The Century of the Child

by Ellen Key

The time will come in which the child will be looked upon as holy, even when the parents themselves have approached the mystery of life with profane feelings; a time in which all motherhood will be looked upon as holy, if it is caused by a deep emotion of love, and if it has called forth deep feelings of duty.

Then the child, who has received its life from sound, loving human beings and has been afterwards brought up wisely and lovingly, will be called legitimate, even if its parents have been united in complete freedom. Then will the child, who has been born in a loveless marriage, and has been burdened by the fault of its parents with bodily or mental disease, be regarded as illegitimate, even if its parents have been united in marriage by the Pope at St. Peter's. The shadow of contempt will not fall on the unmarried tender mother of a radiantly healthy child, but on the legitimate or illegitimate mother of a being made degenerate by the misdeeds of its forefathers.

In a much discussed drama called The Lion's Whelp, there occurs the following dialogue between an older and younger man:

The Older Man: The next century will be the century of the child, just as this century has been the woman's century. When the child gets his rights, morality will be perfected. Then every man will know that he is bound to the life which he has produced with other bonds, than those imposed by society and the laws. You understand that a man cannot be released from his duty as father even if he travels around the world; a kingdom can be given and taken away, but not fatherhood.

The Youth: I know this.

The Older Man: But in this all righteousness is still not fulfilled—in man's carefully preserving the life which he has called into existence. No man can early enough think over the other question, whether and when he has the right to call life into existence.

This dialogue has supplied me with a title for this book. It is the point of departure of my assertion, that the first right of the child is to select its own parents.

What here must be first considered is the thought constantly being brought out by Darwinian writers, that the natural sciences, in which must now be numbered psychology, should be the basis of juristic science as well as of pedagogy. Man must come to learn the laws of natural selection and act in the spirit of these laws. Man must arrange the punishments of society in the service of development; they must be protective measures for natural selection. In the first place this must be secured by hindering the criminal type from perpetuating itself. The characteristics of this type can only be determined by specialists. But the criminal must be prevented from handing on his characteristics to his posterity.

So the human race will be gradually freed from atavisms which reproduce lower and preceding stages of development. This is the first condition of that evolution by which mankind will be able to let the ape and tiger die. Then comes the requirement that those with inherited physical or psychical diseases shall not transmit them to an offspring.

As to this type of heredity opinions are still very much divided. Great authorities are in conflict with one another on the question of tuberculosis. Some contend that it is hereditary, others declare that it is only transmitted by infection. Accordingly when a child is born of a tuberculous mother, and is taken away from her, there is no danger for the child. Views are also divided on the subject of cancer. Regarding other diseases, however, there is complete certainty. Legislation has already interfered in the case of epilepsy, although the law in practice is not always applied. But in the case of syphilis, alcoholism, and many kinds of nervous complaints, diseases which afflict children most certainly, in various ways, legislation has yet done nothing.

There is an old axiom that we are obliged to thank our parents for life. Our parents, I know from my own experience, can themselves have been the heirs of bodily and mental health, resulting from the fact that maternal and paternal ancestors all made early, right, and happy marriages. But generally, parents must on their part, ask the children's pardon for the children's existence.

It makes no difference, whether we talk with people sunken in necessity or crime, or with those suffering from nervous and other diseases, or finally with people who are spiritually maimed. In most cases we are convinced that the main cause of their condition as indicated by them, goes back to their birth, or to the time of their childish consciousness. Sometimes their parents have been too young or too old, their fathers or mothers invalids. Sometimes they are the offspring of intemperance. Again their mother may have been overburdened by the torment of work, or by a large family of children; or they may have received their life in marriages concluded without love, or after the cessation of love. They have been unwelcome, or born under feelings of revulsion, bearing in their blood the germ of discord or disgust of life. Numerous abnormal tendencies, among them misanthropy in women, can be traced back to these causes. Finally they have been brought up in a home where they have suffered from the burden of bad examples, or conflicting influences.