The unwelcome child

by Henry Clarke Wright

The Crime against the Child.—Allow me now to direct your attention to this. Let the child of an undesigned and unwilling maternity arise before your mind. Ponder what life is, and how it is affected by birthright tendencies,—physical, intellectual and spiritual; see what a struggle it is, at best, and how difficult it is for those of the soundest bodies and healthiest souls, happily and successfully to meet the conflict. Call to mind the two great facts alluded to in a former letter, viz.: (1) That whatever comes to the child before birth, must come to it through the blood and organism of the mother. (2) That, as this substance passes through her system, it must receive the impress of her physical and mental conditions. Whatever temporarily affects her conditions, must permanently affect the character and destiny of her child.

You may grievously wrong your child, and subject it to physical and mental tendencies that may deeply affect its character and happiness, during its earthly existence, by subjecting it to the liability of inheriting the unhealthy and imbecile conditions in which you and the mother may be, at the time the relation was held in which it originated. Mere sensual gratification was the sole and single motive that prompted to the relation; and even in that, your wife had no part. Her heart, it may be, not only prayed against conception, as a calamity more to be dreaded than death, but this very horror of the consequences disqualified her to participate in the relation, when it was entirely mutual, and truly and rightly prompted. Her very soul shrank from it; and she submitted to it merely to gratify you, or because she had been taught to believe it a duty incumbent on all women who enter the married relation,—a duty to which she must submit, or be accounted a faithless wife,—regardless of the wishes of her husband, and false to her obligations as a wife.

Duty! Talk of duty in such a relation! A duty for a woman to submit to such a relation, when her own soul not only does not sanction, but loathes it! A duty in a woman thus to lay her health, her self-respect, and her very womanhood, on the altar of legalized sensualism! A duty to become a prostitute,—a mere tool of her husband’s gratification! It is a horrid mockery! As well talk to her of her duty to cut her throat! No man, but a sensualist, could ever accept the surrender of a woman’s person in such relation, when he knows it is made without any call in her own nature, and merely to satisfy his passion.

Your only object, it may be, in this relation, is mere sensual indulgence. Not one thought or care for the welfare of the child that may ensue enters your mind. Consequently, you are utterly indifferent to your physical or mental conditions, at the time. Your passion being excited, your only aim is, its gratification. Your wife may be in a state of utter prostration, physically and mentally,—severe toil, deep anxiety, sad disappointment, or some torturing care, may have exhausted her energies, and reduced her to a state of imbecility, for the time being. Despite all this, she is liable to conception. You heed not her conditions nor her wishes, but demand indulgence, regardless of her happiness or that of the child which may result therefrom. She submits, rather than contend. Maternity ensues. The mother imparts no vitality to the child in its conception. It is conceived in weakness, is developed in joyless, lifeless imbecility, or intense anguish. It is born an idiot, or without sufficient vital force to develop it into life with the ordinary energies and faculties of a man or woman.

On all hands, society is full of the victims of such a relation,—of a maternity forced on woman when, from various causes, body and soul are prostrated, and too destitute of vital energy even for the ordinary demands of daily life; how much more destitute of that fulness and vigor of life, so necessary to the sublime and responsible act of true and healthy conception! If ever the current of life should flow with deep, concentrated, joyous energy in woman, it should be in the moment of conception, when she takes charge of the germ of a new and immortal life, and enters upon the sublime and overwhelming responsibilities of maternity. Then, indeed, she needs that all the energies of her womanhood should be in most perfect and healthful activity; then, if ever, she should be filled “with all the fulness of God.”

But not only are the vital forces of your wife exhausted by other labors and anxieties, but your own energies are, from various causes, prostrated. Yet, excited by some artificial stimulant, and when the vital forces of your manhood are powerless, you demand this relation with your wife. Maternity is the result. What have you done for your child? Imparted to it, not the true life and vigor of your manhood, but its momentary imbecility. Your child, it may be, is rendered imbecile in body and idiotic in mind, solely through your fault. You exhausted your life, and then gave that exhausted, soulless life to your child. You exercised no wise and manly forethought for your child. Its well-being entered not into your designs; only your own gratification. Hence, for your child’s sake, you used no exertions, by abstinence from exhausting toil or enfeebling amusements and indulgences, to exalt and perfect your physical and mental energies; but by debilitating pleasures, by sleepless nights, spent in pursuit of amusement, by dissipating games, and by exhausting indulgences in the use of narcotic and alcoholic drugs, drinks and food, you are rendered imbecile to think, to feel, or to act. And these conditions you entail on your child as its birthright, lifelong, fearful legacy, from the effects of which no power can rescue it. Can you do a greater wrong to your child? Can you commit against it a greater crime? A living death is its doom.

When should man be a living soul, if not in that relation in which he originates a new immortal? In that moment, so replete with human destiny, if ever, every nerve of his being should be filled and thrilled with that creative energy, that concentrated, vitalizing power which said, “Let there be light, and there was light;” and which says of creation, “He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” So man, in that moment of sublime consecration of his manhood to its purest and most august function, should have a great, energetic, living soul, in a living body. He performs an act of deeper significance than that which gave existence and glory to the sun and stars—an act, from which is to arise a living soul, deathless as God in its being, and capable of reaching unimaginable heights of wisdom and love.

Your child has claims which you cannot, without injustice, ignore,—claims that reach beyond its birth, and even its conception. Its first claim is, to a designed existence, if it is to exist at all. Only in such an existence can it hope for a true and noble nature. Only in a relation, designed to give existence to a well-organized child, can you exercise a true, rational, and tender forethought for your offspring. The offspring of a relation held merely for the gratification of one or both parents, of a mere chance maternity, how can it but reflect with sorrow and bitterness on the wrong of its parents? The child, as it comes to years of reflection, feels degraded in its origin. No lofty aspirations, no tender love, no animating hopes, no earnest prayer, no deep, holy longings, no vitalizing joy, no conscious pride and dignity, no God, presided over the relation in which it originated; but shrinking disgust in one parent, and brutal sensuality, and indifference to its welfare, in the other. No Gloria in Excelsis was sung by angels or men over its conception or birth; but sensualism, shame, anguish, and, it may be, curses deep and bitter, attended its entrance into life. What must a child, as it grows to maturity, think of an existence thus begun, and of those who could trifle with the deepest and most potent memories of the past in their offspring? Would you thus live in the hearts of your children? If not, then do them not this foul wrong. On your part, let the existence of your child be a designed and a longed-for existence. What proportion of cases of maternity result from a relation held with a view to the development of a child? Few, very few, compared to the number born. The relation was held without any wish or design to have a child; but solely with a view to sensual gratification. Consequently, the child must inherit, to some extent, the conditions the parents happen to be in at the moment. The child is robbed of a pure, true, thoughtful birthright, and is the offspring of reckless, selfish passion, rather than of a tender, anxious, thoughtful and far-seeing love. Never subject your wife to the possibility of a maternity which, on your part, is undesigned, and, on her part, undesired. Your reward will be great and sure, in the ever-growing love and respect of your wife, in the healthful and harmonious organization and upward tendencies of your children, and in the consciousness of an ever-growing tenderness and nobleness of manhood in yourself.

The power of the mother over the child, after birth, is conceded to be great; what, then, must it be before? Who can estimate it? Reasoning from the facts I have stated, we should conclude it to be absolute, and without limit. For good or for evil, it must be great. The organic and constitutional tendencies of body and soul to health or disease, to good or evil, are settled previous to birth. The character and destiny of the future man or woman depend, essentially, on those ante-natal tendencies. These depend on the influences that are brought to bear on the child during that period. Whatever agencies bear, injuriously or otherwise, on the mother, must control the unborn child with greater and more permanent effect. What influence has an abhorred maternity on the conditions of the mother? It must be great; but great as it is, it is still greater and more abiding on the child. Its post-natal life will be more affected by those ante-natal influences, than by all that are brought to bear on it after its birth. The crime against the mother is great, but the crime against the child is greater, and more enduring and terrible in its consequences.

When maternity is imposed on your wife without her consent, and contrary to her appeal, how will her mind necessarily be affected towards her child? It was conceived in dread, and in bitterness of spirit. Every stage of its fœtal development is watched with a feeling of settled repugnance. In every step of its ante-natal progress, the child meets only with grief and indignation in the mother. She would crush out its life, if she could. She loathed its conception; she loathed it in every stage of its ante-natal development. She cannot love and cherish it, for nought, it may be, is associated with its existence, from the beginning, but pain and sorrow. Tender, cherishing, vitalizing love does not preside over its conception and development, but grief and anguish. Instead of fixing her mind on devising ways and means for the healthful and happy organization and development of her child, before it is born, and for its post-natal comfort and support, her soul is intent on its destruction, and her thoughts devise plans to kill it.