Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

PREFACE.

The sale of copies of this book is now to be reckoned by its tens of thousands! The last, the Seventh Edition, comprising five thousand copies, has been rapidly exhausted; a new Edition, the Eighth, is now urgently called for; and as the sale of the work is so enormous, and so extending, my worthy Publishers have deemed it advisable to publish of this edition at once seven thousand copies,—thus making of the two last editions alone twelve thousand copies; the two last editions being, in fact, equal to twelve ordinary editions! Moreover, this book has made me troops of friends, thus proving how much such a work was needed, and how thoroughly my humble efforts have been appreciated.

I have, in the Introductory Chapter especially addressed to a Young Wife, had some plain and unpalatable truths to tell; but it is absolutely necessary for a surgeon to probe a serious and deep-seated wound to the bottom before he can perform a cure; he is sometimes compelled to give pain before he can cure pain; he is frequently obliged to administer bitter medicine before sweet health can be restored. I have not shrunk from my duty; I have not uttered an “uncertain sound:” but have, without fear or favor, boldly spoken out, and have proclaimed what I have deemed to be the truth; the vital importance of my subject must excuse my plain-speaking and earnestness. When a person is on the edge of a precipice, and is ready at any moment to topple over, the words of warning must not be in the tones of a whisper, bland and gentle, but in the voice of thunder, bold and decisive. I have had to discourse on matters of the greatest moment to the well-being of wives; and have, therefore, in order not to be misapprehended, had to call things by their right names—the subject being of far too much importance to write in a namby-pamby style, or to use any other language than that of the plainest English.

The Introductory Chapter is, I trust, greatly improved; many of the quotations are either curtailed, or are altogether suppressed, in order to make room, without materially increasing the size of the book, for much new and important matter. The remaining pages have all been carefully revised and corrected, and made more clear, and additional advice, where needed, has been supplied. I therefore hope that this edition will be still more worthy of its great and extending success, and be the humble instrument of sowing broadcast through our land advice most necessary for wives to know; and at the same time be the means of dispelling prejudices which, in the lying-in room, are even, in this our day, most rife and injurious.

Barren wives! delicate wives! unhealthy wives! are the order of the day—are become institutions of the country—are so common as not to be considered strange, but to be, as a matter of course, as part and parcel of our everyday life! Should such things be? I emphatically say No! But then a thorough change, a complete reformation, must take place in the life and habits of a wife. It is no use blinking the question; the truth, the whole truth, must come out, and the sooner it is told the better. Oh! it is sad that the glorious mission of a wife should, as it often does, end so ingloriously! Broken health, neglected duties, a childless home, blighted hopes, misery, and discontent. What an awful catalogue of the consequences of luxury, of stimulants, of fashion, of ignorance, and of indolence—the five principal wife and babe destroyers! Sure I am that the foregoing melancholy results may, in the generality of cases, by timely and judicious treatment, be prevented.

This is an age of stimulants—’tis the curse of the day; wine, in excess, instead of being an element of strength, is one of weakness; instead of encouraging fecundity, is one of its greatest preventives. A lady who drinks daily five or six glasses of wine, is invariably weak, low, hysterical, and “nervous,”—complaining that she can neither eat, nor sleep, nor take exercise; she is totally unfit for the duties and responsibilities of either wife or mother. I shall endeavor in the following pages to prove the truth of these bold assertions.

Many young married ladies now drink as much wine in a day as their grandmothers did in a week; and which I verily believe is one cause of so few children, and of so much barrenness among them. It is no use: the subject is too important to allow false delicacy to stand in the way of this announcement; the truth must be told; the ulcer which is eating into the vitals of society must be probed; the danger, the folly, the wickedness of the system must be laid bare; the battle must be fought; and as no medical man has come forward to begin the conflict, I myself boldly throw down the gauntlet, and will, to the best of my strength and ability, do battle in the cause.

It is the abuse and not the use of wine that I am contending against. I am not advocating teetotal principles—certainly not. The one system is as absurd and as wrong as the other; extremes, either way, are most injurious to the constitution both of man and woman. The advice of St. Paul is glorious advice: “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities;” and again, when he says, “be temperate in all things.” These are my sentiments, and which I have, in the following pages, so earnestly contended for.

A lady who “eats without refreshment, and slumbers without repose,” is deeply to be pitied, even though she be as rich as Crœsus, or as beautiful as Venus! Nothing can compensate for the want of either sleep or appetite; life without proper appetite and without refreshing sleep will soon become a wearisome burden too heavy to bear. It is high time, when there are so many of the Young Wives of England, alas! too many, who daily “eat without refreshment,” and who nightly “slumber without repose,” that the subject was thoroughly looked into, and that proper means were suggested to abate the calamity. One of the principal objects of this book is to throw light upon the subject, and to counsel measures to remedy the evil.

The large number of barren wives in England has, in these pages, had my careful and earnest consideration. I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, to point out, as far as the wives themselves are concerned, many of the causes, and have advised remedies to abate the same. It is quite time, when the health among the wives of the higher classes is so much below par, and when children among them are so few, that the causes should be thoroughly inquired into, and that the treatment should be extensively made known. The subject is of immense, indeed I might even say, of national importance, and demands deep and earnest thought and careful investigation, as the strength and sinews of a nation depend mainly upon the number and healthfulness of her children.

Barren land can generally, with care and skill, be made fertile; an unfruitful vine can frequently, by an experienced gardener, be converted into a fruit-bearing one; a childless wife can often, by judicious treatment, be made a child-bearing one. Few things in this world are impossible: “where there is a will there is generally a way;” but if there be a will, it must be a determined and a persevering will; if there be a way, the way, however rough and rugged, must be trodden,—the rough and rugged path will, as she advances onward, become smooth and pleasant.

It is not the poor woman, who works hard and who lives hard, that is usually barren—certainly not: she has generally an abundance of children; but it is the rich lady—the one who is indolent, who lives luxuriously, and fares sumptuously every day—who leads a fashionable, and therefore an unnatural life—who turns night into day, who at night breathes suffocatingly hot rooms, who lives in a whirl of excitement, who retires not to rest until the small hours of the morning,—such a one is the one that is frequently barren; and well she might be,—it would be most strange if she were not so. One of the objects of this book will be to point out these causes, and to suggest remedies for the same, and thus to stem the torrent, and in some measure to do away with the curse of barrenness which in England, at the present time, so fearfully prevails.

I have undertaken a responsible task, but have thrown my whole energy and ability into it; I therefore have no excuse to make that I have not thought earnestly and well upon the subject, or that I have written unadvisedly; my thoughts and studies have for years been directed to these matters. I earnestly hope, then, that I have not written in vain, but that the seeds now sown will, in due time, bring forth much fruit.

Although my two books—Advice to a Wife and Advice to a Mother—are published as separate works, they might, in point of fact, be considered as one volume—one only being the continuation of the other. Advice to a Wife, treating on a mother’s own health, being, as it were, a preparation for Advice to a Mother on the management of her children’s health; it is quite necessary that the mother herself should be healthy to have healthy children; and if she have healthy offspring, it is equally important that she should be made thoroughly acquainted how to keep them in health. The object of Advice to a Wife and Advice to a Mother is for that end; indeed, the acquisition and the preservation of sound health, of mother and of child, have, in both my books, been my earnest endeavor, my constant theme, the beginning and the ending, the sum and the substance of my discourse, on which all else beside hinges.

I again resign this book into the hands of my fair readers, hoping that it may be of profit and of service to them during the whole period of their wifehood; and especially during the most interesting part of their lives—in their hour of anguish and of trial; and that it may be the humble means of making a barren woman “to be a joyful mother of children.”

PYE HENRY CHAVASSE

Priory House, Old Square,

Birmingham.