The unwelcome child

by Henry Clarke Wright

In this letter, I will give you the experience of a husband and wife, as given by themselves, and by a mutual friend, who is also a wife and a mother. I extract from their letters with few omissions. See, in the experience of this wife and mother, the deep, unutterable anguish, and the deeper woe of conscious degradation, to which woman, in her mistaken notions of conjugal duty, her fear of losing a husband’s love and confidence, and her horror of an undesired maternity, will subject herself. Read over her experience, as detailed by her friend and herself, and then say if any crime man can commit, can surpass that which husbands and fathers often do to their wives and children, merely for the momentary gratification of their sensual passions:

“Some fifteen years ago, a man of culture, and engaged in public life, was united in marriage with an intimate friend of mine. With pride and confidence, he selected her from a large and admiring circle of friends, as one embodying his ideal of womanly excellence. My friend was thought a fortunate girl (only seventeen), and many thought him quite as fortunate. They were much in society, and she began to enjoy life intensely.

“She was too much a woman not to desire offspring some time, but she felt unprepared to have maternity forced upon her youth and inexperience. It came at a time when her husband’s calling led him much from home, to mix in the society she so much enjoyed, and which she felt was contributing to make her what she so much desired to be,—her husband’s fitting and equal companion. It was not without a severe struggle she resigned these advantages and checked her aspirations. However, she submitted, though she keenly felt the sacrifice.

“Though overwhelmed with the greatness of her responsibilities, and an undefined dread of physical suffering, she was determined not to appear weak, but bravely to meet and bear the burden imposed upon her. Her husband was absent when the trial hour came; but when he returned, he took his babe and wife to his bosom with pride and joy, though its gestational development had, apparently, scarcely given him an anxious thought.

“My friend’s future looked bright. She did not see or understand the fact, that she was to continue to develop the germs of human beings into life, with little sustaining help from the father, whose caresses generally ended in exhausting her vital powers by passional indulgence. She did not complain, but rather rejoiced, as she saw her other powers of attraction to her husband depart one by one, that she was so organized as to be able to meet what she knew he considered an essential want of his nature.

“Eleven years passed, at which time she gave birth to her sixth child. She was a devoted mother, of a joyous spirit, and possessed of wonderful elasticity. But woman cannot be entirely happy in maternity alone, without the presence and sustaining power of her husband. If she is a true wife, she desires to be more to her husband than merely the mother of his children.

“Her husband made for her a beautiful material home, and seemed happy when with her; but he was much away; he sought other pleasures, social and intellectual, in which she could not participate;—she must stay at home, alone, with her children. Little did he know the trials of patience and strength in his wife, in being compelled to bear the responsibility of the health and training of her little ones alone. The world called her a happy wife, and she felt that she ought to be so; but a dark cloud was coming over her once joyous spirit. She began to realize the fact, so fatal to a wife’s happiness, that her husband did not feel her to be his equal, and a fitting companion to meet his social and intellectual necessities. When he brought home a friend, she listened to conversations and discussions in which she could not participate. She felt keenly the growing distance between them, and she knew too well how it had come about.

“She quietly made up her mind to have no more children. How did she propose to bring it about? Not by asking her husband to deny himself his accustomed indulgence; no, that, she thought, would be to cut herself off from her strongest hold on his affection and confidence, and to sever the last link of the chain that bound them together. She did not expect that any precaution would enable her to escape conception. She brought herself to do what was most repugnant to her nature, and which, as she felt, would destroy her self-respect, and make her, in her own estimation, a degraded woman, namely, TO PROCURE ABORTION.

“The first shock given to her constitution by this abuse of her nature was comparatively light. But once did not suffice. As a longer interval passed without a new-born babe than ever before, she had begun to take her place by her husband’s side in society, earnestly praying that she might be spared maternity evermore. Her husband delighted to have her with him. He felt that he had a right, by law and the customs of society, to his gratification; he persevered in demanding it, and she continued to yield. Several times in four years did she nip the young flower of fœtal life in the bud, and each time told more and more terribly on her constitution, until the power of conception was nearly destroyed, at little more than thirty-five years of age. She was shorn of her Womanhood, and became a sickly, broken-down wife and mother, in the very spring-time, as it were, of her life, being driven frequently to perpetrate a degrading outrage upon herself, or endure a maternity abhorrent to her soul;—and all to gratify the sensual passion of her husband, thinking thereby to secure his affection and respect. How fatally mistaken! By yielding, she strengthened his passion, but not his love.

“Reflecting on her sad experience, in the light of your book on ‘Marriage and Parentage,’ which I had placed in her hands, she saw clearly where the wrong had been, but for a long time felt powerless to destroy what she regarded as her last hold on her husband. He was absent, and I prevailed on her to write and lay the matter frankly and plainly before him, and send him your book. She was then prostrated in body and soul by the last outrage upon her womanly and maternal nature. She wrote, and, hoping that you may do good with these letters, the husband and wife have granted me the privilege of copying portions of them for you. Here is a part of hers to him: