A somewhat prevalent error in the training of children must not be passed unnoticed, namely, excessive rigidity. This practice is common in many well-meaning but unthinking families professing Christianity. Every thing is conducted with as much mathematical precision as if they were demonstrating a problem in Euclid. Such a system is open to very grave objections, from the numerous cases in which it has proved prejudicial to the child’s best interests. It acts precisely like the spring of a watch, which you can retain in a fixed position by a mechanical contrivance, but which resumes its elasticity and power the moment the pressure is removed. Children’s minds are elastic also; you can confine them within any circle you please by the exercise of parental authority, but in a large proportion of cases the end sought to be attained is surely defeated. Many justly blame this cause for the mishaps of their future lives. It presents virtue and religion in a repulsive aspect, picturing them only as connected with asceticism, not recognizing the beauty and happiness which are their chief attractions. Thus is engendered in the minds of children an intuitive dislike for what they are taught to consider as a bondage. It is not uncommon to hear men describe the way in which their youthful Sabbaths were spent, and attribute to the irksome monotony of that day’s discipline their subsequent distaste for even a few hours’ confinement in church. This strictness, like ambition, “overleaps itself,” and extinguishes the spirit it is designed to foster. The proper way to educate children for lives of usefulness, honor, and happiness, the most effective plan to reach the desired end, is to cultivate their affections and reason, instead of repressing the one and fettering the other by stringent applications of arbitrary rule.
But no man or woman can educate children properly unless their precepts are confirmed by example. Talk to your son as long as you please upon the advantages of temperance, and then let him see you in a state of intoxication the next day, and all your labor will be fruitless. Enlarge, in the presence of your daughter, upon the value of integrity, and then allow her to hear you utter a falsehood, and she will contrast the theory and practice, and conclude that the former is worthless. Parents must educate themselves before they can hope to instruct their children, and must lead a life in conformity with the principles they teach, if they expect any beneficial results from their endeavors.
Before leaving this part of the subject another matter may be mentioned, namely, the necessity of winning the confidence of children. Their hearts pine for sympathy. If they are in trouble, encourage them to reveal their perplexities to you; sigh with them when they are sad, and rejoice with them when they are happy. A girl who has been in the habit of imparting all her childish sorrows to her mother, and has there found a heart which would beat in unison with her own, will not withhold her confidence as she grows in years. Remember that children, while a blessing to their parents, are also a responsibility. You have the power to train them for good or evil; you can win their trust, or inspire them with distrust; you can make them useful members of society, or render them nuisances to the community; to you their destiny is confided to a great extent, and from you will be required an account of the stewardship.
The length to which these observations have been extended can be justified by the importance of the subject, and the conviction that a more careful fulfillment of parental duties would go very far toward diminishing prostitution. Every man must admit it to be his duty to aid in effecting this desirable consummation; and while it would be Utopian to imagine that the vice can be eradicated by family influences, it is reasonable to conclude that its extent may be materially curtailed.
Great as are the duties and responsibilities of a father, they are equaled by those devolving upon a husband. He has to provide for the welfare of his wife besides caring for the interests of his children. When he marries he vows to remain faithful to the woman of his choice, to “love, honor, and cherish her” so long as they both shall live. This is an implied oath, if not audibly expressed in all circumstances, and any violation of it is neither more nor less than perjury. Of course, the obligation is a mutual one; the wife is bound by the same ties, and in as stringent a form as the husband. It can not be said that every case of prostitution in a married woman is the result of her husband’s misconduct, but it is notorious that many women are induced or compelled by such misconduct to abandon a life of virtue. All married prostitutes can not be exonerated from the charge of guilt, yet the facts which will be hereafter quoted prove that many were driven to a life of shame by those who had solemnly sworn to protect and cherish them.
The violation of any known duty is a positive crime against society, but it becomes increased in magnitude when it involves more than one person in the offense. It is then the cause of a second transgression, and sophistry would vainly attempt to prove that the man who committed the first and caused the commission of the second offense was not morally responsible for both. Descending from generalities, it may be truly asserted that the man whose conduct to his wife is such as to lead her to vicious practices is guilty in both respects. Here are some few cases in point.
C. C.: “My husband deserted me and four children. I had no means to live.” In this case the husband violated the law of God in forcibly rending the matrimonial bond, and violated the laws of his country by leaving his wife and children as burdens on society. For the former of these offenses he must answer at the bar of Infinite Justice; for the latter he is liable to punishment in this world. “Then why not punish him?” asks some one. For the very simple reason that he could not be found. In this day the law does not assume the latitude claimed by the Spanish Inquisition, and sentence a man to punishment without giving him an opportunity to plead his cause. A woman in a state of destitution, with four hungry children looking to her for bread, has neither time nor means to pursue a delinquent husband. Her present necessities require her immediate attention, and so he escapes the penalty the laws have awarded, and can live (although it may be with an uneasy conscience) in some other place, and probably repeat there the iniquities he has practiced here. The custom of deserting wives and children would receive a severe check were it possible in every instance to enforce the legal provisions respecting abandonment.
J. S.: “My husband committed adultery. I caught him with another woman, and then he left me.” This individual’s turpitude was enhanced by his boldness. He seems to have recklessly defied all consequences, to have been entirely callous to any sense of shame, and, when detected in his adulterous intercourse, he adds desertion to his offense. He regarded not the feelings of her whom in early life he had won to his side by vows of affection; he outraged the laws of decency, and trampled upon the statutes of his country. His wife’s agony may be conceived, although words would be faint to express it, and the mental sufferings she must have endured before she abandoned herself to indiscriminate prostitution as a means of living will not aggravate her offense.
A. G.: “My husband eloped with another woman. I support the child.” Here the husband was morally as guilty as in the previous case, but without the disgusting bravado which characterized that. He had, however, another claim which should have secured his fidelity, namely, an infant child; but this tie was powerless to restrain him. Fascinated by the charms of another, forgetting all the rights of his wife, all the obligations of paternity, and all the requirements of morality, he basely abandoned those dependent on him, and forced the wife, whose virtue he was bound to protect, into a career of vice to support his child.
A. B.: “My husband accused me of infidelity, which was not true. I only lived with him five months. I was pregnant by him, and after my child was born I went on the town to support it.” The first idea derived from this statement would be that five months of matrimonial life had been sufficient to change this husband from a devoted lover to a revengeful tyrant, who would not scruple to resort to a groundless accusation to effect his purpose. In this short space of time he conveniently forgot the promises he had made, repudiated the bonds in which his own act had placed him, and, to accomplish a separation from his wife, did not hesitate to bear false witness against her, placing her in a position from which she could extricate herself only by performing a logical impossibility, namely, by proving a negative. Nor could the probable destiny of his unborn child influence his determination. It mattered not to him whether the infant first saw the light in a den of infamy, nor whether his unkindness killed it before it was born, so that he could desert his wife. Neither did it make any difference to him whether she starved to death or maintained her existence by the most loathsome means. He was satiated with possession, and neither the voice of nature nor the dictates of conscience could arrest his purpose. The result was precisely what might have been expected: she became a prostitute rather than starve and let her child starve.