The unwelcome child

by Henry Clarke Wright

How will this new and dreaded experience affect her mind towards her husband and the father of her child? As a lover, he had been so gentle, so delicate, and so considerate of her slightest wish, so thoughtful of her happiness, and so unwilling to say or do anything to grieve her spirit; as a bridegroom, he had promised to love and cherish her as his own soul; and she fondly trusted that no wrong or suffering would ever reach her through him; when, behold! in the very beginning of their united life, and before, physically or mentally, she was prepared to meet the great demand, he has imposed on her the necessity of yielding up her body and soul to the keenest suffering to which she can be subjected; and that without consulting her wishes, and contrary, it may be, to her earnest prayer. As she ponders on her situation, and the experience through which she must pass, and from which death to herself, or her child, or to both, is the only door of escape, how must she feel towards him who has placed her in this fearful condition? He has subjected her to the necessity, for weary months, of drinking the bitterest cup of life, and of passing through the valley and shadow of death, heart-sick, desponding and shrinking from the final result; and all this, not because she wished to be a mother, or he a father, nor that they might blend their bodies and souls in a new and beautiful life, to be an honor to themselves and the world,—no such motive prompted the relation in which conception originated; but solely his momentary gratification. She feels that his indulgence was had at her expense. No conscious pride and sense of matronly dignity, no high and noble aspirations, sustain her, as she reflects on her condition. Can she continue to love and respect him? He has done her the greatest wrong. He heeded not her prayers that he would control his passion, and spare her until she was ready joyfully to enter upon an office so grand in its nature, and so sublime in its bearing on the destiny of an immortal soul. To meet the responsibilities of such an office, and the physical and mental pain and anguish necessarily pertaining to it, what woman but needs a preparation? Who is sufficient for these things? Yet the dread liabilities are upon her, without a moment’s warning, and without, it may be, any interchange of thoughts and feelings with her husband and the father of her child. She knows not even that he wants a child, nor whether he will receive it with a blessing or a curse. She knows not what heart-support she will receive from him in the moment of her trial and her anguish. He has had no conversation with her on these subjects, and given her no assurance as to the natural results to her of his passional relations with her; expressed no anxiety, no expectations, no hopes, as to her liability to become a mother. He has had no further wish or anxiety, except for his own selfish gratification. He has, it may be, avoided, as indelicate and improper, all allusion to questions so vital to the life and happiness of his newly-wedded wife. All she has to rest upon is the indefinite assurance, given before God and man, that he will cherish, protect and care for her. Why he promised to protect and care for her, whether as a mere means of sensual gratification, or for holier and more exalted purposes, she has no assurance. Not one word, it may be, has he ever spoken to her respecting the motives that have prompted him to seek her as a wife. O, woman! woman! how dare you enter into such a relation with a man, without knowing what he expects of you?

The wife, in such a situation, cannot cherish loving and tender thoughts of her husband when absent, nor receive his caresses with rapture when present. She bears in herself the result of the wrong he has inflicted on her. It is ever present to her thoughts and emotions. She cannot escape from it but by an outrage on herself and child; and as, in her moments of solitary suffering and anguish, she reflects on her condition, and why she must endure them, how can she regard the author of them with loving respect? The sense of the wrong done her is ever present,—can she tenderly cherish the wrong-doer, especially when he continues to demand of her a constant renewal of the relation in which her present afflictions and forebodings of future sorrows originated? She cannot; for he, by inflicting on her a maternity which her own soul cannot sanction, and from which, perhaps, she shrinks with horror, has rendered himself unworthy of her love and respect.

It is in vain to urge a woman thus situated to love and honor her husband. At no command of God or man can she, as a wife, love and cherish him. Indeed, no wife can love her husband at the word of command. If she loves him at all, it is because she must, not because she is ordered to do it. Her love will flow out to him as a necessity of her being, not by the command of a third party. If he has no power to call it out and concentrate it on himself, it will not go out to him. Nothing can force it out. She is not to blame if she does not love him. She gives him all he has power to awaken and call out,—all the love he has power to take; more he has no right to ask, more she cannot give. Her love for him will correspond to his lovableness in her eyes; he will seek to render himself lovable to her, just in proportion to the value he sets on her love. Expect no love from a woman because she is your legal wife. The legal bond can impose on her no obligation to love you; and if it did, she cannot love you, if your person and your passion become disgusting to her.

Would you, my friend, increase and perpetuate the love and respect of your wife? Then beware how you demean yourself towards her in regard to maternity, and the relation that may, at any time, result in it. To a true woman and a loving wife, maternity, and the passional expressions of her husband, must ever be ennobling, or degrading. It is for him to say which they shall be. It is for you to say whether, as the father of her child, you shall seem to your wife altogether pure, noble and attractive, or selfish, ignoble and repulsive. You must determine whether the mother of your child shall see in you a generous, tender, kingly husband, all-worthy to be the father of her child, and to rule over the empire of her heart, or a mean, merciless tyrant, having no purer or higher aim, in your relations with her, than that of animal indulgence, and whom it is impossible to respect. It is for you to say to what extent, and how long, she shall love and respect you. She must love and honor you, if you seem to her to be worthy; she cannot, if you seem otherwise. How can you thus seem, when she is made to feel that for your gratification, and against her earnest appeal to you, as a man and husband, you have imposed on her a burden which she feels unable and unwilling to bear?

Maternity, when it exists at the call of the wife, and is gratefully received, but binds her heart more tenderly and devotedly to her husband. As the father of her child, he stands before her invested with new beauty and dignity. In receiving from him the germ of a new life, she receives that which she feels is to add new beauty and glory to her as a woman,—new grace and attraction to her as a wife. She loves and honors him, because he has crowned her with the glory of a mother. Maternity, to her, instead of being repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a crown of rejoicing, and deep, tender, and self-forgetting are her love and reverence for him who has placed it on her brow. How noble, how august, how beautiful, is Maternity, when thus bestowed and received!

But, in proportion as it is holy and ennobling when designedly conferred and joyfully received, is it unholy and debasing, when undesigned and undesired. In proportion as a mother’s heart overflows with tender gratitude and loving reverence towards the father of her child, when that child comes in answer to the call of her womanly and wifely nature, will it be filled with aversion to the father of a child which she did not want, and which she is conscious is the result of a relation sought only for a sensual purpose.

Many wives become indifferent to, or positively and forever alienated from, their husbands, from this cause. Nothing will so surely and so irrevocably destroy the love of a wife for a husband, as a disregard, on his part, of her feelings and wishes in regard to Maternity, and to the relation from which it comes. In nothing are husbands (through ignorance, I would fain think) so unmindful of the entreaties and wants of their wives, as in these respects. They often demand the surrender of their persons without any inquiry into their feelings and conditions; consequently, before they are aware, the very life of God in their hearts,—that is, their love and respect for their husbands,—is crushed out of them. No wonder, when we consider what liabilities, what a sense of self-degradation, and what a shrinking of soul, are involved, to a true woman, in a surrender of her person to mere sensual passion, and to a maternity so dreaded. On the contrary, how certainly and how permanently a husband will secure the love and respect of his wife, and her perfect trust, when he so treats her as to make her feel secure that she is never to become a mother till her own nature calls for it; and when, knowing his own nature, he can assure her that he shall never subject her to the possibility of that suffering till she is able and willing to bear it!

When a woman once feels that the power of her husband is controlled by a tender love and reverence for her, and a desire to subject it to her growth and happiness, rather than to promote his own selfish ends, she rests in his bosom knowing no fear, assured that this very passion will but intensify the holy love that encircles her. When all fear of his passion is gone, her love and trust are perfected. But let the fear of that once settle on her heart, and her love is gone. Love and respect for the husband cannot exist in the heart of the wife simultaneously with a dread of his passion.

Would you, then, secure the love and trust of your wife, and become an object of her ever-growing tenderness and reverence, never impose on her a maternity which her nature does not sanction; neither subject her to the possibility of enduring the suffering incident to such a situation. Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect respect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be in subjection to her wishes, and that she will never be made to endure the trials of maternity, except at the call of her own soul. How tenderly and reverently would she, under such an assurance, regard your physical, as well as your mental and spiritual manhood!

It is not enough that you have secured, in the heart of your wife, respect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To maintain your self-respect in your relations with her, to perfect your growth and happiness as a husband, you must cause your physical nature to be tenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the sacred intimacies of home. No matter how much she reverences your intellectual, or your social power, if she shrinks with disgust from all contact with your person, if by reason of your uncalled-for passional manifestations, you have made your physical manhood disagreeable, and all personal contact painful, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly pride and dignity as a husband? You cannot, if you respect yourself.