Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

1. It may be well—before I enter on the subjects of menstruation, of pregnancy, of labor, and suckling—to offer a few preliminary observations, especially addressed to a Young Wife.

2. My subject is health—the care, the restoration, and the preservation of health—one of the most glorious subjects that can be brought before a human being, and one that should engross much of our time and of our attention, and one that cannot be secured unless it be properly attended to. The human frame is, as every one knows, constantly liable to be out of order; it would be strange, indeed, if a beautiful and complex instrument like the human body were not occasionally out of tune:

“Strange that a harp with a thousand strings

Should keep in tune so long.”

3. The advice I am about to offer to my fair reader is of the greatest importance, and demands her deepest attention. How many wives are there with broken health, with feeble constitutions, and with childless homes! Their number is legion! It is painful to contemplate that, in our country, there are far more unhealthy than healthy wives! There must surely be numerous causes for such a state of things! A woman, born with every perfection, to be full of bodily infirmities! It was ordained by the Almighty that wives should be fruitful and multiply! Surely there must be something wrong in the present system if they do not do so!

4. It will, in the following pages, be my object to point out many of the causes of so much ill health among wives; ill health that sometimes leads to barrenness; and to suggest remedies both for the prevention and for the cure of such causes.

5. It is an astounding and lamentable fact, that one out of eight—that twelve and a half per cent. of all the wives of England are barren, are childless! A large majority of this twelve and a half per cent. might be made fruitful, if a more judicious plan of procedure than is at present pursued were adopted.

6. My anxious endeavors, in the following pages, will be to point out remedies for the evil, and to lay down rules—rules which, I hope, my fair reader will strenuously follow.

7. My theme, then, is Health—the Health of Wives—and the object I shall constantly have in view will be the best means both of preserving it and of restoring it when lost. By making a wife strong, she will not only, in the majority of cases, be made fruitful, but capable of bringing healthy children into the world. This latter inducement is of great importance; for puny children are not only an anxiety to their parents, but a misery to themselves, and a trouble to all around! Besides, it is the children of England that are to be her future men and women—her glory and her greatness! How desirable it is, then, that her children should be hardy and strong!