What a Young Husband Ought to Know Part 8

"Soon after the birth of my child my husband insisted on his accustomed injustice. Without any wish of my own, maternity was again forced upon me. I dared not attempt to get rid of the child--abortion seemed so cruel, so inhuman, unnatural and repulsive. I resolved again, for my child's sake, to do the best I could for it. Though I could not joyfully welcome, I resolved quietly to endure its existence.

"After the birth of this child I felt that I could have no more to share our poverty and to suffer the wrongs and trials of an unwelcome existence. I felt that I would rather die at once, and thus end my life and my power to be a mother together. My husband cast the entire care of the family on me. I had scarcely one hour to devote to my children. My husband still insisted on his gratification. I was the veriest slave alive. Life had lost its charms. The grave seemed my only refuge and death my only friend.

"In this state, known as it was to my husband, he thrust maternity upon me twice. I employed a doctor to kill my child, and in the destruction of it, in what should have been the vigor of my life, ended my power to be a mother. I was shorn of the brightest jewel of my womanhood. I suffered as woman alone can suffer, not only in body, but in bitter remorse and anguish of soul.

"All this I pa.s.sed through under the terrible, withering consciousness that it was all done and suffered solely that the pa.s.sion of my husband might have a momentary indulgence. Yet such had been my false religious and social education that, in submitting my person to his pa.s.sion, I did it in the honest conviction that in marriage my body became the property of my husband. He said so. All women to whom I applied for counsel said it was my duty to submit, that husbands expected it, had a right to it, and must have this indulgence whenever they were excited, or suffer, and that in this way alone could wives retain the love of their husbands. I had no alternative but silent, suffering submission to his pa.s.sion, and then procure abortion or leave him, and thus resign my children to the tender mercies of one with whom it seemed I could not live myself.

Abortion was most repulsive to every feeling of my nature, and at times rendered me an object of loathing to myself.

"When my first-born was three months old I had a desperate struggle for personal liberty. My husband insisted on his right to subject my person to his pa.s.sion before my babe was two months old. I saw his conduct then in all its degrading and loathing injustice. I pleaded with tears and anguish, for my own and my child's sake, to be spared; and had it not been for my helpless child, I should have ended the struggle by bolting my legal bonds. For its sake I submitted to that outrage and my own conscious degradation. For its sake I concluded to take my chance in the world with other wives and mothers who, as they a.s.sured me, and as I then knew, were all around me, subjected to like outrages, and driven to the degrading practice of abortion. But even then I saw and argued the justice of my personal rights in regard to maternity and the relation that leads to it, as strongly as you do now. I saw it all as clearly as you do. I was then, amid all the degrading influences that crushed me, true and just to my womanly intuitions. I insisted on my right to say when and under what circ.u.mstances I would accept of him the office of maternity and become the mother of his child. I insisted that it was for me to say when and how often I should subject myself to the liability of becoming a mother. But he became angry with me, claimed ownership over me, insisted that I, as a wife, was to submit to my husband '_in all things_,' threatened to leave me and my children, and declared I was not fit to be a wife. Fearing some fatal consequences to my child or to myself--being alone, dest.i.tute and far from helpful friends, in the far West, and fearing that my little one would be left to want--I stifled all expression of my honest convictions, and ever after kept my aversion and painful struggles in my own bosom. In every respect, as far as pa.s.sional relations between myself and my husband are concerned, I have ever felt myself to be a miserable and abject woman. I now see and feel it most deeply and painfully. If I was with a child in my arms, I was in constant dread of all personal contact with my husband lest I should have a new maternity thrust upon me, and be obliged to wean one child before its time to give place to another. In my misery I have often cried out, 'O, G.o.d! is there no way out of this loathsome bondage?'

"It was not want of kindly feelings toward my husband that induced this state of mind, for I could and did endure every privation and want without an unkindly feeling or word, and even cheerfully for his sake.

But every feeling of my soul did then, does now and ever must protest against the cruel and loathsome injustice of husbands toward their wives, manifested in imposing on them a maternity uncalled for by their own nature and most repulsive to it, and whose sufferings and responsibilities they are unprepared and unwilling to meet."

While we would not for a moment sanction the crime which this mother perpetrated, yet we are not prepared to say that she was the sole author of the crime. Every thoughtful man must admit that her husband was unreasonable, unwilling to govern his pa.s.sion, cruel and unjust to his wife, and in his beastliness measurably drove her to the commission of the awful crime of which she was guilty.

The proper relation of husband and wife to the question of parenthood can never be properly and satisfactorily adjusted so long as either of these parties occupy extreme positions upon this question. It is absolutely wrong for the wife to take the position that she is to be wholly delivered from maternity and the care of children, and it is equally wrong for the husband to a.s.sume that the wife is created for no other purpose than to bear children in as rapid succession as nature renders conception possible. Upon the one hand it is the duty of the wife to arrange her thought and life with reference to maternity and the bearing of such a number of children as can be brought into the world in the highest state of physical, intellectual and moral equipment. Upon the other hand, the husband is to regard himself under obligation to practice such personal self-control and to bear such disadvantages as are incident to the greatest fidelity of the wife in her duties while the body and character of her child are being formed within her, and while it is being nursed, nurtured and cared for after its birth.

It is the grossest of insults not only to woman, but to her Maker, to a.s.sert that woman was created solely for reproduction. It is proper for a man in the discharge of certain duties and in the attainment of certain laudable ends to decline to marry and resolve to maintain a pure and celibate life throughout his entire existence; and it is equally right, and even commendable, for a woman with similar purposes and aims to decline marriage in order that she may devote herself with greater efficiency and success to some effort to elevate and bless mankind, if those ends could not be successfully accomplished in connection with the proper discharge of her duties as wife and mother. But when men and women do marry, they greatly mistake the object of this divine inst.i.tution if they suppose that it was inst.i.tuted solely for the purpose of producing the largest possible number of children--if they make _quant.i.ty_ rather than _quality_ the great purpose. Marriage was inst.i.tuted for the highest good of the parents; it was inst.i.tuted for the attainment of their best health and the largest intellectual and moral equipment. Their lives are to be shaped for the acquisition of the largest and best attainments. Unless they attain the best physical, intellectual and moral developments they cannot transmit these valuable qualities to their children. The children cannot inherit from the parents what the parents do not possess. Parents should seek to raise up, not the largest possible number, without regard to whether they are good, bad or indifferent; but there is no objection to their raising up the largest number consistent with the best possible equipment. One man is worth an innumerable number of monkeys, and we should seek to raise up not an innumerable horde of inferior beings, but only so large a number as is consistent with a sincere purpose not to evade the responsibilities and duties of parenthood, and with an earnest effort to raise up a race of superior men and women. There should be no consenting to deterioration, but a sincere desire and effort for the raising up of a new generation that shall be an advance upon all the generations that have preceded.

By what we have said it will be manifest that there is a culpable and criminal limitation of offspring; and there is also a reasonable and right regulation of the marital relation and a limiting of offspring--a designed and deliberate purpose to be self-contained with a view to intelligent, purposed parenthood.

There are times when it is positively wrong to beget and bring forth children. This is the case when there is such physical debility upon either the part of the husband or the wife as would render them incapable of transmitting or bearing healthy children; when, overburdened or broken down by excessive childbearing, nothing but puny, sickly, short-lived offspring could reasonably be expected; when the children are coming so rapidly that they interfere with each others'

nutrition and imperil the mother's health, or when the mother is naturally so const.i.tuted that childbearing imperils her life. These, and other equally weighty reasons, are a sufficient justification for a careful study of duty and obligation in the matter of self-government, and the limitation, or even restriction, of childbearing by right and proper methods.

It is important, however, to say that married persons should never decide against childbearing, or even in favor of a very restricted parenthood, without the gravest considerations; nor is their own thought in the matter always sufficient to arrive at a wise and righteous conclusion. Their own judgment should always be supplemented by the counsel and advice of a well-qualified and thoroughly conscientious Christian physician. Where difficulties do exist, a conscientious consideration of them may often enable the parties to remove every barrier and secure the most blessed and gratifying results.

What we have intimated is aptly ill.u.s.trated in the following instance given by Dr. Pomeroy in "The Ethics of Marriage": "A 'love match'

resulted in the union of two persons who were of nervous temperament and poor physique, many 'incompatibilities,' and small means. Beside this, the wife was suffering from a difficulty which made maternity undesirable and well-nigh impossible. Under the circ.u.mstances, they questioned whether indefinite postponement of parenthood were not proper, and, in fact, clearly indicated. They considered the matter carefully, took the benefit of medical advice, and finally decided that their only honorable and safe course would be that they should have a family of healthy children as its objective point. The wife was placed under medical treatment, and in the course of a few months was in physical condition safely to undertake maternity.

"Recognizing their limitations and disadvantages from the outset, the pair determined to make every possible effort to give their children as good a birth as might be, under the circ.u.mstances. Each tried to cultivate health and strength of mind and body; the laws of heredity were studied; conscientious care was taken that the mother might have bright and cheery objects about her and loving thoughts in her mind during the period when each child gained all its influence from the outside world through her. Each child was also, during this period, a subject of prayer, that the Holy Spirit might enter into its developing life and cause it to be so generated that the afterwork of regeneration might, if possible, follow as the day follows the dawn.

"It would be too much to say that this course would in every case be followed by results as marked as were those of this instance; but in this family the children have proved to be, if not all that could be desired, at least much better than would have been expected in the ordinary course of events.

"They were symmetrical, sound in body, equable in temperament, and affectionate towards the parents and each other. They have never been more than half the trouble and care that children ordinarily are, although possessed of high spirit and a keen sense of justice. What may develop as they arrive at maturity no one can tell, but it is certain that they now bear the impress of prenatal love and care, and a good birth. This cost the parents some effort and self-denial, but they have been repaid fourfold in the ease with which the nursery has been managed; moreover, little differences of taste and opinion were laid on the altar of sacrifice to the interests of the children who should be born to them, and each, as it joined in the family circle, brought new degrees of harmony and joy.

"I have repeatedly heard the father of that family declare that he had no reason to believe himself a dollar poorer than he would have been if no children had come to claim his care. Just what might have been in that case it is impossible to tell, but it is certain that many a childless marriage which began under apparently happier auspices than this one ended in misery and divorce."

But the question arises, where it is found necessary to limit the number of offspring, How shall it be properly done? There are those who seem to think that medical science has some way by which to grant unrestricted s.e.xual indulgence and yet avoid the results which nature intended. Dr.

Pomeroy says: "It is surprising to what an extent the laity believe that medical science knows how to control the birthrate. Just here let me say that I know of but one prescription which is both safe and sure, namely, _that the s.e.xes shall remain apart_. So thoroughly do I believe this to be a secret which nature has kept to herself, that I should be inclined to question the ability or the honesty of any one professing to understand it so as to be able safely and surely to regulate the matter of reproduction for those living in wedlock."

Because of the moral issues, physical consequences and terrible results which cl.u.s.ter about this question--one of the most delicate with which we have to deal--we have made a most careful examination of this entire subject. We have read a great deal more than has been pleasant to our contemplation, but we have been compelled to return, after each new investigation, to the conclusion which is held by all reputable physicians that the only safe and sure way is for husband and wife to remain strictly apart. There are methods which are sometimes suggested, by even well-meaning physicians, to those who desire to escape the results of the marital relation, but when pressed for the expression of a candid and honest conviction these same physicians are always compelled to admit that for absolute safety there is but one provision.

These various methods are not only unsatisfactory and unavailing, but are ruinous in their effects upon the individuals who practice them. In some instances nature does not visit her penalties immediately, but eventually the old declaration proves true that although justice travels with a sore foot it is sure to overtake the transgressor.

Where married people are willing to live according to the laws which are written deep in our nature, they find what Dr. Kellogg has said is true: "There would be less s.e.xual enjoyment, but more elevated joy. There would be less animal love, but more spiritual communion; less gross, more pure; less development of the animal and more fruitful soil for the cultivation of virtue, holiness and all the Christian graces."

An entire renunciation of all conjugal privileges is, however, only perfectly just and proper when it meets with the mutual consent of both husband and wife.

Concerning such a rigid course, Dr. Napheys, in "Transmission of Life,"

says: "The objection nowadays urged against it is that it is too severe a prescription, and consequently valueless. This ought not to be. A man who loves his wife should, in order to save that life overwork and misery, and danger of death and wretchedly const.i.tuted children, be able and willing to undergo as much self-denial as everyone of his contingent bachelor acquaintances does, not out of high devotion, but for motives of economy, or indifference, or love of liberty. The man who cannot do this, or does not care to do it, does not certainly deserve a very high position.

"But while all this is granted, the question is still constantly put: Is this all? Is there no means by which we can limit our families without either injuring the health or undergoing a self-martyrdom which not one man in a thousand will submit to?"

In meeting the perplexities of this situation, Dr. Pomeroy, in "Ethics of Marriage," says: "There are circ.u.mstances under which means for the _temporary_ avoidance of conception may be desirable and proper, as, for instance, to prevent too rapid childbearing on the part of women who cannot nurse their infants, or who have their usual periods while nursing--conditions which, I believe, our artificial life are responsible for--and so are liable to too frequent conception.

"For such and other legitimate causes nature has herself provided a means which, with the practice of a little self-denial, will give a reasonable degree of safety; beyond this it is neither safe nor proper to act without the advice of some physician who has sound judgment, both in medicine and in morals."

There is a Scriptural provision which is doubtless designed to meet this very condition, and which may be properly mentioned here because authorized by the Inspired Word. The law concerning this matter will be found in the fifteenth chapter of Leviticus, beginning with the nineteenth verse. In this pa.s.sage a period of strict separation is prescribed for the woman during the period of her monthly issue, and the injunction is, that when "she is cleansed from her issue then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean." On the eighth day she was to appear before the priest with her offerings, when she was to be declared clean.

In this Old Testament provision G.o.d manifestly intended to make the children of Israel intelligent, not for the purpose of enabling them to avoid any reasonable and right increase in their families, but measurably to limit the number of offspring, so that the very best type of human life might be the fruitage of their homes. When literally followed, it would doubtless in a large majority of cases afford all necessary relief, and properly limit the number of offspring.

This pa.s.sage also clearly indicates the importance of separation during the periodic sickness; and the basis for this Old Testament teaching of separation during such times is based not only upon the sense of delicacy and propriety upon the part of the wife, but also upon the physiological and sanitary principles of medical science.

It is neither necessary nor proper for us to go into a further discussion of this subject at this place. Those who find themselves laboring under the burdens, infirmities and unfitness we have indicated, should be free to seek such medical counsel and advice as will afford them what relief may be available in their particular case. We would warn all, however, that "those who take active measures to prevent conception are apt to carry the matter further than they intended; at the best they are tampering with Nature, and that is a dangerous thing in itself." In seeking medical counsel, let us carefully advise all to exercise the utmost caution in selecting a competent, conscientious, Christian physician. If, however, you expect that your interview will bring you such information as will enable you to indulge your pa.s.sion unrestrained and avoid all consequences, allow us to say, before such an interview takes place, that you are expecting information which medical science does not possess. Dr. Pomeroy, in writing upon this subject, says: "As before noticed, it is surprising to what extent the laity believe that the course of Nature can be safely interfered with, even by those who understand her laws the least. Those who fear to turn back the hands of a watch lest they injure the complicated and delicate machinery do not hesitate to use violent means to interfere with the natural workings of the human mechanism, which is a thousandfold more complicated and delicate. Nature is tenacious of her rights; she resists grandly, but if forced to yield, she visits the offender with punishment which is no less sure because it is sometimes long-delayed. Few seem to know this; many act as though they considered Nature a sort of clever idiot, too stupid to recognize an injury or too amiable to resent it if discovered; while others seem to look upon Nature as rather intelligent and able, but a servant amenable to guidance and a.s.sistance in co-ordinating the forces of her laboratory. This is absurd, and even impious, for Nature is but another term for the Creator of all things, and He is infinitely wise. Nature cares more about correcting _us_ than our mistakes and follies. Were she to go on indefinitely and patiently undoing our work we should go on indefinitely and persistently doing it, and our wrongdoing would be righted, but we should remain in the mental or moral or physical sin which had prompted it. Indeed, if the obvious results of our sin were promptly removed we should scarcely be aware that we were not in harmony with Nature's plans, and the race would deteriorate, and finally become extinct."

Where you do not obtain from a reputable, intelligent Christian physician the information you desire, or the relief you seek, do not make the fatal mistake of resorting to some quack or impostor who advertises only to beguile, deceive and rob you, and subsequently to leave you humiliated, with purse depleted and health ruined. Reputable physicians do not advertise, and the very fact that a man advertises may be accepted as sufficient evidence that he is not an accredited and reliable physician, and that you will most a.s.suredly be subjected to deception and imposture.

Persons who recognize the propriety of limiting the number of offspring are seriously exposed to the danger of deferring and procrastinating to such an extent as to err greatly in the direction of too few rather than too many children. With most women the time for childbearing is quite like the time and location of a boil--any other time than the present, and any other place than where it is. A purposed parenthood is in _danger_ of becoming a purpose to evade parenthood.

There is, however, a proper and all-important preparation for parenthood. After a careful examination of the subject no person can help but be deeply impressed with the fact that if the parents of this generation would realize their wonderful power to mold and fashion the succeeding generation, the children of the next decade would rise to the level of an entirely new plane. Some people seem to think that the matter of begetting a child, like the matter of selecting a wife or a husband, should be left wholly to blind chance. Neither of these two important events can be too much safeguarded by wise and thoughtful consideration. If conception is permitted to take place when either one or both of the parents are in ill health; if the wife is an unwilling mother, and the embryo is developed by her while her entire nature rebels against the admission into the family of a child who is not wanted, the children begotten and born under such circ.u.mstances can never be other than sickly, nervous and fretful during their entire childhood, and cross and uncompanionable throughout their entire lives.

In connection with childbearing there are three very important things: First, the preparation for parenthood; second, the mental state at the period of conjunction, and third, the mental state and physical condition of the mother during the months while the body and character of the child are being fashioned within her body.

The period and the character of the preparation for parenthood must always vary according to the physical condition of the intending parents. In some instances this preparation needs to extend over weeks, and in other instances even over years. No man or woman should consent to become a parent except at such times when physically and intellectually they are at their very best--indeed, the very best that is possible for them to attain by a course of careful preparation. Much of what might be said here will be learned under a subsequent chapter upon prenatal influences.

Medical authorities universally attach great importance to the mental condition at the moment of conjunction and conception. It is quite universally believed that this is a moment of unparalleled importance to the welfare of the future being. Dr. Hufeland, an eminent German writer, says: "In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the sensation of collected powers, ardent pa.s.sion, and a mind cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides." It is an awful crime to beget life carelessly, and when in improper and unworthy physical and mental states.

The ancients understood the importance of this moment, and frequently surrounded the nuptial couch with statues which should charm the mother by their beautiful outlines and physical proportions. It was claimed by them that a man who was himself deformed might in this manner become the father of children that were possessed of fine physical proportions.

While this statement might carry with it too much presumption, yet it was not without a considerable element of truth.

Nearly eighteen centuries before Christ, the patriarch Jacob recognized this principle when he arranged with Laban to accept from among the flocks and herds "the speckled and the spotted" as the reward of his labor in attending the flocks of the herds of his father-in-law. There was nothing unnatural or miraculous in the result which Jacob secured.

He sought to produce such mental impressions upon the minds of the flock at the time of conception as would secure the production of young marked after the manner most in accord with his personal interests. We are told that "Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut-tree, and pilled white streaks in them and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-streaked, speckled and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-streaked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban: and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pa.s.s, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maid-servants and men-servants, and camels and a.s.ses."

Much of the differences which exist between children of the same parents may be easily attributed to the different bodily and mental conditions of the parents at the period of conjunction, the changed physical, intellectual and emotional states of the parents at the different periods of conception producing the corresponding differences in their offspring.

The results of purposed and prepared parenthood are so great and so desirable that a husband and wife should consider these matters carefully, make due preparations, and approach the period when they would beget offspring and bring immortal beings into the world with the greatest thoughtfulness, consideration, and also with prayer.

The writer well remembers the deep impression made upon his mind in an interview with a physician who was the first to present this phase of the subject to our consideration. The statement was so unusual that it made a lasting impression upon us. But why may it not be so? After a period of preparation why should not the intending parents unite at the throne of grace for G.o.d's blessing upon them in the act in which they are about to engage, and in the fulfillment of their desire for an heir who shall be possessed of the very best physical, intellectual and moral endowments?

There are certain signs of fruitful conjunction which are often recognized by women who are already mothers, but which may serve as no guide to a young wife who has never had any experience. With some women the act of conception is attended with great emotion, a sense of unusual pleasure, and even of a tremor, in which all parts of the body may partic.i.p.ate. Sometimes it is followed by a sense of weakness. In ancient times the swelling of the neck was regarded as a sign of conception, and some modern authorities incline to the same theory.

There are instances also in which the morning sickness begins immediately after conception.

It would be unsafe, however, to rely upon either the presence or absence of these indications. In most instances the cessation of the menses and the appearance of the morning sickness are the first reliable indications that conception has taken place.

CHAPTER XIII.