The servant in the house is too much in the house. Her mistress is quite ready to assume that she should know all that the girl is doing, but the confidence is expected to be all on the one side. For the mistress to interfere in the girl’s affairs is to show a proper interest in her; but for the girl to return the compliment is impertinence. The girl is often subject to unsympathetic supervision; she is seldom allowed out to associate with those whose company she desires; her life is a monotonous and exacting one; and in many cases she has as few opportunities for seeing visitors as she has for visiting. That some should react unfavourably to these conditions is not surprising; and when they are out they may show the same tendency to friskiness displayed by that other domestic animal, the family dog. Many of them have few friends near the place of their employment, and their work does not provide them with the same facilities for forming friendships as industrial employment does. If they do go astray the consequences are therefore more serious, because they are to a large extent thrown on their own resources, having few to whom they can appeal for help or advice.
There are no workers who are more generally industrious, honest, and patient, and who are more harshly judged. Only those who go wrong seem to attract attention; at least it is only they who are heard of; and in proportion to the large number employed they are few. Their position away from their family leaves them more exposed to the attentions of those of the opposite sex than other girls, and when they succumb the consequences may be more serious. If their condition is suspected or discovered the extent to which they are considered members of the family soon becomes apparent. The girl who is in this state has no illusions on that subject. She knows quite well that she will receive no sympathy, and that would not matter so much if she were not equally certain that she will be turned out whenever the fact becomes known. She cannot face her people. She fears the scandal she will bring on them, and what she should do is a puzzle to her. What she tries to do is to conceal her condition as long as possible. She knows quite well that a time will come when it will unmistakably reveal itself, but anything may happen in the interval. She refuses to think about the future and lives in the present. The effort that should be expended in making preparations for the event is spent in concealing its approach; till some day she finds herself a mother. The habit of concealment has become a part of her, and it asserts itself in the state of pain and panic in which she finds herself, with disastrous results to the child. X 29 was a girl about twenty years of age who came from a mining district to domestic service in Glasgow. She was a healthy girl and a good servant. One day her mistress had reason to suspect that something had taken place in the house of which she had not been made aware; and a search revealed the dead body of a new-born child in an outhouse. The girl was arrested and sent to hospital. In due course she was transferred to prison, where I had to investigate the case with a view to determining her mental condition. She told me the story bit by bit quite clearly. When she became aware of her condition she took steps to hide it, and up to the end she had been successful in doing so. She did this in order to make up her mind what she ought to do. Sometimes she decided to go home to her friends, and at other times she meant to apply to the parish. Her health was good all the time. At last she made up her mind to go home, and had written stating her intention, but saying nothing about her condition or about staying there. The child was born the night before the day she had fixed for her visit. She was taken by surprise, and had no preparations made for its arrival. By her actions she showed that she knew what was necessary in order to attend both to child and mother. It cried out, and in her alarm she stopped its mouth. It did not cry again, and she next set about its concealment. She knew that she had killed it, but she did not think this murder. She would have thought it murder if it had not just been new-born. She had seen similar cases reported in the newspapers as “Concealment of Pregnancy” and not counted murder. As she had her day off to pay her visit she did so. She walked at least ten miles in doing this. She told her friends nothing. She hoped to be able to dispose of the body, but her mistress had found suspicious signs in her room, and on a search had discovered the child. She was curiously knowing in some respects, but her ignorance was as peculiar as her knowledge; and I had no reason to doubt the truth of her story, which stood such tests as could be applied to it.
The case in its main features is quite characteristic. There are some mistresses who, when they find their servants in this condition, take steps to see that they are tended in some way. They cannot be expected to keep them in the house, but they do what can be done to prevent the mother and child suffering. There are others who simply turn them out and take no further interest in them; and it is the fear of this that leads to concealment. If they would even act as mediators between the girls and their people much mischief would be prevented.
Hardly ever does such a case as the above occur but what there are letters to the newspapers demanding that the father of the infant should be placed in the dock with the mother. The mother is not there for begetting a child, but for killing it, and the former act is not yet punishable by law. The general opinion seems to be that men are continually seducing women, and I am not in a position to say whether it is true or not. Judging from books, it forms the subject of many stories, but I am here only writing of that small portion of the world which has come under my own observation, and in my experience it is grotesquely untrue. I have heard the woman’s statement in the great majority of cases of infanticide in Scotland during the last sixteen years, and I can recall few in which she made any complaint against the father of the child, although I sought for it. In some cases I was told that the father had not been informed of the woman’s condition, although she knew where to find him; and that he had been kept in ignorance because she did not want to marry him. In the other cases the conception seemed to be the result of intimacy that was temporary and long past. I am far from suggesting that there are no bad men who lead girls astray; what I say is that in this class of case these are not the girls who appear as criminals.
The fact is that among a certain class of lads and girls there is a degree of looseness of behaviour that is in striking contrast with the officially recognised code of morals. They take risks with a light heart, and the woman pays; not always because the man shirks, but because any consequence of their conduct is entailed on her by her sex. The girl knows this as well as the lad, but neither of them considers consequences at the time. An acquaintanceship begun innocently enough may insensibly and by degrees become something more, not as the result of consideration, but quite independent of anything in the way of thought. If consequences were certain it might be different. It is difficult to apportion blame and it is not very profitable to try; but it is quite certain that the woman leads the man as much as he leads her to misconduct. Child murder is no necessary consequence of his act, and there is no sense in assuming that he knew the girl’s condition and deserted her, when the fact can easily be ascertained.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that girls who do not preserve their chastity are necessarily bad. It is largely a question of manners and customs. They would quite readily admit that it is wrong to be unchaste, as many an untruthful person will admit it is wrong to lie; but they do not seem to suffer in self-respect, nor greatly in the esteem of others, if they yield themselves to the lad who is their sweetheart for the time. Their conduct may be suspected; but in the absence of proof, and if decency is observed, their morals are taken for granted.
Every professional man knows that there are very many different standards of conduct in Glasgow. The doctor cannot shut his eyes to the fact if he would; the lawyer during the time he acts as Agent for the Poor sees and hears enough to convince him that the professed and the working standards of conduct are different; and even among those connected with their Churches clergymen occasionally find some who have to get married as a result of their behaviour. The girls who misbehave in this way may be reviled as prostitutes, but that is utterly to fail in judging them. That they are no worse than the men goes without saying; but there cannot be a standard for the woman and another for the man, though in practice it is more frequently the moralists who try to make one—not by their words, but by the effect of their judgment. The same girl who has given herself to men is sometimes the most bitter in her denunciations of prostitutes; but on the subject of prostitution I do not propose to enter, for any real consideration of it would involve a plainness of speech on which it would be unsafe to venture.
This must be said, however, that the woman who goes astray is treated shamefully by the law, which operates to drive her deeper in the mire and causes reformation to be more difficult for her than for any other kind of offender. Any proposal to place these poor souls more completely under the domination of officials, medical or police (whether made on the specious pretext of public health or public morals), would intensify the difficulty, and would result, as it would deserve, in increasing the evil it sought to remedy. It is bad enough that any members of the community should become slaves to the vices of others, but it would be worse to confirm them in their slavery in order to protect those whom they serve.
In proportion to the number of offences committed by women bigamy appears to be more common than it is among the male offenders. The reason is largely economic, but the method of its operation is dependent on sex. The woman wants a home, but if she were not a woman that is not the way she would choose to get one. She could get established, but her sense of propriety will not allow her to accept the position without the form of marriage, even although she knows the form to be illegal. In many cases, however, she does not know this. She may have ground for a divorce by reason of the desertion of her husband or his misconduct; but the ground for divorce and the ability to obtain one are different matters. If divorce is to be permitted there does not seem to be any reason why it should be refused to those who cannot afford to go to law to obtain it. If one of the parties to a marriage gives cause for divorce the need for it will be the greater in proportion to poverty, for people are less able to keep out of each other’s way if they are living together in a small house than would be the case if they had more room; and if they are separated the economic disadvantages are not less. Yet these are the very people who are least able to obtain relief; their poverty ensures that. When they go through the form of marriage with some other we pay the cost of their imprisonment. The money would be better employed in setting them free from the contract which has gone wrong. Some of them voluntarily give themselves up in the belief that their imprisonment will break the former marriage. Our judges have become more and more inclined to deal leniently with such cases; reserving their heavy sentences for those which show moral turpitude; and the number of these is small. To the woman there is something in the form of marriage which enables her to preserve her self-respect, and the “marriage lines” are a testimony to others. It is a queer condition of affairs, in their view, that allows them to live with a man if they do not go through a ceremony of marriage with him, and which sends them to prison if they do; for they cannot be expected to see that the rights of property may depend on the prohibition of conduct such as theirs.