The Elements of Child-protection

by Sigmund Engel

All the causes of crime—imperfect education, poverty, hereditary taint—are present to a greater extent in the illegitimate than in the legitimate. How can we expect that an illegitimate child will be properly brought up when the father commonly accepts no responsibility for the matter, and the mother is usually forced to commit her child to the care of a baby-farmer or to send it to a foundling hospital? By the contemptuous attitude of the general public towards him, and by his inferior legal, social, and economic position, the person of illegitimate birth is, as it were, forced to seek revenge from society for the wrongs which, in his opinion, society has inflicted upon him. Medical statistics establish beyond dispute the fact that among illegitimate children the proportion of feeble-minded is larger than among the legitimate.

Illegitimacy and Prostitution.—I have not been able to obtain trustworthy statistical data as to what percentage of prostitutes are persons of illegitimate birth, but it is generally supposed that the proportion is as high as 30 per cent. A very brief examination of the matter shows that among prostitutes there is a higher percentage of illegitimates than among the general population. The reason for this state of affairs is doubtless the inferior legal position of illegitimate children under the conditions of our time. Illegitimate girls are not properly brought up; they are despised by the world even if their conduct is irreproachable, and thus one of the most potent reasons for remaining respectable—the fear of the loss of good repute—is lacking in their case. A woman who receives no help, or inadequate help, from the father of her illegitimate child, is very apt to become a prostitute.

Occupation in Relationship to Illegitimacy.—The illegitimate originate in the ranks of the proletariat, and remain in those ranks. The statistics of the subject show that about 90 per cent. of adult persons of illegitimate birth are manual workers, and that not more than a fourth of these are skilled artisans. Statistics prove also that about 10 per cent. more of legitimate males are able to qualify by examination for a reduction of the term of military service to one year, than in the case of illegitimate males.

The Different Classes of the Illegitimate.—Those who wish to understand the position of illegitimate children must consider the different classes of the illegitimate. (a) There are many differences in these respects in various countries. For example, in certain countries the children born to a betrothed pair have a better legal position than other illegitimate children. In some countries, again, the legal position of children born of an adulterous or of an incestuous union is worse than that of other illegitimate children.

The social position of the parents, and the existence or non-existence of differences in social rank between father and mother, are circumstances which may exercise a decisive influence upon the position of an illegitimate child. It might almost be maintained that the higher the social position of the unmarried mother, the worse will be the position of her child. For the higher the social position, the more sinful is sexual indulgence considered on the part of a woman except under the forms of marriage; the unmarried mother, when her social position has been a good one, is apt to be driven from her family, boycotted by society, and abandoned by her seducer. The greater the difference in social rank between the two parents, the worse will be the position of the child; when the father’s position is much better than the mother’s, he usually refuses to acknowledge the child at all. (c) The assumption that those women who marry after bearing an illegitimate child, marry in most cases the father of their child, is erroneous. Erroneous also is the assumption that the position of an illegitimate child with a step-father is less favourable than the position of the illegitimate child which has been legitimised through the subsequent marriage of its true parents. As regards Germany, we learn from private statistical data, on the one hand, that nearly 50 per cent. of the women who marry after giving birth to an illegitimate child, marry another man than the father of that child; and, on the other hand, that the position of illegitimate children who thus acquire a step-father is about as good as that of legitimate children in similar classes of society; and their position is certainly much better than that of those illegitimate children whose mothers remain unmarried. We should be led to expect this from the fact that the step-father in such cases marries the woman because he loves her, and does not regard the child as a serious objection; moreover, the records show that such marriages are commonly effected when illegitimate children are still quite young, so that from its early youth upwards the child is a member of the family circle. It seems almost incredible that it should be better for an illegitimate child for its mother to die than for her to remain alive, but unmarried; and yet this may very well be the case, for the upbringing the illegitimate child receives from its own mother is apt to be most unsatisfactory; but should the mother die, the child will usually be cared for by the poor-law authorities.

Illegitimacy and Child-Protection.—The mortality and the criminality of illegitimate children are important elements in general mortality and general criminality; they are closely dependent upon the legal position of illegitimate children, and one of the principal aims of child-protection is to diminish criminality and mortality. For these reasons, the legal position of illegitimate children exercises a decisive influence in determining the methods and the intensity of child-protection. The history of illegitimate children would, as a rule, be even more tragic than it is, if the community at large and the State intervened only in order to counteract the disadvantages resulting from the inferior legal position of illegitimate children, and if no attempt were made to undertake the work of child-protection from the point of view of criminal law or from that of local administrative activity. But when we study the position of child-protection in the individual countries of Europe, we see at once that that position is influenced mainly by one consideration, namely, the legal status of the illegitimate child. Numerous and important branches of child-protection—the care of foundlings, for instance—are concerned chiefly with illegitimate children; and in other departments of child-protection the protection of the illegitimate must be more vigorous than that of the legitimate. But the more unfavourable the legal status of the illegitimate child, the more energetic must intervention be from the side of criminal law and from that of local administration, not only for the protection of the illegitimate themselves, but also for the protection of society against the illegitimate. Where the status of the illegitimate child is a favourable one, the importance of child-protection by means of criminal law and local administrative activity is much less than elsewhere.

The Teutonic and the Latin methods of dealing with illegitimate children are distinguished by the fact that in the Teutonic States inquiry into paternity is permitted, whilst in the Latin States it is forbidden. Where the Latin system prevails—that is, where inquiry into paternity is forbidden—as in France and Italy, the local authorities find it necessary to board out more children than in those countries in which the inquiry into paternity is allowed; for in the latter a larger proportion of unmarried mothers secure an allowance for maintenance from the fathers of their children, and for this reason more illegitimate children are boarded out directly by the mothers. An assimilation of the legal status of legitimate and illegitimate children would obviate numerous evils, so that a few paragraphs in the code of civil law would render superfluous a considerable proportion of the child-protection now dependent upon criminal law and local administrative activity.

Until the Italian legal code provides for the proper recognition of figli di genitori ignoti, any attempt at administrative reform of the Italian methods of dealing with foundlings would be futile. [In Italy, not even the mother is compelled to recognise her child; recognition must not be confused with legitimisation. A child which is recognised neither by the father nor by the mother is termed figlio di genitori ignoti (the child of unknown parents), and it is only a child recognised by at least one parent which is termed figlio illegitimo (illegitimate child).] As long as Section 340 of the French Civil Code continues to state categorically, “La recherche de la paternité est interdite,” not even the risk of capital punishment will restrain from infanticide the mother of an illegitimate child, more especially in view of the fact that in such cases humanely disposed jurymen now so frequently bring in a verdict of Not Guilty.

It may be hoped that before long it will be generally recognised that any attempt to reform child-protection, and especially our dealings with foundlings, must begin with a reform in the legal status of the illegitimate child. Nevertheless, child-protection by the local authorities and through the instrumentality of the criminal law, and, above all, our ways of dealing with foundlings, exert a great influence upon the position of illegitimate children. It is still in dispute whether these things affect the numbers of illegitimate children. It is widely assumed that the existence of foundling hospitals leads to an increase in the number of illegitimate children. But in reality foundling hospitals are not a cause, but a consequence, of the large numbers of illegitimate children.

The Tendency of Evolution.—As time goes on, the position of illegitimate children steadily improves. Formerly, illegitimacy entailed grave civil and ecclesiastical disabilities; to-day, the only differences between illegitimate and legitimate children concern their respective legal status, and even these differences are gradually disappearing. The circumstance that public opinion is taking an ever milder view regarding illegitimate sexual intimacy, exercises a great influence upon the position of the illegitimate child, and a much more extensive mitigation of public opinion in this direction may be confidently anticipated. The fate of the illegitimate child is greatly influenced by the judgment passed upon illegitimate sexual intercourse by the associates, parents, and relatives of the mother. Among the Jews, owing to the sacred character of their family life, the birth of illegitimate children was altogether exceptional. But such a high estimation of marriage is apt to result in complete rupture of relations between the fallen one and her family. Although among the Jews infant mortality in general is lower than among the Gentiles, the mortality of illegitimate children among the Jews is even higher than among the Gentile population.