are to be seen, all
over the country, at once the perpetrators and victims of this cruel and
disgusting act; all, all to administer to the sensualism of men, who are
called _husbands_! Husbands! the guilt is mainly yours; and the
damnation is just. Beneath your foul wrong to their nature, your wives
sink, and you must go down with them.
Ponder the following extract from a private letter, containing the
experience of a wife and mother, in regard to enforced and hated
maternity and ante-natal child-murder. The letter is of recent date; the
writer and her family are known to me personally:
“Before we married, I informed him [the husband] of my dread of having
children. I told him I was not yet prepared to meet the sufferings and
responsibilities of maternity. He entered into an arrangement to
prevent it, for a specified time. This agreement was disregarded.
After the legal form was over, and he felt that he could now indulge
his passion without loss of reputation, and under legal and religious
sanctions, he insisted on the surrender of my person to his will. He
violated his promise at the beginning of our united life. That fatal
bridal night! it has left a cloud on my soul and on my home, that can
never pass away on earth. I can never forget it. It sealed the doom of
our union, as it does of thousands.
“He was in feeble health; so was I; and both of us mentally depressed.
But the sickly germ was implanted, and conception took place. We were
poor and destitute, having made no preparations for a home for
ourselves and child. I was a stricken woman. In September, 1838, we
came to ——, and settled in a new country. In the March following, my
child, developed under a heart throbbing with dread and anguish at the
thought of its existence, was born. After three months’ struggle, I
became reconciled to my, at first, unwelcome child. But the impress of
my impatience and hostility to its existence, previous to its birth,
was on my child, never to be effaced; and to this hour, that child is
the victim of an undesired maternity.