Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

All thinkers are coming to see the waste of the old system. The modern tendency is to place remedy in lieu of punishment. Thus, we need scarcely doubt that we are approaching the acceptance of a more truly moral code, based on the need of protection for the child.

It is this, and this alone, that should guide us in the reform of our laws. The life of every child must be safeguarded, not on sentimental or even on ethical grounds, but for the sake of the health and efficiency of our race. This practical morality is what we need. The State must have healthy children, and by any negligence in working to this end it inflicts serious charges upon itself, and at the same time dangerously impairs its efficiency in the future. The nationalisation of healthy children is of much greater importance than the nationalisation of education.

It has needed the catastrophe of War to force upon modern States a just recognition of their obligations to motherhood and the child-life upon which their very existence depends. To a surprising and gratifying degree the position of the illegitimate child is being discussed in all countries, and practical remedies are being found for some of the worst evils, by associations for the protection of motherhood and by changes in the law. Much wise legislation already has been passed by progressive States.

Among ourselves, however, little has as yet been done.[95] Why is this? I know that reforms that matter are not easy to make. Our legislators seem to me as blind fighters, dealing blows that sometimes hit the mark by chance, but more usually miss it. The difficulty of bringing about any change in our laws is certainly very great, for respect of the law is, perhaps, the guiding principle of English life. So far any movement towards reform has been in the hands of private individuals, and only the few have cared at all. And there the matter rests, and there it will rest, until our politicians are by us driven into action. It is this for which I am hoping. For I do not believe that great changes in things that really matter are often brought about by Acts of Parliament. Parliament may register the reforms, may try to modify or check them; it does not create them. It is public opinion that does this. When we really care for the injustice with which we treat the illegitimate child, our bastardy laws will be changed. Till then we shall go on as we have done, enunciating moral platitudes in which few of us believe and raising sentimental limitations, but we shall be content to muddle on, careless of the evils we are sowing by our carelessness.[96]

Yet I do not despair; a change is coming. The widespread interest, and also the more practical and moral view taken by the majority of people, during the agitation on the supposed existence of the “war-babies,” were to me a very hopeful sign. It is true the agitation was short-lived: soon we were told it was unnecessary. Nothing was done. The lesson must be driven deeper and then public opinion will awaken to the knowledge that the conditions causing illegitimacy and its disasters are present in times of peace as well as in times of war.

In the meantime, it may be salutary for us to know the action that other countries are taking in this question. Certainly we have much to learn. Our law, in this matter of protection for the unmarried mother and maintenance for her child, lags far behind that of other countries, and is one example only, out of many, of our hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses.

For the most enlightened legislative advances we have to look to Scandinavia, the birth-land of Ellen Key. Surely it is due to her beneficent influence that the position of the bastard child and its mother has been faced with a quite new practical efficiency; and as a result constructive legislation has been wisely undertaken, which will fix the rights of the illegitimate child and enforce responsible conduct upon both its parents.

In Norway a bill, prepared by the Department of Justice, was laid before the Storthing in 1909, “whose simple but revolutionary intention was to give every child two parents. It aimed to equalise illegitimate children and legitimate children before the law: that is, to give the illegitimate child the right to a father.”[97] This bill, as one might expect, met with opposition; it was adopted as law only in 1915.

I wish it were possible for me to give in detail all the bill’s wise enactments. Even its title, Law Concerning Children Whose Parents Have Not Married Each Other, is significant. The unjust stigma “illegitimate,” as applied to the innocent child, has been discarded. This gives the clue to the intention of the bill. It is concerned (1) with the welfare of the child, saving it from social disgrace and the position of legal disadvantage which hitherto has been the lot of half-parented children; (2) with the fixing of both parents’ responsibilities, so that no man or woman may escape the results of their sexual acts.

Undeniably here is a law that at once is moral as well as practical in its aims. And the double accomplishment is not so difficult as might at first thought appear. No cumbersome rules are laid down, difficult of application and likely to fail in their working; indeed, what most impresses one is the obvious simple common sense of these measures. Were I younger, I should feel sure that now Norway has shown us so splendidly what to do in this matter, and how easily right can be done, England and all other countries would hasten to act in prompt and glad imitation; but life has taught me that it is just the very simple things to right what is wrong that as a rule we never do.