Advantages and Disadvantages of Illegitimate Birth.—Three different views prevail regarding the relative advantages and disadvantages of illegitimate births. (1) Illegitimate children come into the world favourably equipped, for their parents are young, and their union depends not upon interest, but upon love. (2) Illegitimate children are hereditarily defective, as is clearly manifest in all relationships. Private statistical data show that in respect of body-weight and body-length the illegitimate new-born, boys as well as girls, compare unfavourably with the legitimate. Many illegitimate children exhibit a disposition to various mental disorders (degenerative neuroses and psychoses). Since in most cases the father is unknown, and his qualities therefore elude observation, there would appear to be some ground for the assumption that the hereditary tainting of illegitimate children is even greater than it is actually proved to be. (3) Illegitimate children come into the world with the same equipment as legitimate children.
The first of these views is erroneous, if only for the reason that in men often nothing more than sensuality, and in women often nothing more than self-interest, leads to the formation of an irregular sexual intimacy. But neither the second view nor the third can be accepted without reserve. In interpreting the statistical data relating to illegitimacy, many circumstances have to be considered. Attention must always be paid to the question, which were the intimacies in which the conditions were similar to those of married life, and to the question as to the extent to which the peculiarities apparent in the illegitimate are dependent solely upon the legal disabilities of their status. The material conditions in which illegitimate children are placed must be compared with those of legitimate children belonging to similar social classes. It would be altogether fallacious to compare the condition of illegitimate children with the average condition of legitimate children, instead of with the average condition of children of the proletariat. If these considerations receive due attention, it will become apparent that illegitimacy per se is not a decisive factor, but merely renders more apparent the disadvantages attendant on being brought up under the conditions inevitable for the children of the proletariat.
Abortion, Premature Birth, Still-Birth.—The general causes of abortion, premature birth, and still-birth operate even more frequently in cases of illegitimate than in cases of legitimate birth. The chief causes are the following: (a) Keeping at work up to the time of childbirth. (b) Criminal abortion. (c) Syphilitic infection, which, as is well known, is intimately associated with extra-conjugal sexual intercourse. With regard to (a), unmarried mothers, who are for the most part working-class women, servant-maids, laundresses, sempstresses, &c., are commonly compelled to remain at work until pregnancy is far advanced. With regard to (b), the fear of disgrace and the prospect of poverty impel many unmarried women about to become mothers to attempt to procure abortion. These factors naturally affect town-dwellers to a greater extent than they affect persons living in the country.
In Europe, miscarriages and still-births occur in cases of illegitimate births about 25 per cent. more frequently than in cases of legitimate births. These statistical data must, however, be corrected by the consideration of the following facts: (a) Many live-born illegitimate children are returned as still-born, in order to conceal the manipulations which were effected during or immediately after birth. On the other hand, many still-born children are returned as live-born, for the reason that many material interests may render such a misreport desirable. (b) The larger moiety of illegitimate births are children born to primiparae. For this reason, the percentage of still-births is greater than in the case of all legitimate births taken together—although the effect of the primiparous state of the mother is to some extent counteracted by the fact that the mother of an illegitimate child is commonly quite young.
Childbirth in Unmarried Mothers.—When a married woman is about to become a mother, she makes early preparation of all that will be required during childbirth and the lying-in period. A large proportion of unmarried mothers, on the other hand, spend their last penny before the termination of pregnancy, and are altogether destitute when the time of their delivery arrives. A sense of shame prevents many pregnant women from entering a lying-in hospital, although to do this would provide them with free medical aid. Most women also have a dread of the gynecological clinique, because they think they will be made use of there for the instruction of students. To unmarried mothers, many charitable institutions close their doors. (a) But notwithstanding this, the majority of unmarried mothers are delivered at public lying-in hospitals, gynecological cliniques, and obstetric wards of general hospitals. (b) A small proportion are delivered in private lying-in institutions (and these naturally of a bad class, since such women lack money to pay the fees demanded by the better-class institutions). (c) A third moiety are delivered amid conditions the most unfavourable that can possibly be imagined. All these circumstances combine to exercise a most unfavourable influence upon the morbidity and the mortality of illegitimate new-born infants.
Causes of the Great Mortality of Illegitimate Children.—Owing to causes which come into operation immediately or shortly after birth (syphilis, marasmus, congenital debility, &c.), a much larger percentage of illegitimate children succumb than of legitimate children. The mother returns to work almost immediately after the birth of her child; usually her work takes her away from home, but if otherwise, it is almost certain to be work which will prevent her giving proper care to her child. Hence the great majority of unmarried mothers are forced to separate from their children almost immediately after the birth of the latter. In many cases, the mother does not even commit her child to a foundling hospital, or entrust it to a foster mother, but she kills it or exposes it immediately after birth. It is well known that infanticide and the exposing of infants are almost exclusively the work of unmarried mothers; and in a considerable proportion of cases, criminal abortion is the outcome of an attempt on the part of an unmarried woman to conceal the fact that she has been impregnated.
Baby-farming is in actual practice nothing but a cruel method of infanticide—a method whose causation is apparent on brief consideration. It has been pointed out that the great majority of unmarried mothers belong to a social stratum in which the average income is extremely low. A maid-servant receives at best [in Germany and Austria] an annual wage of from £10 to £15, a female factory-hand from £25 to £30. The maintenance of an infant, if the elementary principles of the hygiene of childhood are to be observed, and if the foster-parents are to make any profit at all, costs at the very least £15 a year. The mere nutriment of a child during the first year of life costs 4d. per day, or a little more than £6 per annum. When allowance is made for house-room, clothing, and necessary incidental expenses, we reach a minimal total of £10 to £11. How is it possible for the average unmarried mother to find the sum asked by the foster-parents? Those who, as foster-parents, assume the charge of an illegitimate child, cannot reckon on the child’s remaining permanently in their care, and ultimately becoming a useful member of the family. The mother’s payments are scanty and irregular. Her intentions may be good at the outset, and perhaps she has not yet completely exhausted her savings. At first too, perhaps, the father gives, or at least promises, a little pecuniary aid. But when the child is out of sight, his willingness to make sacrifices on its behalf soon wanes. Nothing more is heard of the father. The mother is perhaps out of work for a time, and a fresh pregnancy may ensue. The foster-parents know very well that if this particular child dies, they will readily find another to be entrusted to their care. Sometimes the mother’s own interest in the life of her child fades. How, indeed, can she continue to love it, when it is kept at a distance from her, and when to provide the money needed for its maintenance demands the greatest possible sacrifices? Why should she not desire the child’s death, when this would not merely remove a difficulty from her own path, but might well be regarded as the best possible thing for the child itself, ailing and in lack of proper and loving care? Thus there is often a tacit understanding between the mother and the foster-mother, that the child’s life shall be as short as possible. Unfortunately in such cases it is rarely possible to punish the foster-parents, since in the case of infants it is so difficult to determine precisely where ignorance, stupidity, and poverty end and infanticide by deliberate neglect begins. The law rightly prescribes severe penalties for infanticide; but we may well ask whether it is worse for a mother to suffocate her child immediately after its birth, or, by the lack of proper care, to inflict upon the infant a more tedious but no less certain doom. We often hear it asserted that such murderous baby-farming is in Europe a thing of the past. My own opinion is that France is the only European country of which this assertion may possibly be true.
The food and other necessaries supplied to illegitimate children are commonly inadequate. The more important contributory causes of the enormous mortality of illegitimate children (the primiparous condition of the mother, syphilis, and intra-uterine influences) have previously been mentioned. It is owing to the co-operation of these various unfavourable factors that the death-rate of illegitimate is so much higher than that of legitimate children—the ratio between the two death-rates in the civilised countries of Europe during the twentieth century being, according to my calculations, as 1·4:1. Only in those countries in which the mortality among legitimate infants or the general infant mortality is higher, does a comparison between the infantile death-rates of the legitimate and the illegitimate, respectively, furnish a result which appears less unfavourable to the latter. What this high death-rate of illegitimate children really means becomes apparent when we recall the fact that every year in Europe no fewer than 600,000 illegitimate children are born. In reality the infantile death-rate among the illegitimate is even greater than these figures would appear to show; for a proportion of those born as illegitimate are subsequently legitimised, and, in consequence of this, many infants which at birth were included among the illegitimate, appear in the mortality lists among the legitimate. In the country, the infantile death-rate is greater than in the towns. The differences in the death-rates of illegitimate and of legitimate children, respectively, are greatest in the first month of life, and diminish month by month as age advances. In other words, the expectation of life of an illegitimate infant increases month by month after birth. After the first year of life, the ratio between the death-rates of illegitimate and legitimate children is less unfavourable to the former than in infants under one year of age.
Criminality in the Illegitimate.—Private and official statistical data combine to prove that in illegitimate children criminality is considerably more common than it is in the legitimate. In individual countries, and in respect of different criminal offences, the relationships are very variable; but there is not a single civilised country in which we fail to find that the average criminality-rate of illegitimate children is considerably higher than the average criminality-rate of the legitimate. We see this difference maintained, alike in respect of the number of punishable offences committed on the average by each convicted person, in respect of particular offences in the case of those who experience only one conviction, and finally in respect of the percentage of convicted offenders among the two respective classes. Not a single punishable offence can be mentioned, in respect of which we fail to find that the percentage of illegitimates convicted of that offence is larger than the percentage of legitimates so convicted. Moreover, if we compare recidivists and major offenders with other criminals, we find that the unfavourable influence of illegitimacy is especially marked in the case of the former. The conclusions drawn from the criminal statistics are confirmed by those obtained from reformatories and similar institutions; everywhere we find a higher criminality-rate among the illegitimate.
One circumstance, however, which is commonly overlooked, has to be taken into account. Among those convicted of criminal offences, a certain percentage are persons of illegitimate birth (a); a certain percentage of all births are those of illegitimates (b); a certain percentage of persons who have attained the age at which they become legally liable to punishment for their actions are persons of illegitimate birth (c). It is not the ratio between the numbers in class (a) and the numbers in class (b) that we have to consider, but the ratio between the numbers in class (a) and the numbers in class (c). For the death-rate among illegitimate children is much higher than the death-rate of the legitimate; and the number of the illegitimate diminishes through legitimisation. Thus a much smaller proportion of young persons and of adults consists of persons of illegitimate birth than in the case of the new-born. The proper method of comparison would be to ascertain whether the percentage of illegitimate children at a certain age convicted of criminal offences or undergoing education in a reformatory is greater than the percentage of legitimate children of like age found to be undergoing the same punishment or the same education.