Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

What, then, have we done in this Christian land for the unmarried mother and her child? It is little enough that hitherto has been held to be necessary. The father, if he can be caught and his paternity proved, may be compelled to pay a few shillings weekly to the mother for aliment. Under no circumstances can he be made to pay more than five shillings; this sum is deemed to be sufficient whatever his financial or social status. Moreover, the payments for the child cease when it reaches the age of sixteen; and the law makes no provision that the child must be trained for a livelihood. No help whatever is claimed to ensure for the mother proper conditions during her confinement and the necessary rest before and afterwards to enable her to nurse her child. Further trouble arises for the mother from the costs and difficulties of the law. Improvements have of late been made in this respect; but much more waits to be done.[98] The difficulties that have hindered moral and responsible conduct are really little short of comic. It would seem that the object of our bastardy laws was rather to protect the father and to render profligacy easy than to aid the child or its mother. I ask, Is this justice? Is it even common sense?

One plain result is that a small percentage only—it is stated by some to be as low as five per cent.—of unmarried mothers ever apply to establish paternity and claim alimony from the man. It is much easier for the woman to go on to the streets; the army of prostitutes every year is recruited by many thousands of these girls. The punishment for the sin of an illegitimate birth falls on one partner in the act; the man escapes his payment.

The barriers that have been placed in the path of the unmarried mother afford certain proof of how greatly we are in need of further changes in the law. These should be made at once. Other countries are realising this and are not failing to act. Take, for instance, the lands of our Allies, where, in France, action at last has been taken regarding the famous Napoleonic edict, La recherche de la paternité est interdite. In 1913 this prohibition was quietly expunged; and, in certain cases, the child born out of wedlock now has the right to its father’s name and nationality, and to half the property which would have descended by law to a legitimate child. Again, a law has just recently been passed by the Russian Duma by which the father of an illegitimate child is made responsible for the birth: he must keep the mother until such time as she is fit to earn her own living.

In Australia, where women possess a larger share than elsewhere in making and administering the law, much practical attention has been given to these matters and a number of reforms have been made which act directly in helping the child. Thus, in South Australia, paternity may be proved by the mother before the birth of the child; when this is done, the father must furnish security, by order of a magistrate, that he will find lodging for the mother for one month before and one month after her confinement, as well as pay the doctor and the nurse, and provide clothing for the child. After the child is born, the father pays a weekly sum, at the decision of the magistrate, to the mother for its maintenance. Children are legitimised on the marriage of their parents. In New Zealand (again a land where women’s influence is strong) an illegitimate child is now registered in the name of the father, where paternity is proved.

Changes in the law, all favourable to the legal position of the child, have been made in Denmark, in Sweden, and in Switzerland. In this last country the bastard has all the rights of a child born in marriage, when once paternity has been recognised. And if the mother fails to find the father, the child himself, or his guardian, can take proceedings. A similar law, recently enacted, is now in force in Sweden: in Denmark the father supports the child up to the age of eighteen; he provides for the mother for one month before and one month after the birth of the child. The money for such help is paid to the mother by the authorities, and is afterwards claimed by them from the father. This may seem of small importance, yet it is our carelessness in such details that, in great measure, causes the utter futility of our laws.

I would ask you to consider very carefully these different wise and practical measures. Do they not show more common sense than our methods? Are they not more in line with the modern spirit—the spirit, that is, of intelligent seeking for the advantage of the child? And here at length do we not see the way that in the future may lead us to more moral action and greater justice in the framing of our laws? A wider knowledge has grown with our inquiry and an understanding of what we have to do.

The welfare of the child is the one consideration that matters.

I must drive this fact home again, even though I risk wearying my readers with repetition: our present immoral laws are practically equivalent to freeing the man from his obligations as a father; they drive unmarried mothers to death and prostitution; they are the direct cause of infanticide. Again I would urge practical and prompt action, which alone can bring us nearer to moral conduct by making responsibility a necessary condition of all sexual relationships, however carelessly and transiently they are entered into.

First, and I think most important of all, the law should take notice of the desire of the parents. In all cases where parenthood is acknowledged openly by the father as well as by the mother, and guarantees are given that the duties of the parents will be fulfilled, the child should be legitimised, receive the name of the father and be qualified to inherit from him, even if the parents are unable, or do not wish, to marry. This opportunity of right conduct once given to the parents by the law, I believe that many men would voluntarily take this course and gladly acknowledge their fatherhood.

In all other cases in which paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged I take the first and most important duty of the law to be the appointment of guardians. I believe that nothing else is quite so urgently needed to safeguard the fatherless little one. I do not think the illegitimate child safely can be left without supervision in the care of its mother. Those who talk here of the mother’s right to her child are being misled by sentiment. These mothers are, as a rule, incapable of giving adequate care or any form of training to their children. I would go further than this and say that, in entering into such a union with a man, and thus depriving their child of a father willing to acknowledge his fatherhood, they have proved already their unfitness for motherhood. But this is not to say that the mothers must be punished, rather it is the more necessary that they must be helped, supported, and guarded, just because of and in proportion to their weakness, for this is the only way of salvation for the child. And, for this reason, the law, as it affects the unmarried mother, must be made easier in its working. All artificial difficulties preventing the mother from obtaining alimony must be removed. No longer should the law make it easy for any man to escape his sexual responsibilities. It is immoral to countenance laws that make profligacy easy.