The mystery that is half divine, half human,
Of life, of birth, the love of unborn souls
Within her, and the mother yearning creeps
Through her warm heart, and stirs its hidden deeps
And grows and strengthens with each riper year.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
“Motherhood is not a remote contingency, but the common duty and the common glory of womanhood.”
“They should know that the less children and the more servants in the home, the less health and happiness, other things being equal. It is natural for women to bear children, and unnatural to evade this function; the everlastingly recurrent congestion of the generative organs, month after month, year in and year out, without the rest of generation, promotes a true disease of these organs, and favors all the various growths which afflict so large a proportion of our women.”
With the prevailing ignorance, which has been the heritage of our daughters for so many generations, no thought of preparation for motherhood has exercised them. On the other hand, much the larger majority of our young women come to the marriage altar, far better informed in the methods of preventing conception, or producing abortion after conception has really taken place, than of any proper preparation for motherhood. Who are their teachers? Many who should blush with shame that they lend their influence to this nefarious business; this education in invalidism, murder and suicide. Many, who should be the teachers in truth and purity. Mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, aunts, “friends,” young matrons, who have become adepts in the business, and whose punishment has not yet overtaken them—all these, and many more. Christians? Yes, professing Christians; but who would hardly like to have their advice in these things written along side of their confession of faith in the records of the church. They should remember that it is written in a larger book than that of a church, and written so large that all the world can read it by and by.