{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_71097/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_71097","id":"gutenberg_71097","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71097","summary":null,"tags":["Abortion","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Sexual ethics"],"text":"THE\n                            UNWELCOME CHILD;\n                                  OR,\n                THE CRIME OF AN UNDESIGNED AND UNDESIRED\n                               MATERNITY.\n\n\n                          BY HENRY C. WRIGHT,\n\n                  AUTHOR OF \u201cMARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE.\u201d\n\n\n                            EIGHTH EDITION.\n\n\n                                BOSTON:\n                       COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS,\n                          9 MONTGOMERY PLACE.\n                                 1876.\n\n\n\n\n       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by\n                            HENRY C. WRIGHT,\n     In the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court of the District of\n                             Massachusetts.\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n PREFACE,                                                              5\n\n INTRODUCTORY LETTER: A Husband to Henry C. Wright\u2014Inquiries\n   respecting the Laws of Nature designed to govern Parentage,         9\n\n LETTER I.\u2014THE MOTHER\u2019S POWER OVER HER CHILD: Maternity, its\n   bearing on the Character and Destiny of the Race\u2014Two great facts\n   relating to the Ante-Natal Development and Education of the\n   Child,                                                             13\n\n LETTER II.\u2014UNDESIRED MATERNITY:\u2014Crime against the Mother\u2014How it\n   affects her towards the Father of her Child\u2014Who is responsible\n   for the Existence of Children, God or the Parents?\u2014Has the Woman\n   a right to say when she shall assume the office of Maternity, or\n   subject herself to the relation that leads to Maternity?\u2014A\n   certain method to secure the purity, peace, and happiness of\n   Home,                                                              23\n\n LETTER III.\u2014UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the\n   Child\u2014Ante-Natal Claims of the Child\u2014Bearing of the Ante-Natal\n   History of a Child on its Post-Natal Character and\n   Destiny\u2014Whatever injuriously affects the Mother must injuriously\n   affect the Child\u2014A Child struggling into life against the spirit\n   of Murder in the heart of its Mother,                              37\n\n LETTER IV.\u2014UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the Child as\n   affecting its Ante-Natal Education\u2014The most intense and potent\n   of all human relations\u2014Man in three States\u2014Ante-Natal Education,\n   its bearing on the future Man or Woman, on Society, on Church\n   and State\u2014The Guilt of Husbands,                                   51\n\n LETTER V.\u2014THE WIFE\u2019S APPEAL AND THE HUSBAND\u2019S RESPONSE: The last\n   link of Marriage\u2014A Word to Wives\u2014A Word to Maidens\u2014How both may\n   save themselves from deepest degradation and wretchedness,         72\n\n LETTER VI. WORDS FITLY SPOKEN, by one who speaks with Authority:\n   Passive Obedience of Wives to Husbands in regard to the relation\n   that leads to Maternity\u2014The Authority of Nature in regard to\n   Maternity\u2014The indignant protest of Humanity against the\n   legalized Sensualism of Husbands,                                  88\n\n LETTER VII. THE DREAD ALTERNATIVE: Ante-Natal Murder, or an\n   Unwelcome Child,                                                  100\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE.\n\n\nMaternity, the relation that leads to it, and the responsibilities,\nanxieties, and agonies generally connected with it,\u2014the right of Woman\nto decide for herself when she shall assume the responsibilities, and be\nsubjected to the sufferings, of Maternity, and to the relation in which\nit originates,\u2014Man, without regard to the wishes and conditions of his\nwife, heedless of the physical and spiritual welfare of his offspring,\nand solely for his own gratification, imposing on his wife Maternity,\nwith all its attendant anguish of body and soul,\u2014the crime of earth,\u2014the\ngreatest outrage one human being can perpetrate on another,\u2014ante-natal\nmurder,\u2014the ante-natal history of a human being, and its bearing on his\npost-natal character and destiny, in the body and out of it,\u2014such are\nthe topics which are presented and discussed in the following pages.\n\nThe author has aimed so to present these subjects that no intelligent\nand pure-minded man or woman need to misunderstand or misconstrue his\nmeaning, or be offended by his words and modes of expression. These\nsubjects belong to the holy of holies of human existence. With them is\nassociated all that is nearest and dearest to the heart of man and\nwoman. In the inmost sanctuary of Home, these should be the topics of\nfreest and most anxious conversation. All that is pure, lovely,\nbeautiful, and ennobling, in the relations of Husband and Wife, and\nParent and Child, is directly connected with these subjects, and the\nviews entertained of them by men and women in and out of legal marriage.\nBut that which transpires during the period between conception and\nbirth, as the foundation of character in the future man or woman, as an\nindex to their thoughts, feelings, plans, motives, actions, to their\nvirtues and vices, to successes and failures in life\u2019s conflict, has\nbeen entirely overlooked by biographers and historians, by poets and\nnovelists, in their efforts to delineate human life as manifested in\nindividuals, or in civil and ecclesiastical combinations. Yet all admit\nthat physical, intellectual, and social tendencies and conditions are\norganized into the body and soul of every child, during that period,\nthat must give tone and direction to the man or woman in all their\nfuture life. In their relations as husbands and wives, fathers and\nmothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and\nneighbors, in all their commercial, social, civil, and ecclesiastical\nrelations, their feelings, and their treatment of all with whom they may\nbe associated, must depend greatly on these ante-natal influences and\ntendencies.\n\nThe life of every good man and the life of every bad man, the life of a\nteetotaller and the life of a drunkard, a life of love and a life of\nhatred, a life of forgiveness and a life of revenge, a life of truth,\njustice, and purity, and a life of falsehood, injustice, and impurity,\nthe life of Jesus and the life of Napoleon,\u2014who can determine to what\nextent all these have been, are, or will be, controlled by birthright\ntendencies, and by influences that, before they were born, bore upon\nthose who live these lives? Certain it is that, to a great extent, the\ndiseases, sufferings, and premature deaths, and many of the individual,\nsocial, governmental, and ecclesiastical thefts, robberies, and murders,\ncommitted in the post-natal state of our being, are but the natural, if\nnot the necessary results of these ante-natal organic and constitutional\nconditions and tendencies.\n\nTo all Husbands and Wives, to all Fathers and Mothers, and to all who\nhope to enter into these most ennobling and most potent of all human\nrelations, are the following pages earnestly commended, by\n\n                                                             THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\n                          INTRODUCTORY LETTER.\n                     A Husband to Henry C. Wright.\n\n\n                                               BOSTON, January 10, 1857.\n\n MY DEAR FRIEND:\n\nIt is twenty years since I first heard you discourse on the Mission and\nRelation of the Sexes. You stated then, in substance, that the sexes had\npower, each over the other, to save or to destroy; that all rational\nhope of the elevation and perfection of human nature must rest upon a\nknowledge of, and obedience to, the laws of Nature, designed to govern\nthose relations; that man must look to _generation_, rather than to\n_re_generation, to bring the race into perfect union and harmony with\nthe Divine; that no power could save either man or woman, in isolation\nfrom, or in false relations with, each other; and that if either sinks\nor rises, the other must follow.\n\nI was but a boy when I first heard you utter such sentiments. I did not\nthen understand their full import. They had not entered into the\nexperience of my inner or outer life. Yet I took the impression, that\nwoman would be to man just what he chose and had power to make her; and\nthat it depended on man to say whether woman should be to him a\npurifying and ennobling influence, or a source of degradation and ruin.\n\nFrom that time I had a desire, so far as woman is concerned, to place\nmyself in such relations to her, that her influence on my life might be\npure and ennobling. I have studied to get clear and definite views of my\nnature and needs as a man, and how woman can most perfectly accomplish\nher mission of love and salvation to me.\n\nI am now a husband; made so, not by any enactment, ceremony or license\nof Church or State (though my marriage is placed upon record, as an\nhistorical fact); nor by the consent of any third party; nor by any\nformal contract or bargain between me and the woman to whom I hold this\nrelation; but by a law or necessity of my being; by a power, unseen, but\never present, and ever potent to guide, like that which binds the needle\nto the pole, or the soul to God.\n\nAll that qualifies me to be a husband and a father, I have consecrated\nto the development and happiness of my wife, and of the children who may\nresult from our union. I have done this, not because she demands it as\nher right, but solely because I find in myself a necessity for so doing.\nShe make no demands on me as a right; she asks of me only what I feel\nthe necessity of giving. My love for her gives me no rights over her\nproperty, her person, or her affections. It makes no demands on her, as\na right, but it makes great demands on my own manhood. True conjugal\nlove never creates rights over the loved one, but necessities in the one\nwho loves. This necessity is laid upon me, not by any arbitrary decree\nof Church or State, but solely by the concentrated, exclusive love,\nwhich, as a husband, I bear to my wife. The purity and dignity of my\nnature are involved in my yielding to this necessity.\n\nI would consecrate my manhood to the perfection and happiness of my\nwife, and of the children who may be born of our union, in the home\nwhich, by our united efforts, we hope to create. Your conversation with\nme, as a boy and a youth, and your counsel, have been invaluable in the\nregulation of my life in my relations with women. I have read your work,\nentitled \u201cMARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE; or, the Reproductive Element in Man as\na Means of his Elevation and Happiness.\u201d To us, in the home of our love,\nyour teachings will ever be as divine oracles, to regulate our relations\nas husband and wife. We would embody in our lives your \u201cERNEST\u201d and\n\u201cNINA,\u201d especially in regard to parentage, and the relation that leads\nto it; believing that those who do actualize that ideal husband and\nwife, cannot fail to receive a divine reward, in an ever-growing and an\never-ennobling love and trust. To that husband who shall embody your\nErnest, the love, the respect and trust of his wife, will be as the sun\nand dew of heaven to the opening buds of spring; they will expand and\nbeautify his manly soul, and cause his manhood to give out all its\nbeauty and fragrance, and shed a bright and steady light on the pathway\nof his wife, and bring enduring rest to her heart in the home of her\nwedded love. We would live in and for each other, and in and for our\noffspring. We would be represented in the great human family by those\nwhom we shall be proud to call our children, and whom all of human kind\nshall feel honored to recognize as brothers and sisters. We would not\nsee our nature degraded, nor our glory tarnished, in ourselves or our\nposterity, but we would see that glory made brighter, and that nature\nmore noble.\n\nI know that on the government of my passional relations with my wife\ndepends her health and life of body and soul, the health of our\nchildren, and the beauty and happiness of our home. I know, if she ever\nis made to fear my passion, and to shrink from the personal intimacies\nof her husband, home, from that hour, becomes desolate and repulsive, no\nmatter what may be the natural or artistic elegance of our material\nsurroundings. I know that in proportion as she cherishes a loving and\ntrusting respect for all that constitutes me a man, will she lovingly\nand calmly rest in the bosom of her husband; and that the most sacred\nsanctuary of our home, instead of being an altar of cruel and merciless\nsacrifice of her health and life, will be a fountain of eternal life and\npeace to us both,\u2014a temple consecrated to all true manifestations of an\nunselfish conjugal and parental love.\n\nI feel the responsibility that rests upon me. I would have my wife\nassociate my manhood with her own purity, and not with my selfish\ngratification. I would have her assured that my nature, as a man, is\nunder the control of conscience and reason, and held in subjection to\nher perfect development, and that of our children. I would be an\nunselfish, noble husband, and a true and happy father; a husband and\nfather who can stand in the pride and dignity of conscious nobility\nbefore his wife and children. I would be a MAN; one whose soul,\nvitalized and ennobled by the presence and power of conjugal and\npaternal love, shall never cower before its own consciousness, nor in\nthe presence of its God.\n\nIf you can give me your thoughts and feelings in regard to parentage,\nand the relation that leads to it, you will confer a favor on one whose\nlove and respect for you will never end.\n\n                                                      Yours,\n                                                              A HUSBAND.\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                    CRIME OF AN UNDESIRED MATERNITY\n\n                         Letters to a Husband.\n\n\n\n\n                               LETTER I.\n                   THE MOTHER\u2019S POWER OVER HER CHILD.\n\n\n MY FRIEND:\n\nI have read your letter with deep interest. Your inquiries respecting\nthe mission of the sexes, and the government of your passional relations\nwith your wife, seem right and proper, and what every man, who would\nsecure and perpetuate the love and respect of his wife, and the purity\nand happiness of his home, will make, and on which, above all other\nsubjects, he will seek for light. They shall receive frank and candid\nanswers, so far as I can give them. I thank you for proposing them, as,\nin answering, I shall take occasion to give my views on a subject which,\nof all others, most directly concerns the organization and development,\nthe character and destiny of the men and women of the future, and which\ninvolves the purity and peace of home, and the growth and prosperity of\nsociety.\n\nHere let me say, that on no subject should a man and woman, as they are\nbeing attracted into conjugal relations, be more open and truthful with\neach other than on this. No woman, who would save herself and the man\nshe loves from a desecrated and wretched home, should enter into the\nphysical relations of marriage with a man until she understands what he\nexpects of her as to the function of maternity, and the relation that\nleads to it. If a woman is made aware that the man who would win her as\na wife regards her and the marriage relation only as the means of a\nlegalized gratification of his passions, and she sees fit to live with\nhim as a wife, with such a prospect before her, she must take the\nconsequences of a course so degrading and so shameless. If she sees fit\nto make an offering of her body and soul on the altar of her husband\u2019s\nsensuality, she must do it; but she has a right to know to what base\nuses her womanhood is to be put; and it is due to her, as well as to\nhimself, that he should tell her beforehand precisely what he wants and\nexpects of her.\n\nToo frequently man shrinks from all allusion, during courtship, to his\nexpectations in regard to future passional relations. He fears to speak\nof them, lest he should shock and repel the woman he would win as a\nwife. Being conscious, it may be, of an intention to use the power he\nmay acquire over her person for his own gratification, he shuns all\ninterchange of views with her, lest she should divine the hidden\nsensualism of his soul, and his intention to victimize her person to it,\nthe moment he shall get the license. A woman had better die at once than\nenter into or continue in marriage with a man whose highest conception\nof the relation is, that it is a means of licensed animal indulgence. In\nsuch a relation, body and soul are sacrificed. \u201cLet there be light\u201d as\nto what constitutes a natural, divine parentage!\n\nI shall not, in answering your queries, attempt to point out minutely\nwhat I think to be the fixed laws of human nature for the government of\nhuman parentage. I have some things to say to you, and to all who are,\nor hope to be, husbands, respecting the _crime of an undesigned and an\nundesired Maternity_. From what I shall say on this subject, it may be\nthat you will get some hints as to the regulation of your passional\nrelations with your wife.\n\nYou are a husband; you hope to be a father, and to make for yourself,\nyour wife and children, a pure and happy home, where perfect freedom,\nperfect love and trust shall dwell, and where your entire nature shall\nexpand and be perfected in all purity and nobleness. You would elevate\nand perfect the nature you bear in yourself and in your children. This\nyou hope to do, not through your relations to Church or State, but\nthrough your relations as a husband and father, and by obedience to\nthose laws of Nature which are designed to control your life in those\nrelations. As compared with the question of _the right use of the\nreproductive element_,\u2014its bearing on the growth, elevation and\nhappiness of your entire being, in this and in all states of your\npresent and future existence,\u2014all questions of wealth, of reputation, of\nreligion, and government, sink into insignificance. Your treatment of\nyour wife in regard to Maternity, and to the relation from which it\nresults, must shape your destiny and hers, at home and abroad. How can\nyou respect yourself, knowing that your disregard of her rights, in\nreference to this most sacred function, has destroyed all respect for\nyou in the heart of your wife?\n\nMATERNITY is the subject under consideration. Ought it ever to exist\nexcept at the desire of the woman, and when her nature calls for it? Can\nit be right for man to impose on her this most sublime and overwhelming\nof all human responsibilities, when her nature recoils from the burden?\nShe is not prepared to take charge of the germ of a new life, and to\nmeet the suffering and the responsibility of developing and giving birth\nto a child, if her body and soul shrink from it. Under such\ncircumstances, can it be right for man to urge on her a suffering and\nresponsibility so much dreaded, or subject her to the possibility of a\nmaternity against which her soul so earnestly protests?\n\nIt may be asked,\u2014Why confine the discussion to _Maternity_? Why not look\nat the broad question of _Parentage_, and include the responsibility of\nthe father, as well as of the mother? For the reason, that Maternity\nholds a far more intimate relation to the organization and character\nthan Paternity. The mother has a more direct control over human destiny\nthan the father. Woman is far more liable than man to suffer deep and\nenduring wrong in the office of perpetuating the race. Man, as will be\nshown, is generally the wrong-doer, when wrong exists; to woman belong\nthe suffering and anguish. Woman is the victim; on man rests the\nresponsibility. Woman\u2019s appeal is to man to spare her this suffering and\nanguish, except when her nature calls, and then will she, for his sake\nand her own, joyfully meet and bear the cross. It is meet that woman\u2019s\nappeal should be sustained. I wish to sustain it; and in so doing, while\nmy remarks will bear mainly on Maternity, Paternity will necessarily\ncome under review. Maternity, when a crime, suggests the questions, Who\nis the criminal? To what extent is he responsible for the consequences?\nSo, in fact, the whole subject of Parentage is open, as involving the\nconduct and responsibility of both parents.\n\nBut, before proceeding to consider this wrong and outrage upon woman,\nand its influence on her, I wish to allude to two facts bearing directly\non the subject.\n\n1. _That which forms the body and soul of the child must come to it,\nprevious to birth, through the maternal organism._\n\nPause, my friend, and contemplate this fact, in its bearing on the\nbirthright tendencies, the character and destiny, of your child. You and\nyour wife wish to have a child. She prepares herself cheerfully and\nbravely to bear the sufferings and responsibilities of Maternity. The\ngerm, so small when she takes charge of it, in a brief space assumes the\nform of a human being, and is increased in size and in weight hundreds\nof thousands of times.\n\nHow did the substance reach it which constituted its growth? Every\nparticle of matter that reaches it to form its brain, its nerves, its\nheart, its lungs, its blood, its bones and sinews, was prepared in the\nmaternal organism, and was carried to it through the medium of her\nblood. Whatever is received into her system, in the shape of food,\ndrink, air, and various gases, and which goes to nourish her brain,\nheart, nerves, and other organs, and keep them in healthful activity,\nmust go to form the corresponding portions of the child\u2019s body. The\nmaterial that nourishes the brain of the mother forms, from the\nbeginning, the brain of the child; that which nourishes the lungs and\nnerves of the mother forms also the lungs and nerves of the child. So of\nevery organ and portion of the body. From whatever the mother takes into\nher system must come the body and soul of her child.\n\n2. _This substance, as it passes through the maternal system, must\nreceive the impress of her mental and physical conditions._\n\nPonder this fact, see its bearing on the character and destiny of your\nchild, of all children, and of the race, and see if its importance can\nbe over-estimated. That it is a fact, in the science of Embryology and\nF\u0153tal Development, is not denied. Whatever _temporarily_ affects the\nmaternal blood, must _permanently_ affect the organic conditions and\nconstitutional tendencies, and of course the post-natal character and\ndestiny, of the child. This is much insisted on by writers on the laws\nand function of reproduction. Thus Carpenter, in his \u201cPrinciples of\nHuman Physiology,\u201d says: \u201cThat many of the organic functions are\ndirectly influenced by the nervous system, is a matter which does not\nadmit of dispute,\u2014sometimes in exciting, sometimes in checking, and\nsometimes in otherwise modifying them.\u201d\u2014(Sec. 946.)\n\nWhatever, then, affects the nervous system, affects the organic\nfunctions. That the nervous system is deeply affected by the kind and\nquality of our food and drink, and by mental impressions, cannot be\ndoubted. Witness the influence of tea, alcohol, opium, tobacco, and\nvarious kinds of food, on the nerves, and also of anger, grief, revenge,\nfear, love, hate, &c. As Carpenter says, \u201cThe influence of particular\nconditions of the mind in exciting various secretions is a matter of\ndaily experience.\u201d He instances the increased secretion and flow of\nsaliva by the idea of food, the secretion and flow of tears by joy,\ntenderness, or grief, and the influence of the love of offspring on the\nmammary secretions.\n\n\u201cThe sexual secretions,\u201d he says, \u201care strongly influenced by the\nconditions of the mind;\u201d instancing the effects of a \u201cfitful temper,\u201d\n\u201cfits of anger,\u201d \u201cgrief,\u201d \u201canxiety of mind,\u201d \u201cfear,\u201d \u201cterror,\u201d on the\nmammary secretions, and showing that these emotions often so poison the\nmother\u2019s milk as permanently to affect the health, and sometimes destroy\nthe life of the nursing child.\u2014(Sec. 948.)\n\nWeigh well the following sentiments of Carpenter: \u201cThat the mental state\nof the mother can produce important alterations in her own blood, seems\ndemonstrated by the considerations previously adduced in regard to its\neffects upon the process of nutrition and secretion, and that such\nalterations are _sufficient to determine modifications in the\ndevelopmental processes of the embryo_, TO WHICH HER BLOOD FURNISHES THE\nMATERIAL, can scarcely admit a question, when we recollect what\ninfluence the presence or absence of particular substances has in\nmodifying the growth of parts of the adult.\u201d In regard to cases where\nchildren are marked before birth, he says: \u201cThe effect must be produced\nupon the maternal blood, and _transmitted through it to the f\u0153tus_,\nsince there is no nervous communication between the parent and\noffspring.\u201d\n\nOn every hand, life is full of facts illustrative of the influence of\nthe mental and physical conditions of the mother on the organic\nstructure and constitutional tendencies of the body and soul of her\nunborn child. As the maternal blood is healthfully or otherwise affected\nby what she eats and drinks, and by her mental conditions, so will the\norganization of her child be healthful or diseased. If the mass of blood\nfrom which the f\u0153tus is nourished and receives its material for growth\nis filled with disease, from any cause, the child must be similarly\naffected.\n\nThis is a fearful fact, when viewed in its bearing on the post-natal\nhealth and happiness of the child, and on the character and destiny of\nthe human family. One can scarcely avoid the query, Is it just to place\nthe destiny of one human being so entirely in the power of another? The\npower of the mother over her child, previous to birth, is absolute.\nThrough what she eats and drinks, during gestation, she can fix the\norganic and constitutional tendencies of her child to health or disease,\nto good or evil, to happiness or misery, and thus control its character\nand destiny after it is born, during its infancy, childhood, youth and\nmanhood. Not only through the character of what she eats and drinks, but\nthrough her _mental_ emotions and conditions, through her amusements,\nher anxieties, her joys, her sorrows, her loves and hates, her\nexaltation and depression, her hopes and fears, can she affect the\nbirthright physical and spiritual tendencies of her child, and thus\ncontrol its destiny. She may doom her child to drunkenness, to lying, to\nrevenge, and make him or her a thief, a liar, a drunkard, a glutton, a\nmiser, a warrior, a slaveholder, a robber, a murderer, a pirate, or an\nassassin, before its birth, and while it is all unconscious of the doom\nwhich the mother is preparing for it, and totally incapable of resisting\nthe fatal influence that is shaping its destiny.\n\nThe mother has a fearful power. It is absolute for good or evil.\nTerrible is the doom of that child whose organization and development,\nbefore birth, were controlled by the mother\u2019s ignorance, folly, or\nhatred. Emphatically, as she is true to herself, she is true to her\nunborn child. It seems a mystery that the character and destiny of a\nhuman being should so materially depend on the food, drink, thoughts,\nfeelings and passions of the mother during that brief period; but such\nis the fact, and we can only bow in silence to the fiat of God, being\nassured that whatever power the mother has for evil, she has the same\nfor good; and that the question whether she shall use that power for\ngood or evil over her child is one which may be settled mainly, if not\nsolely, by the father, as will hereafter be shown. I will only say here,\nthat the answer to the question, Will the mother use her power over her\nchild for good or for evil? depends on the answer to a previous\nquestion\u2014Is her maternity a willing or unwilling one? This question it\nis generally in the power of the husband and father to answer.\n\nNow, my friend, contemplate the bearing of these two facts on the\npost-natal character and destiny of your child. The germ is placed in\nthe maternal system, there to be nourished and to be developed through\nthe substances conveyed to it by the maternal blood. Whatever the mother\neats and drinks directly affects the nutrition and organization of her\nchild. Whatever thoughts, feelings and passions agitate her mind, leave\ntheir traces on that which goes to form its body and soul. How\nimportant, then, to the health, character and happiness, of the future\nman or woman, that the mother, during gestation, should receive into her\nsystem only the purest and most healthful food and drink, and into her\nmind only bright, cheerful, happy, peaceful thoughts and feelings! To\nher husband, woman looks for sympathy and support to enable her truly\nand bravely to meet this great demand upon her nature. She should be\nencircled by a tender, consecrating love. To the father of her child she\nlooks for this. Shall she look in vain, or be left to bear the cross\nalone?\n\n                                                    Thine,\n                                                        HENRY C. WRIGHT.\n\n\n\n\n                               LETTER II.\n THE CRIME AGAINST THE MOTHER.\u2014HOW IT AFFECTS HER TOWARDS THE FATHER OF\n                               HER CHILD.\n\n\nMY FRIEND:\n\nBefore considering the wrong done to the mother, I would state two\npoints which I shall take for granted:\n\n1. That parents, alone, are responsible for the _existence_ of their\nchildren.\n\n2. That woman, alone, has a right to say when, and under what\ncircumstances, she shall assume the office of maternity, or subject\nherself to the _liability_ of becoming a mother.\n\nThese two positions seem to me so self-evident, that no arguments can\nmake them more clear and certain. Who is responsible for the _existence_\nof children, God or the parents? Who shall say how many children a woman\nshall have, and under what circumstances she shall have them, the wife\nor the husband? Who shall say how often, for what purposes, and under\nwhat conditions, the wife shall subject her person to a relation which\nrenders her _liable_ to become a mother, and to the suffering and\nanguish of developing and giving birth to a child? To ask these\nquestions is to answer them. Nature makes but one reply, and that will\nbe found in the consciousness of every true husband and wife, and father\nand mother.\n\nWhat is the influence of an undesired maternity on the mother, in regard\nto the father of her child? is my first inquiry. What is it? It is felt,\nbut seldom spoken. It cannot be expressed in words, as it is felt in the\nheart.\n\nA woman comes into the relation of a legal wife. At once, it may be, the\nhusband reveals himself to her in a way she did not anticipate, and she\nis made to know what he expects of her, and for what he married her. She\nyields her person to his passion, not in obedience to a call in her own\nnature, but because she thinks that such is the right conferred by law\nand custom on the husband over the wife. She has, it may be, been duly\ntaught that the only way to secure and strengthen his love is to yield\nto his passion, whenever it demands indulgence. So she yields, and\nbefore she is aware, and before her mind is prepared to meet them, the\nresponsibilities, anxieties and sufferings of maternity are upon her.\nGrief, anguish, and a dread of some unknown, but terrible suffering,\noverwhelm her. Consternation seizes the heart, so recently buoyant with\nthe hopes and joys of a loving and trusting bride.\n\nHow will this new and dreaded experience affect her mind towards her\nhusband and the father of her child? As a lover, he had been so gentle,\nso delicate, and so considerate of her slightest wish, so thoughtful of\nher happiness, and so unwilling to say or do anything to grieve her\nspirit; as a bridegroom, he had promised to love and cherish her as his\nown soul; and she fondly trusted that no wrong or suffering would ever\nreach her through him; when, behold! in the very beginning of their\nunited life, and before, physically or mentally, she was prepared to\nmeet the great demand, he has imposed on her the necessity of yielding\nup her body and soul to the keenest suffering to which she can be\nsubjected; and that without consulting her wishes, and contrary, it may\nbe, to her earnest prayer. As she ponders on her situation, and the\nexperience through which she must pass, and from which death to herself,\nor her child, or to both, is the only door of escape, how must she feel\ntowards him who has placed her in this fearful condition? He has\nsubjected her to the necessity, for weary months, of drinking the\nbitterest cup of life, and of passing through the valley and shadow of\ndeath, heart-sick, desponding and shrinking from the final result; and\nall this, not because she wished to be a mother, or he a father, nor\nthat they might blend their bodies and souls in a new and beautiful\nlife, to be an honor to themselves and the world,\u2014no such motive\nprompted the relation in which conception originated; but solely his\nmomentary gratification. She feels that his indulgence was had at her\nexpense. No conscious pride and sense of matronly dignity, no high and\nnoble aspirations, sustain her, as she reflects on her condition. Can\nshe continue to love and respect him? He has done her the greatest\nwrong. He heeded not her prayers that he would control his passion, and\nspare her until she was ready joyfully to enter upon an office so grand\nin its nature, and so sublime in its bearing on the destiny of an\nimmortal soul. To meet the responsibilities of such an office, and the\nphysical and mental pain and anguish necessarily pertaining to it, what\nwoman but needs a preparation? Who is sufficient for these things? Yet\nthe dread liabilities are upon her, without a moment\u2019s warning, and\nwithout, it may be, any interchange of thoughts and feelings with her\nhusband and the father of her child. She knows not even that he wants a\nchild, nor whether he will receive it with a blessing or a curse. She\nknows not what heart-support she will receive from him in the moment of\nher trial and her anguish. He has had no conversation with her on these\nsubjects, and given her no assurance as to the natural results to her of\nhis passional relations with her; expressed no anxiety, no expectations,\nno hopes, as to her liability to become a mother. He has had no further\nwish or anxiety, except for his own selfish gratification. He has, it\nmay be, avoided, as indelicate and improper, all allusion to questions\nso vital to the life and happiness of his newly-wedded wife. All she has\nto rest upon is the indefinite assurance, given before God and man, that\nhe will cherish, protect and care for her. _Why_ he promised to protect\nand care for her, whether as a mere means of sensual gratification, or\nfor holier and more exalted purposes, she has no assurance. Not one\nword, it may be, has he ever spoken to her respecting the motives that\nhave prompted him to seek her as a wife. O, woman! woman! how dare you\nenter into such a relation with a man, without knowing what he expects\nof you?\n\nThe wife, in such a situation, cannot cherish loving and tender thoughts\nof her husband when absent, nor receive his caresses with rapture when\npresent. She bears in herself the result of the wrong he has inflicted\non her. It is ever present to her thoughts and emotions. She cannot\nescape from it but by an outrage on herself and child; and as, in her\nmoments of solitary suffering and anguish, she reflects on her\ncondition, and why she must endure them, how can she regard the author\nof them with loving respect? The sense of the wrong done her is ever\npresent,\u2014can she tenderly cherish the wrong-doer, especially when he\ncontinues to demand of her a constant renewal of the relation in which\nher present afflictions and forebodings of future sorrows originated?\nShe cannot; for he, by inflicting on her a maternity which her own soul\ncannot sanction, and from which, perhaps, she shrinks with horror, has\nrendered himself unworthy of her love and respect.\n\nIt is in vain to urge a woman thus situated to love and honor her\nhusband. At no command of God or man can she, as a wife, love and\ncherish him. Indeed, no wife can love her husband at the word of\ncommand. If she loves him at all, it is because she must, not because\nshe is ordered to do it. Her love will flow out to him as a necessity of\nher being, not by the command of a third party. If he has no power to\ncall it out and concentrate it on himself, it will not go out to him.\nNothing can force it out. She is not to blame if she does not love him.\nShe gives him all he has power to awaken and call out,\u2014all the love he\nhas power to take; more he has no right to ask, more she cannot give.\nHer love for him will correspond to his lovableness in her eyes; he will\nseek to render himself lovable to her, just in proportion to the value\nhe sets on her love. Expect no love from a woman because she is your\nlegal wife. The legal bond can impose on her no obligation to love you;\nand if it did, she cannot love you, if your person and your passion\nbecome disgusting to her.\n\nWould you, my friend, increase and perpetuate the love and respect of\nyour wife? Then beware how you demean yourself towards her in regard to\nmaternity, and the relation that may, at any time, result in it. To a\ntrue woman and a loving wife, maternity, and the passional expressions\nof her husband, must ever be ennobling, or degrading. It is for him to\nsay which they shall be. It is for you to say whether, as the father of\nher child, you shall seem to your wife altogether pure, noble and\nattractive, or selfish, ignoble and repulsive. You must determine\nwhether the mother of your child shall see in you a generous, tender,\nkingly husband, all-worthy to be the father of her child, and to rule\nover the empire of her heart, or a mean, merciless tyrant, having no\npurer or higher aim, in your relations with her, than that of animal\nindulgence, and whom it is impossible to respect. It is for you to say\nto what extent, and how long, she shall love and respect you. She must\nlove and honor you, if you seem to her to be worthy; she cannot, if you\nseem otherwise. How can you thus seem, when she is made to feel that for\nyour gratification, and against her earnest appeal to you, as a man and\nhusband, you have imposed on her a burden which she feels unable and\nunwilling to bear?\n\nMaternity, when it exists at the call of the wife, and is gratefully\nreceived, but binds her heart more tenderly and devotedly to her\nhusband. As the father of her child, he stands before her invested with\nnew beauty and dignity. In receiving from him the germ of a new life,\nshe receives that which she feels is to add new beauty and glory to her\nas a woman,\u2014new grace and attraction to her as a wife. She loves and\nhonors him, because he has crowned her with the glory of a mother.\nMaternity, to her, instead of being repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a\ncrown of rejoicing, and deep, tender, and self-forgetting are her love\nand reverence for him who has placed it on her brow. How noble, how\naugust, how beautiful, is Maternity, when thus bestowed and received!\n\nBut, in proportion as it is holy and ennobling when designedly conferred\nand joyfully received, is it unholy and debasing, when undesigned and\nundesired. In proportion as a mother\u2019s heart overflows with tender\ngratitude and loving reverence towards the father of her child, when\nthat child comes in answer to the call of her womanly and wifely nature,\nwill it be filled with aversion to the father of a child which she did\nnot want, and which she is conscious is the result of a relation sought\nonly for a sensual purpose.\n\nMany wives become indifferent to, or positively and forever alienated\nfrom, their husbands, from this cause. Nothing will so surely and so\nirrevocably destroy the love of a wife for a husband, as a disregard, on\nhis part, of her feelings and wishes in regard to Maternity, and to the\nrelation from which it comes. In nothing are husbands (through\nignorance, I would fain think) so unmindful of the entreaties and wants\nof their wives, as in these respects. They often demand the surrender of\ntheir persons without any inquiry into their feelings and conditions;\nconsequently, before they are aware, the very life of God in their\nhearts,\u2014that is, their love and respect for their husbands,\u2014is crushed\nout of them. No wonder, when we consider what liabilities, what a sense\nof self-degradation, and what a shrinking of soul, are involved, to a\ntrue woman, in a surrender of her person to mere sensual passion, and to\na maternity so dreaded. On the contrary, how certainly and how\npermanently a husband will secure the love and respect of his wife, and\nher perfect trust, when he so treats her as to make her feel secure that\nshe is never to become a mother till her own nature calls for it; and\nwhen, knowing his own nature, he can assure her that he shall never\nsubject her to the possibility of that suffering till she is able and\nwilling to bear it!\n\nWhen a woman once feels that the power of her husband is controlled by a\ntender love and reverence for her, and a desire to subject it to her\ngrowth and happiness, rather than to promote his own selfish ends, she\nrests in his bosom knowing no fear, assured that this very passion will\nbut intensify the holy love that encircles her. When all fear of his\npassion is gone, her love and trust are perfected. But let the fear of\nthat once settle on her heart, and her love is gone. Love and respect\nfor the husband cannot exist in the heart of the wife simultaneously\nwith a dread of his passion.\n\nWould you, then, secure the love and trust of your wife, and become an\nobject of her ever-growing tenderness and reverence, never impose on her\na maternity which her nature does not sanction; neither subject her to\nthe _possibility_ of enduring the suffering incident to such a\nsituation. Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect\nrespect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be in\nsubjection to her wishes, and that she will never be made to endure the\ntrials of maternity, except at the call of her own soul. How tenderly\nand reverently would she, under such an assurance, regard your physical,\nas well as your mental and spiritual manhood!\n\nIt is not enough that you have secured, in the heart of your wife,\nrespect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To maintain your\nself-respect in your relations with her, to perfect your growth and\nhappiness as a husband, you must cause your _physical_ nature to be\ntenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the sacred intimacies of\nhome. No matter how much she reverences your intellectual, or your\nsocial power, if she shrinks with disgust from all contact with your\nperson, if by reason of your uncalled-for passional manifestations, you\nhave made your physical manhood disagreeable, and all personal contact\npainful, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly pride\nand dignity as a husband? You cannot, if you respect yourself.\n\nOne distinctive characteristic of a true and noble husband is a feeling\nof manly pride in the physical elements of his manhood. His physical\nmanhood, as well as his soul, is dear to the heart of his wife, because\nthrough this he can give the fullest expression to his manly power. But\nif such manifestations are made when the wife is not prepared to receive\nthem, and when she repels them and dreads the consequences, his physical\nnature becomes associated, not with the pure joy of a longed-for\nmaternity, but with a deep sense of shame and degradation, with an\noutrage on her nature, and with the protracted suffering and anguish of\nan abhorred maternity. How can she respect the person of her husband?\nHow can she cherish, and proudly care for, the purity, health and\ncomfort of his physical nature? He has made it disgusting to her. She\nregards it as the deadliest enemy of her purity and peace as a wife, and\nas the bane of her home. She cannot look upon his person but as the\nsource of her degradation and ruin. In its presence, she feels as in the\npresence of some hated reptile, from which her soul and senses shrink.\nHow can she lovingly cherish and care for it? How can the husband\nrespect himself, when by his own abuse of his wife and of himself, he\nhas made his physical manhood thus contemptible to her?\n\nHow can you, my friend, avoid this? How can you secure for your person\nthe loving care and respect of your wife? There is but one way; so\nmanifest yourself to her, in the hours of your most endearing\nintimacies, that all your manly power shall be associated only with all\nthat is generous, just and noble in you, and with purity, freedom and\nhappiness in her. Make her feel that all which constitutes you a man,\nand qualifies you to be her husband and the father of her children,\nbelongs to her, and is sacredly consecrated to the perfection and\nhappiness of her nature. Do this, and the happiness of your home is made\ncomplete in righteousness. Your _body_ will be lovingly and reverently\ncared for, because the wife of your bosom feels that it is the sacred\nsymbol through which a noble, manly love is ever speaking to her, to\ncheer and sustain her.\n\nWoman is ever proud, and justly so, of the manly passion of her husband,\nwhen she knows it is controlled by a love for her, whose manifestations\nhave regard only to her elevation and happiness. The very power which,\nwhen bent only on selfish indulgence, becomes a source of more shame,\ndegradation, disease and wretchedness, to women and to children, than\nall other things put together, does but ennoble her, add grace and glory\nto her being, and concentrate and vitalize the love that encircles her\nas a wife, when it is controlled by wisdom, and consecrated to her\nhighest growth and happiness, and that of her children. It lends\nenchantment to her person, and gives a fascination to her smiles, her\nwords and her caresses, which ever breathe of purity and of heaven, and\nmake her all lovely as a wife and mother to her husband and the father\nof her child. Manly passion is to the conjugal love of the wife like the\nsun to the rosebud, that opens its petals, and causes them to give out\ntheir sweetest fragrance, and to display their most delicate tints; or\nlike the frost, which chills and kills it ere it blossoms in its\nrichness and beauty.\n\nBeware, then, how you perpetrate this wrong against your wife, as you\nwould secure her love and respect. Trifle not with the function of\nMaternity in her; for as this comes to her as the crowning joy and glory\nof her earthly existence, or otherwise, will be her estimate of you as\nher husband and the father of her children. See to it that she is never\nsubjected to the possibility of becoming a mother unless she calls for\nit, and is ready with joy to assume the responsibilities of maternity.\n\nBut I will let woman tell her own story. She can speak on such a theme,\nand tell her own needs and wrongs, as no man can. The following extracts\nfrom a private letter will give you an insight into the wants and\nfeelings of a wife and mother in regard to this subject. When woman\nspeaks of her feelings while suffering an undesired maternity, let man\nreverently give heed to her words:\n\n  \u201cMy maternal experience has been varied. I have never been the\n  recipient of a _designed_ maternity, but I have that within me which\n  gives me an idea of what its joy and blessedness might be. I have\n  never been forced, with _entire_ repugnance on my part, into the\n  relation which resulted in conception; and yet I have suffered the\n  keenest agonies in view of such a result.\n\n  \u201cIn the first years of my married life, I had no thought but to submit\n  to the passion of my husband, without regard to the consequences to\n  myself. As every true woman does, living in conjugal relations, I\n  desired to be caressed by my husband, and to be pressed to his manly\n  bosom. I did not suppose it was incumbent on him to control himself.\n\n  \u201cIn an unwelcome maternity, I have _sometimes_ felt a deep repugnance\n  to the passion of my husband,\u2014a sense of deep suffering and anguish\n  through it; but I have usually been so encircled by love as to make me\n  forget this, or rather, shun such thoughts as sinful. But since my\n  husband and I have come to a truer knowledge of parentage, I have come\n  to \u2018love, honor and cherish\u2019 those functions which I had before only\n  feared and obeyed. I think this is not the feeling that married women\n  usually have towards the physical manhood of their husbands. I never\n  heard a woman admit that her thoughts rested on the physical nature of\n  her husband with loving respect and womanly pride: but I have heard,\n  not unfrequently, expressions of disgust instead.\n\n  \u201cI have known many instances in which the fathers of children,\n  unintentionally and unwillingly conceived, became so repulsive to the\n  mother, during gestation, that they would be made seriously ill by\n  coming in contact with them, in any way; though ordinarily they would\n  be agreeable and congenial.\n\n  \u201cI have heard many women say they would gladly strangle their\n  children, born of undesired maternity, at birth, could they do so with\n  safety to themselves. I believe, judging from a long and intimate\n  acquaintance with many mothers, and from much conversation with them\n  on this subject, that there are many children whose existence is\n  undesigned by their fathers and undesired by their mothers. Yet among\n  those heterogeneous and unnatural combinations called marriages, there\n  is enough love to produce some tolerable specimens of humanity; and\n  when there is any thing remarkable in development, there will be found\n  physiological and psychological conditions sufficient to produce it.\n\n  \u201cNo words can express the helplessness, the sense of personal\n  desecration, the despair, which sinks into the heart of woman when\n  forced to submit to maternity under adverse circumstances, and when\n  her own soul rejects it. It is no matter of wonder that abortions are\n  purposely procured; it is to me a matter of wonder that a single\n  child, undesignedly begotten and reluctantly conceived, is ever\n  suffered to mature in the organism of the mother. Her whole nature\n  repels it. How can she regard its ante-natal development but with\n  sorrow and shrinking?\n\n  \u201cSensitive as woman ever is at such periods, she rarely meets with any\n  special consideration; indeed, that very situation is too often made\n  the occasion for increased passional indulgence on the part of the\n  husband, or of neglect and contempt. Woman must have had, doubtless\n  has, a very large amount of what you call the God-element in her\n  nature, to enable her to do as well as she does in the function of\n  Maternity, under such debasing and depressing influences.\n\n  \u201cThe strength and energy of body and mind which were required properly\n  to develop and give birth to _one_ child, have been often taxed to\n  conceive and develop six or eight, or perhaps ten or twelve. Would it\n  not be well to study economy in the function of Parentage, as well as\n  in some other departments of domestic life?\n\n  \u201cThere are few, very few, wives and mothers who could not reveal a\n  sad, dark picture in their own experience, in their relations to their\n  husbands and their children. Maternity, and the relation in which it\n  originates, are thrust upon them by their husbands, often without\n  regard to their spiritual or physical conditions, and often in\n  contempt of their earnest and urgent entreaties. No joy comes to their\n  hearts at the conception and birth of their children, except that\n  which arises from the consciousness that they have survived the\n  sufferings wantonly and selfishly inflicted on them.\n\n  \u201cThere are facts enough illustrating the dire effects of an undesigned\n  and an undesired maternity to move the whole earth to sorrow and\n  repentance, if woman, as a wife and mother, dared give utterance to\n  the wrongs inflicted upon her and her children. The living\n  illustrations of woman\u2019s wrongs, inflicted on her in the holy of\n  holies of her home, by those who had promised to \u2018love, cherish and\n  protect\u2019 her, do now fill the earth. To the influences bearing on the\n  unborn babe, in consequence of the disregard, by the husband, of the\n  conditions and wishes of the wife in reference to maternity, and the\n  intercourse that leads to it, must we go to learn the causes of much\n  of the wrong and suffering of this world.\u201d\n\nWhen woman\u2019s rights in regard to Maternity, and to the relation that\nleads to it, are truly understood and appreciated by man, then, and not\nbefore, can marriage become what it was designed to be,\u2014a diadem of\nbeauty, a crown of glory, to the husband and wife, and \u201cthe power of God\nand the wisdom of God\u201d unto salvation to the generations of the future.\nHusbands! if you would secure the loving respect of your wives, you must\nreverently regard their protest against an undesired Maternity.\n\n                                                                H. C. W.\n\n\n\n\n                              LETTER III.\n                      THE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILD.\n\n\nDEAR FRIEND:\n\nIn my last, I showed, at some length, the crime of an undesired\nmaternity against the _mother_; how it affects her mind towards the\nfather of her child; how it tends to destroy all love and respect for\nhim, instead of increasing them; how it destroys her self-respect,\nstrips her of the conscious pride and dignity of a loved and loving\nwife, and reduces her to the feeling and condition of a degraded,\nself-condemned victim of legalized sensualism. She feels polluted,\ndegraded, outraged; and that, too, through the very function of her\nnature, which should have filled and thrilled her soul with conscious\npride and happiness.\n\nTHE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILD.\u2014Allow me now to direct your attention to\nthis. Let the child of an undesigned and unwilling maternity arise\nbefore your mind. Ponder what life is, and how it is affected by\nbirthright tendencies,\u2014physical, intellectual and spiritual; see what a\nstruggle it is, at best, and how difficult it is for those of the\nsoundest bodies and healthiest souls, happily and successfully to meet\nthe conflict. Call to mind the two great facts alluded to in a former\nletter, viz.: (1) That whatever comes to the child _before_ birth, must\ncome to it through the blood and organism of the mother. (2) That, as\nthis substance passes through her system, it must receive the impress of\nher physical and mental conditions. Whatever _temporarily_ affects her\nconditions, must _permanently_ affect the character and destiny of her\nchild.\n\nYou may grievously wrong your child, and subject it to physical and\nmental tendencies that may deeply affect its character and happiness,\nduring its earthly existence, by subjecting it to the liability of\ninheriting the unhealthy and imbecile conditions in which you and the\nmother may be, at the time the relation was held in which it originated.\nMere sensual gratification was the sole and single motive that prompted\nto the relation; and even in that, your wife had no part. Her heart, it\nmay be, not only prayed against conception, as a calamity more to be\ndreaded than death, but this very horror of the consequences\ndisqualified her to participate in the relation, when it was entirely\nmutual, and truly and rightly prompted. Her very soul shrank from it;\nand she submitted to it merely to gratify you, or because she had been\ntaught to believe it a duty incumbent on all women who enter the married\nrelation,\u2014a duty to which she _must_ submit, or be accounted a faithless\nwife,\u2014regardless of the wishes of her husband, and false to her\nobligations as a wife.\n\nDuty! Talk of _duty_ in such a relation! A _duty_ for a woman to submit\nto such a relation, when her own soul not only does not sanction, but\nloathes it! A _duty_ in a woman thus to lay her health, her\nself-respect, and her very womanhood, on the altar of legalized\nsensualism! A _duty_ to become a prostitute,\u2014a mere tool of her\nhusband\u2019s gratification! It is a horrid mockery! As well talk to her of\nher _duty_ to cut her throat! No man, but a sensualist, could ever\naccept the surrender of a woman\u2019s person in such relation, when he knows\nit is made without any call in her own nature, and merely to satisfy his\npassion.\n\nYour only object, it may be, in this relation, is _mere sensual\nindulgence_. Not one thought or care for the welfare of the child that\nmay ensue enters your mind. Consequently, you are utterly indifferent to\nyour physical or mental conditions, at the time. Your passion being\nexcited, your only aim is, its gratification. Your wife may be in a\nstate of utter prostration, physically and mentally,\u2014severe toil, deep\nanxiety, sad disappointment, or some torturing care, may have exhausted\nher energies, and reduced her to a state of imbecility, for the time\nbeing. Despite all this, she is liable to conception. You heed not her\nconditions nor her wishes, but demand indulgence, regardless of her\nhappiness or that of the child which may result therefrom. She submits,\nrather than contend. Maternity ensues. The mother imparts no vitality to\nthe child in its conception. It is conceived in weakness, is developed\nin joyless, lifeless imbecility, or intense anguish. It is born an\nidiot, or without sufficient vital force to develop it into life with\nthe ordinary energies and faculties of a man or woman.\n\nOn all hands, society is full of the victims of such a relation,\u2014of a\nmaternity forced on woman when, from various causes, body and soul are\nprostrated, and too destitute of vital energy even for the ordinary\ndemands of daily life; how much more destitute of that fulness and vigor\nof life, so necessary to the sublime and responsible act of true and\nhealthy conception! If ever the current of life should flow with deep,\nconcentrated, joyous energy in woman, it should be in the moment of\nconception, when she takes charge of the germ of a new and immortal\nlife, and enters upon the sublime and overwhelming responsibilities of\nmaternity. Then, indeed, she needs that all the energies of her\nwomanhood should be in most perfect and healthful activity; then, if\never, she should be filled \u201cwith all the fulness of God.\u201d\n\nBut not only are the vital forces of your wife exhausted by other labors\nand anxieties, but your own energies are, from various causes,\nprostrated. Yet, excited by some artificial stimulant, and when the\nvital forces of your manhood are powerless, you demand this relation\nwith your wife. Maternity is the result. What have you done for your\nchild? Imparted to it, not the true life and vigor of your manhood, but\nits momentary imbecility. Your child, it may be, is rendered imbecile in\nbody and idiotic in mind, solely through your fault. You exhausted your\nlife, and then gave that exhausted, soulless life to your child. You\nexercised no wise and manly forethought for your child. Its well-being\nentered not into your designs; only your own gratification. Hence, for\nyour child\u2019s sake, you used no exertions, by abstinence from exhausting\ntoil or enfeebling amusements and indulgences, to exalt and perfect your\nphysical and mental energies; but by debilitating pleasures, by\nsleepless nights, spent in pursuit of amusement, by dissipating games,\nand by exhausting indulgences in the use of narcotic and alcoholic\ndrugs, drinks and food, you are rendered imbecile to think, to feel, or\nto act. And these conditions you entail on your child as its birthright,\nlifelong, fearful legacy, from the effects of which no power can rescue\nit. Can you do a greater wrong to your child? Can you commit against it\na greater crime? A living death is its doom.\n\nWhen should man be a _living_ soul, if not in that relation in which he\noriginates a new immortal? In that moment, so replete with human\ndestiny, if ever, every nerve of his being should be filled and thrilled\nwith that creative energy, that concentrated, vitalizing power which\nsaid, \u201cLet there be light, and there was light;\u201d and which says of\ncreation, \u201cHe spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.\u201d\nSo man, in that moment of sublime consecration of his manhood to its\npurest and most august function, should have a great, energetic, living\nsoul, in a living body. He performs an act of deeper significance than\nthat which gave existence and glory to the sun and stars\u2014an act, from\nwhich is to arise a living soul, deathless as God in its being, and\ncapable of reaching unimaginable heights of wisdom and love.\n\nYour child has claims which you cannot, without injustice,\nignore,\u2014claims that reach beyond its birth, and even its conception. Its\nfirst claim is, to a _designed_ existence, if it is to exist at all.\nOnly in such an existence can it hope for a true and noble nature. Only\nin a relation, designed to give existence to a well-organized child, can\nyou exercise a true, rational, and tender forethought for your\noffspring. The offspring of a relation held merely for the gratification\nof one or both parents, of a mere chance maternity, how can it but\nreflect with sorrow and bitterness on the wrong of its parents? The\nchild, as it comes to years of reflection, feels degraded in its origin.\nNo lofty aspirations, no tender love, no animating hopes, no earnest\nprayer, no deep, holy longings, no vitalizing joy, no conscious pride\nand dignity, no God, presided over the relation in which it originated;\nbut shrinking disgust in one parent, and brutal sensuality, and\nindifference to its welfare, in the other. No _Gloria in Excelsis_ was\nsung by angels or men over its conception or birth; but sensualism,\nshame, anguish, and, it may be, curses deep and bitter, attended its\nentrance into life. What must a child, as it grows to maturity, think of\nan existence thus begun, and of those who could trifle with the deepest\nand most potent memories of the past in their offspring? Would you thus\nlive in the hearts of your children? If not, then do them not this foul\nwrong. On your part, let the existence of your child be a _designed_ and\na _longed-for_ existence. What proportion of cases of maternity result\nfrom a relation held with a view to the development of a child? Few,\nvery few, compared to the number born. The relation was held without any\nwish or design to have a child; but solely with a view to sensual\ngratification. Consequently, the child must inherit, to some extent, the\nconditions the parents happen to be in at the moment. The child is\nrobbed of a pure, true, thoughtful birthright, and is the offspring of\nreckless, selfish passion, rather than of a tender, anxious, thoughtful\nand far-seeing love. Never subject your wife to the possibility of a\nmaternity which, on your part, is undesigned, and, on her part,\nundesired. Your reward will be great and sure, in the ever-growing love\nand respect of your wife, in the healthful and harmonious organization\nand upward tendencies of your children, and in the consciousness of an\never-growing tenderness and nobleness of manhood in yourself.\n\nThe power of the mother over the child, after birth, is conceded to be\ngreat; what, then, must it be before? Who can estimate it? Reasoning\nfrom the facts I have stated, we should conclude it to be absolute, and\nwithout limit. For good or for evil, it must be great. The organic and\nconstitutional tendencies of body and soul to health or disease, to good\nor evil, are settled previous to birth. The character and destiny of the\nfuture man or woman depend, essentially, on those ante-natal tendencies.\nThese depend on the influences that are brought to bear on the child\nduring that period. Whatever agencies bear, injuriously or otherwise, on\nthe mother, must control the unborn child with greater and more\npermanent effect. What influence has an abhorred maternity on the\nconditions of the mother? It must be great; but great as it is, it is\nstill greater and more abiding on the child. Its _post-natal_ life will\nbe more affected by those ante-natal influences, than by all that are\nbrought to bear on it after its birth. The crime against the mother is\ngreat, but the crime against the child is greater, and more enduring and\nterrible in its consequences.\n\nWhen maternity is imposed on your wife without her consent, and contrary\nto her appeal, how will her mind necessarily be affected towards her\nchild? It was conceived in dread, and in bitterness of spirit. Every\nstage of its f\u0153tal development is watched with a feeling of settled\nrepugnance. In every step of its ante-natal progress, the child meets\nonly with grief and indignation in the mother. She would crush out its\nlife, if she could. She loathed its conception; she loathed it in every\nstage of its ante-natal development. She cannot love and cherish it, for\nnought, it may be, is associated with its existence, from the beginning,\nbut pain and sorrow. Tender, cherishing, vitalizing love does not\npreside over its conception and development, but grief and anguish.\nInstead of fixing her mind on devising ways and means for the healthful\nand happy organization and development of her child, before it is born,\nand for its post-natal comfort and support, her soul is intent on its\ndestruction, and her thoughts devise plans to kill it.\n\nIn this, how often is she aided by others! There are those, and they are\ncalled men and women, whose profession is to devise ways to kill\nchildren before they are born. Those who do this would not hesitate to\nkill them after they are born; for the state of mind that would justify\nand instigate _ante-natal_ child-murder, would justify and instigate\n_post-natal_ child-murder. Yet, public sentiment consigns the murderer\nof post-natal children to the dungeon or the gallows; while the\nmurderers of ante-natal children are often allowed to pass in society as\nhonest and honorable men and women.\n\nThe unwelcome child is ever before the mother. She regards it as a\nsacrilegious intruder into the domain of her life; an invader of the\nholy of holies of her being. She had never called for it; it was thrust\nupon her, as it were, by fraud and violence. Besides, it is the child of\none whom this very outrage has caused her to dread or despise. The child\nis ever present to her, not as a pledge of love, an answer to the\nearnest prayer of her wifely soul, as a source of living joy and\nennobling hopes; but as a witness of her shame and degradation, and of\nthe great wrong done her by its father, and by one whom she had loved\nand trusted, but to be betrayed. She meets her innocent, unconscious\nbabe, at every step of its ante-natal development, with a frown, and\nbeats it back with threats and weapons of death.\n\nWhat makes that mother feel so towards her unborn babe? It is to her an\n_unwelcome_ child. Maternity is thrust upon her before she is prepared\nfor it. Her body shrinks from the suffering it brings to her; her soul\nsanctions not, but abhors, its existence. God, speaking through the body\nand soul of that mother, frowns on its conception, its development, and\nits birth. Its mother, and the God of its mother, are conspiring against\nthe health, the happiness, the character and destiny, of the child, and\nof the future man or woman. How can that child, as it comes to man\u2019s or\nwoman\u2019s estate, possibly be in harmony with God or man? Elements of\nstrife were incorporated, by its father\u2019s agency, into its body and\nsoul, as its birthright inheritance.\n\nIt is vain to talk to her about cheerfully and joyfully submitting to\nher condition, and, for her child\u2019s sake, to give it a loving, joyous\nwelcome. She cannot, by an effort of will, nor by any course of\ndiscipline, nor from considerations of duty, compel her nature to\nacquiesce in such a wrong to herself and her child, and willingly and\njoyfully accept a maternity thrust upon her in contempt of her dearest\nand most sacred rights, and in opposition to her heart\u2019s appeals for\nmercy. She finds no call in her nature for a child; she cannot create it\nby an effort of will. She is not yet prepared, mentally or physically,\nto meet the sufferings and responsibilities of such a relation. She can\nno more force herself into giving a loving reception to that unwelcome\nchild, and to that undesired maternity, than she can force herself into\na true love and respect for the father of such a child, and the doer of\nthis wrong.\n\nJust so far as she was accessory to its conception, and a willing\npartner in the relation in which it originated, she is responsible, and\nworthy of condemnation; but she is not to blame for not joyfully\naccepting a maternity thrust upon her without her consent. As well blame\na woman for not loving and respecting a husband thrust upon her by\nparental, ecclesiastical, or civil authority, and from whom, by the\ninstincts of her nature, she is strongly repelled. As well blame the\nflower for shrinking from the mildew that blights it, or the dove for\nshrinking from the vulture that would rend it.\n\nWar is declared between that mother and her child before it is born; a\nwar that must be lasting as life,\u2014a deadly conflict, to which the\nhappiness, and, it may be, the life of the child must be victimized. No\nefforts of the mother of your child, after it is born, can make peace\nbetween her and her child, and obliterate from its mind all traces of\nthe wrong done to it before it was born. And this internal, organic\ndiscord, this war, must extend to you, the father, as well as to the\nmother. The mother cannot feel toward your child, thus originated, as\nshe would had her soul rejoiced in its conception, its development and\nbirth, with a pure, concentrated joy, which such a maternity alone can\nbring. After the child of an undesired maternity is born, pity for the\nhelpless babe, rather than a rapturous welcome to a longed-for treasure,\nprompts her to care for it,\u2014though facts demonstrate that a deadly hate\nin the mother\u2019s heart can pursue the offspring of such a maternity after\nit is born. Yet before it is born, but one feeling fills her soul,\u2014a\nfeeling of deep, settled hostility against its existence,\u2014a feeling that\nit has no right to be. Its existence is unsanctioned and unconsecrated\nby its mother. The child struggles into life against the spirit of\nmurder in her heart. Talk of a mother\u2019s joy over such a birth! It is\nblasphemy against Maternity.\n\nPause, my friend, and let your thoughts dwell on this subject. You would\nexalt and perfect human nature. You live but to people this earth with\nnobler types of men and women. It is the only true and great end of\nlife. If you would labor for this sublime object, pause and consider\nthis crime, in its bearing on the mother towards your child, and through\nher, on the character and destiny of that child. Enter into and\ncomprehend, if you can, the feelings which an undesired maternity must\nexcite in the mind of your wife towards your child. Measure, if you can,\nthe wrong done your child by giving it being under such circumstances.\nSee its helplessness, its innocence, and the crime you perpetrate\nagainst it. Can that child love and respect you? Can it ever forgive\nyou? Can it ever be reconciled to you? In vain you talk to such a child\nabout filial gratitude and obedience. It will answer by pointing you to\n_paternal_ wrong, inflicted on its helplessness. Disobedience,\ningratitude and defiance are constitutional,\u2014bred in its bones,\norganized into every fibre of its being.\n\nConsider well the power your wife holds over your child, and over its\ndestiny as a man or woman, and ask\u2014Shall that power be for good or evil?\nShall it be exerted to give your child a beautiful, healthy, vigorous\nbody, or a body corrupted and deformed by a painful and loathsome\ndisease? Shall it be used to secure to your child\u2019s soul tenderness,\ntruth, justice, generosity and nobleness, or wrath, revenge, meanness\nand falsehood?\u2014to impress on its moral nature the stamp of Divinity, or\nthe stamp of a thief, a slaveholder, a pirate, a murderer, or an\nassassin?\n\nIt is for you, the husband and father, to answer these questions.\n_Mainly_, if not entirely, you are to decide whether this great power\nshall be a blessing or a curse to your child. How? _Never impose on your\nwife a maternity, except at the call of her own nature._ When she is\nready to take charge of the germ of a new life, and can joyfully welcome\nthe responsibilities and trials of its development and birth, then, and\n_never till then_, impart it to her. Then will a tenderness ineffable, a\nlove that is all-hoping, all-enduring and all-pervading, and a joy\nunspeakable and full of glory, preside, like a wise and loving\nProvidence, over the conception, ante-natal growth and education, and\nthe birth of your child. A heart, tender, loving and vigilant as the\nheart of God, will watch over it for good. The perfection and happiness\nof your child will be the one controlling motive of her life, and\nwhether she eat or drink, labor or rest, or whatever she does, she will\ndo all to the glory of that priceless and most welcome charge you have\ncommitted to her care.\n\nHow ennobling, how imposing is Maternity, when thus bestowed and thus\naccepted! How sublime its responsibilities, how pure its joys! How\nheroic its sufferings, how august its martyrdom, when thus joyfully and\ncalmly endured! There is no heroism of earth so imposing, so sublime,\nand so full of glory, as that of Maternity, when joyfully accepted, and\nlovingly and calmly endured! No human act can be so potent and so\nlasting in its results. But no agony is so appalling as that of a\nMaternity from which the soul of woman shrinks with disgust and horror.\n\nThe character of individual and social man, and the destiny of the race,\nare wrapped up in Maternity. Shall a function so replete with suffering\nand responsibility be imposed on woman, against her prayers and her\ntears, merely for the momentary gratification of man? Manhood as well as\nwomanhood, cries out against the outrage. All that is true and noble in\nman says, \u201cForbear!\u201d Only that which is sensual, brutal, devilish, can\nperpetrate this wrong against the mother and child, or approve of it.\n\nWoman would find rest and fulness of joy in man. She rushes to him as to\nher tower of strength, to shelter and be sheltered to love and be loved,\nto bless and be blessed. A love that knows no fear, a trust that fears\nno danger, lay her in his bosom, and prompt to and consecrate the entire\nsurrender of her soul and body to his manly keeping. Will you call that\nman true, noble or honorable, who can take advantage of a love so pure\nand a trust so boundless, to impose on her a suffering and anguish, and\na responsibility, for which she is not prepared, and from which her soul\nshrinks; thus placing her in an unnatural position in regard to her\nchild, and thus outraging his own offspring, by giving it an existence\nloathed even by the mother who give it birth? What shall be said of the\nman who will commit a deed so atrocious? A husband he is not; he ignores\nthe first principles of a true and noble manhood. He is but a selfish,\ndisgusting sensualist. A father he is not, deserving tender and loving\nreverence from his wife, but an ANIMAL, whose brutal gratification is\nthe first law of life, and one whom neither mother nor child can\nrespect.\n\nBut I will reserve further remarks on this subject until my next letter.\n\n                                                    Thine,      H. C. W.\n\n\n\n\n                               LETTER IV.\n  THE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILD, AS AFFECTING ITS ANTE-NATAL EDUCATION.\n\n\nDEAR FRIEND:\n\nIn the preceding letter, I have shown how, and to what extent, a\nmaternity, undesigned by the father and undesired by the mother, affects\nthe organization, character and destiny, of the child. I wish to pursue\nthe question still further.\n\nLife is before you,\u2014a long and happy one, I trust. May it increase in\ngoodness and usefulness as it does in years! Your power is great, and\nwill be greater. Already the minds of thousands are deeply and\npermanently influenced by you. I know that MAN, and not institutions or\ndogmas, is the object of your devotion; that the all-controlling, ever\npresent sentiment of your life is, _the supremacy of man over his\nincidents_. I know that you reverence man, not his incidents. You feel,\nand in your life seek to embody the truth, that _man is eternal_, his\ninstitutions transient and ever-changing. Man is the great _fact_; his\nreligious, social, governmental, ecclesiastical, literary, monetary and\ncommercial surroundings are merely passing incidents of his existence,\nto be changed or cast away as suits his growth and convenience. Man is\nthe substance, all else the shadow. The appendages will be laid aside,\nbut man will live, deathless as God. You would never sacrifice man to\nhis incidents; the head to the hat, or the body to the coat,\u2014the\nenduring substance to the passing shadow.\n\nYou see and worship God in man, not in his incidents. In those relations\nwhich bear most directly and powerfully on the development, purity and\nnobility of your manhood, and on your character and destiny, you\nrecognize the most perfect manifestation of the Divine presence and\npower. In them, the great thinking intellect and pulsating heart of the\nuniverse,\u2014the God-element of Nature,\u2014speak to you as in nothing else.\n\nOf all your relations, which is most potent to develop your manhood, to\nunfold to yourself, and to all, the hidden wealth and depths of your\nbeing; to vitalize and call into manly activity all the powers of your\nphysical and intellectual nature? Your soul promptly answers, \u201cThat of\nthe HUSBAND and the FATHER.\u201d No man who has lived in those relations can\ndoubt the truth of your answer. God speaks to you through your wife and\nchild, as through no other being of the past or present. Through those\nloved ones, He, as it were, renders himself visible, audible, tangible\nto you, and you meet him and talk with him face to face. They are his\nnatural prophets and messiahs to you\u2014the media through which the\nGod-element of the universe flows into you, quickening and vitalizing,\nand arousing to energetic activity, all the powers of your manhood.\nThrough them, an influence is thrown upon and around you, which\nsilently, but surely, defines and shapes your plans of life, and\nquickens, expands, and ennobles your affections. In them, a PRESENCE is\never before you, whose beauty and brightness illuminate your pathway,\nand which is ever beckoning you onward and upward, and breathing into\nyour soul a desire and a daring to reach the sublimest height of purity\nand nobleness. In truth, you may say, in your wife and child are the\nhidings of God\u2019s power, to form your character and shape your destiny.\n\nWhat, then, so important to you, as a true knowledge and just\nappreciation of your relations as a husband and father? As a husband and\nfather, you can do more to elevate and perfect the human type, and to\nsave yourself, than you can in any other relation: political,\necclesiastical, commercial and social relations are insignificant, in\ncomparison. I know you live but to glorify the nature you bear, and to\nenjoy that glorified nature forever. Such being with you the chief end\nof existence, I ask you to weigh, with candor and earnestness, the\nfollowing observations on THE ANTE-NATAL EDUCATION AND HISTORY OF MAN. I\nhave long been accustomed to consider human beings in connection with\nthree states, and to think, speak and write on the comparative influence\nof these states on their character and destiny:\n\n1. The state preceding birth, which I am accustomed to call the\n_Ante-Natal_ state.\n\n2. The state between birth and death, or the embodied state.\n\n3. The state after death, or the disembodied state. The two last, the\n_Post-Natal_ spheres or states.\n\nReligion, government, education, commerce, agriculture, mechanics,\nliterature, the press, the convention,\u2014these hitherto, have confined\nattention, almost exclusively, to human life in its post-natal spheres,\nembodied or disembodied. They take up human beings, _after_ they are\nborn, and seek to do for them what they may to promote their welfare;\nand much of the doing consists in trying to undo what had been done for\nthem in the ante-natal state. To a great extent, in promoting the\neducation of children, this state has been ignored, as having no\nconnection with the character and destiny in the post-natal spheres.\n\nCome, my friend, go with me back to that which Church and State have\noverlooked, and view human beings between conception and birth. The\nperiod is brief; but is it not important? Is it powerless? Are no\ninfluences exerted and no events transpiring there, of sufficient moment\nto render them worthy attention, in considering the history and\nestimating the character of the individual man or woman, or of states\nand nations?\n\nMany years since, the conviction was settled in my mind, that that\nperiod, though so brief, and hidden from observation in the very holy of\nholies of the temple of life, has more to do in giving tone to our\nfeelings, intensity, activity and character to our passions and\nappetites, direction to our thoughts and plans, and in moulding our\ncharacter and shaping our destiny, in the post-natal spheres of our\nbeing, than all that is brought to bear on us after we are born. OUR\nANTE-NATAL HISTORY IS THE KEY TO OUR POST-NATAL LIFE. There is not a man\nor woman who is not a living witness to the truth of this assertion.\n\nI think it cannot be doubted, that much of the physical disease and\nsuffering, and much of the idiocy, insanity, and mental and moral\nobliquity of our post-natal, embodied state, is the result of our\nante-natal organization. Much, indeed, is done for us before the germs\nof our being leave the _paternal_ organism. They must, to a greater or\nless extent, receive the impress of the father\u2019s conditions of body and\nsoul; and he will do a service to the world who shall show to fathers\ntheir responsibilities in this matter. But _Maternity_ is the subject\nunder consideration; and in discussing this, my concern with the germ is\nafter the mother takes charge of it. _The period between conception and\nbirth_ is that to which I would call your attention.\n\nFrom a long and critical observation of facts, and a persevering effort\nto trace the physical, intellectual, social and spiritual conditions and\nphenomena of the individual and social lives of children and adults, in\nthe many thousands of families in which, for a longer or shorter time, I\nhave been an inmate, I long ago came to the conclusion, that to their\nANTE-NATAL EDUCATION, men and women are more beholden for their\nhealthful or diseased physical conditions, sufferings or enjoyments, and\nfor their mental and spiritual tendencies, their peculiarities of temper\nand disposition, their aptitudes to truth or falsehood, to justice or\ninjustice, to love or hate, to peace or war, to temperance or\ndrunkenness, to forgiveness or revenge, to sexual purity or impurity, to\nhappiness or misery, than to all the influences that are brought to bear\non them, after they are born, to whatever age they may attain. These\ntendencies, whether of body or soul, are mainly, if not entirely,\norganized as fixed facts of existence in the individual man or woman, in\ntheir ante-natal state. There is not a human being, there never was one,\nand never will be, whose whole life is not essentially, constantly, and\nin its minutest details instigated and directed, more or less, by\ngestational influences.\n\nIf this be so, where are we to look for the forming and controlling\ncauses of human character and destiny, and of physical, mental, and\nspiritual idiosyncrasies? Where shall we go to find the true foundations\nof biography and history, and the controlling elements of all religions\nand governments? Where go to find the mainsprings of war, slavery,\ndrunkenness, polygamy, licentiousness, and of all the sufferings,\nanguish and woes of marriage and domestic life, that arise from the\nabuse of the sexual element? Where go to find the cause of a repulsive\nand loathed maternity, and of the horrors to which it leads? Where,\nindeed, but to the germs of diseases, and the aptitudes to good or evil,\nthat were organized into the bodies and souls of men and women, as fixed\nfacts and elements of life, by influences that were brought to bear upon\nthem, through the maternal organism, between the periods of conception\nand birth?\n\nThis ante-natal education makes the man and woman, the Religion and\nGovernment, the Church and State, the social, educational, and\ncommercial customs and institutions; and whoever attempts to write the\nbiography of an individual, or the history of a Church or State, without\nreference to that education, and its controlling power over human\ncharacter and destiny, fails to present the whole truth. He fails to\ntrace effects to their causes, and must necessarily give a partial or\nperverted view of the phenomena of life.\n\n\u201c_Maxima debetur pueris reverentia._\u201d [The greatest reverence is due to\nchildhood.] Thus sang the Roman poet Juvenal, two thousand years ago.\nReverence childhood! If this be so important after the child is born,\nhow much more reverence is due to _ante-natal_ childhood? Be thy hands\nclean, thy robes spotless, thy looks, thy tones, thy mien, tender,\nsweet, loving, reverential, and thy heart filled and thrilled with pure\nworship, as thou enterest the temple of man\u2019s ante-natal life! With\nthese feelings, enter with me the very holy of holies of that temple,\nover which God spreads his wings of tenderest love and highest wisdom,\nas protecting cherubims and seraphims. Behold, there, the unconscious\nfuture man or woman, in a process of gestational organization and\ndevelopment, subjected to influences over which he or she has no\ncontrol, and receiving a physical, intellectual, social and spiritual\neducation that is to decide the character, for good or evil, for\nhappiness or misery, in the great future that is opening before them.\n\nSee what a future is wrapped up in that unconscious embryo man or woman!\nIt may be that the fates of states and empires are being inscribed, by\nsome unseen power, on that body and soul. Already that unformed child\nmay hold in its grasp the destinies of millions and of ages. But who is\nthe educator? Who guides the pen that is inscribing peace or war,\nliberty or slavery, life or death, to those millions and those ages, and\nthe scroll of destiny to states and kingdoms, to religions and\ngovernments on the soul of that unborn babe? THE MOTHER. Through her\nmust come every element essential to constitute the body and soul of\nthat child; and, as it passes through her system, it must receive the\nstamp of her physical, social and spiritual conditions.\n\nKeep in mind the great fact, that the mental states of the mother,\nduring gestation, must necessarily and permanently affect every particle\nof that substance which goes to make the organization and growth of her\nchild, for good or evil. Whatever injuriously affects her thoughts and\nfeelings, must permanently affect the physical, social, intellectual and\nmoral aptitudes of her child.\n\nSuppose that you have, undesignedly and without her consent, imposed\nmaternity on your wife. On discovering the fact, it becomes most\nrepulsive to her nature. She is not prepared to bear the cross and\nendure the crucifixion. Instantly, her soul is filled with murderous\nintent. She resolves to nip and crush the opening bud of life,\u2014to\nprocure abortion,\u2014that is, to commit the deed of ante-natal\nchild-murder. She does not feel that it is _her_ child. She may regard\nit as _yours_, but she cannot acknowledge it as her own; and though it\nmust receive its gestational development in her organism, she cannot\ntenderly and lovingly cherish and guard it, as bone of her bone, flesh\nof her flesh, and soul of her soul. It is so _in fact_, but not in her\n_feelings_. She asked not for it; her soul repels it as an intruder,\nthrust upon her without her consent, and in contempt, it may be, of her\nearnest remonstrance,\u2014for thus it often is. The child, she feels, has no\nright to an existence at her expense, and who shall say it has? An\nuninvited and hated intruder is exhausting her vital energies, and\nrobbing her of that which no earthly treasures can ever restore or\nrecompense. Through her physical suffering and mental anguish, an\nunbidden and loathed guest is feeding and thriving on her heart\u2019s blood.\nDesperation, and the bitterness of death, are in her heart. MURDER fills\nher soul towards your unconscious and innocent babe.\n\nWho is responsible? On whom rests the guilt? It is your work. You forced\nthat heavy burden upon her, and compelled her to bear it. You thrust\nyour child, as an intruder, into the sacred domain of her life, to\nderive existence through her organism and at her expense, knowing that\nshe was not prepared to welcome it, and to bend the forces of her nature\nto its growth and support; and contrary, it may be, to her earnest\nentreaties that she might be spared this pain and anguish till she was\nready joyfully to welcome them. But you heeded not her prayer; you\nassumed the right to decide for her when she was prepared to endure\nthese trials, and under what circumstances she should be a mother. You\nmust have your stated gratification; you have abused your manhood and\nyour wife, till this indulgence, as you think, has become as essential a\nwant of your life as your daily food,\u2014as the drunkard feels that alcohol\nis as essential as air to his existence and happiness; and so you impose\non her a maternity which her soul abhors. You horribly tax her vital\nenergies, \u201c_without her consent_.\u201d Murder is in her heart towards the\nuninvited and hated intruder you have introduced into the sanctuary of\nher life.\n\nThat mother, whose heart is thus filled with murder towards your child,\nis its educator! Into her hands you committed its destiny; and in the\nvery act of so doing, you aroused in her heart the spirit of murder\nagainst the unconscious, innocent being whom she is to nourish into\nlife. In the very act of committing the germ of the new immortal to her,\nyou destroyed in her the power to be its loving, nursing mother. You\nknew that she would not and could not love and reverence it, and do\njustice to it; that she would hate it, and kill it if she could. All\nthis you knew, yet you forced the charge upon her!\n\nSuppose your child were born; would you commit its education and destiny\nto one, who, as you knew, would cherish murder in her heart towards it,\nwho would \u201cget rid of it\u201d (as the phrase is), i.e., kill it, if she\ncould without injury to herself,\u2014yes, and kill it although at the risk\nof death to herself, such being her dread and her loathing of the\ncharge? You would, yourself, be the murderer, if you did. Should you\ncommit the _post-natal_ education and happiness of your child to such a\nwoman, knowing her utter repugnance to the charge, and her determination\nto \u201cget rid of it\u201d if she could,\u2014would you not be responsible for the\nconsequences, whether she killed it, or whether she preserved it alive,\nonly to infuse into it a deadly wrath and revenge towards you, and\ntowards all of human kind? You would. You knew she loathed its existence\nwhen you thrust it upon her, and that she would destroy the young life\nif she could; and that, if it lived to grow up under the training of\nsuch a spirit, it must be at war, in heart and life, with all its\nsurroundings, must be unloved and unloving, hated and hating, and an\nobject of anxiety and dread to all with whom it might chance to be\nassociated.\n\nWhat else do you do, when you impose on your wife a maternity unasked\nand abhorred? You commit the development and education of your child,\nduring the most important and susceptible period of its existence, to\none who assures you she is not prepared for the charge, who entreats you\nto spare her, and who loathes the very thought of its existence. Every\nelement of her womanly nature, for the time being, recoils from its\npresence in her system. She pleads that you would spare her this burden,\nat this time, and until her nature calls for it, and is prepared\njoyfully to meet the martyrdom maternity must bring to her. Heedless of\nher prayers, and, it may be, of threats of death to your child, you\ndemand the surrender of her person to your passion. Maternity ensues.\nMurder enters her heart towards your child at the same time. She tries\nto \u201cget rid of it,\u201d\u2014to murder it. She succeeds. The young life you had\ncommitted to her care is nipped in the bud, as you were assured it would\nbe before you resigned it to her keeping. Where rests the\nresponsibility? On you, primarily and mainly. You murdered your own\nchild, not, indeed, with your own hands,\u2014you drove another to do the\ndesperate deed, and that other, your wife, who came to you with a loving\nand trusting heart, to save and to be saved; and you, to gratify your\nselfish passion, drove her to the commission of the crime of ante-natal\nchild-murder,\u2014a crime that must forever weigh upon her soul like a\nmountain of guilt and shame; a deed, after the doing of which, no true\nwoman can ever, in this life, stand proud and stainless, in conscious\ninnocence and dignity, before the tribunal of her womanhood. She has\ndone a deed for which great Nature can find no excuse but ignorance; but\nwhich, even when done in ignorance, she regards as a violation of her\njust laws, and punishes as such, with appropriate penalties,\u2014the loss of\nself-respect, and the consciousness of degradation.\n\nYet all this suffering, anguish, crime and conscious degradation, you,\nthe husband, have forced upon her, solely for the momentary, and, under\nthe circumstances, most unnatural, gratification of your sensual\npassion,\u2014a passion which, when controlled by manly love and wisdom, and\nheld in abeyance to the health, purity, and happiness of your wife and\nchildren, would bring only honor to their hearts and to your home, but\nwhich, when thus indulged without regard to the wishes and conditions of\nyour wife, and merely for your personal pleasure, spreads crime,\npollution, misery and death, all around.\n\nHow dare you, how dare any husband, commit the destiny of his child into\nthe hands of one, who, as he knows, thus loathes the thought of its\nexistence? How can you subject your child to the possibility of such a\ngestational organization and development; such an ante-natal education;\nor force upon your wife the suffering and anguish of a loathed and hated\nmaternity, or the necessity of doing a deed from which the soul of every\nnoble woman must shrink with sickening horror? You could not do this\nwrong to your wife and child, till your manhood was sunk in the mire of\ndisgusting sensualism.\n\nA loathed and hated maternity! A woman, a mother, shrinking with disgust\nand horror from the thought of giving existence to her child! A mother\u2019s\nheart throbbing with murder toward the child over whose development and\neducation it is presiding! Do you say this is strong language?\u2014too\nstrong? That it cannot be? Do you say a mother does not, cannot, hate\nand loathe her unborn babe? Why, then, does she kill it? Her spirit is\nknown by its fruit. Is not her whole soul bent on its destruction, even\nat the risk of her own health and life?\n\n\u201cAbortion!\u201d \u201cGet rid of it!\u201d Gentle terms, these; respectable, no doubt,\nas some count gentle and respectable; but used to cover a most foul,\nunnatural deed. _Ante-natal child-murder_ alone can truly express the\nnature of the act. If no murderous hate is in the mother\u2019s heart, why\ndoes she kill the child? If you saw a mother seeking to kill her child\nafter it was born, knowing that she did it because its existence was\nhateful to her, and because she did not wish to bear the burden of its\nnursing and training, would you not conclude that her heart was filled\nwith murder towards it? So when a woman is willing to imperil her own\nlife, to outrage every womanly element of her being, and forfeit the\nconscious innocence and respect of her own soul, to inflict death upon\nher unborn child, you may be sure that a deep and terrible loathing and\nhatred are in her heart towards the new and expanding life which the\nhusband for mere sensual gratification, has thrust upon her.\n\nWhat means the wide-spreading disposition among men and women to procure\nand to palliate the murder of children before they are born? One thing\nis surely indicated by it, namely, the _increasing_ sensualism of men,\nand their determination to gratify it without regard to consequences to\ntheir wives and children. It is a swift witness against their purity and\nnobleness, and shows an utter recklessness in the pursuit of sensual\npleasure. It also opens the frightful depths to which woman can fall and\nhas fallen. How many women of New England have on their souls, at this\nhour, the ineffaceable stain of ante-natal child-murder? How many bear\nin their physical organism the incurable results of this crime? How many\nfamilies are now suffering from it? Go ask the men and women doctors,\nwho, for gold, perpetrate this crime, and who shamelessly advertise\ntheir infamy. Tens of thousands of wives and mothers are to be seen, all\nover the country, at once the perpetrators and victims of this cruel and\ndisgusting act; all, all to administer to the sensualism of men, who are\ncalled _husbands_! Husbands! the guilt is mainly yours; and the\ndamnation is just. Beneath your foul wrong to their nature, your wives\nsink, and you must go down with them.\n\nPonder the following extract from a private letter, containing the\nexperience of a wife and mother, in regard to enforced and hated\nmaternity and ante-natal child-murder. The letter is of recent date; the\nwriter and her family are known to me personally:\n\n  \u201cBefore we married, I informed him [the husband] of my dread of having\n  children. I told him I was not yet prepared to meet the sufferings and\n  responsibilities of maternity. He entered into an arrangement to\n  prevent it, for a specified time. This agreement was disregarded.\n  After the legal form was over, and he felt that he could now indulge\n  his passion without loss of reputation, and under legal and religious\n  sanctions, he insisted on the surrender of my person to his will. He\n  violated his promise at the beginning of our united life. That fatal\n  bridal night! it has left a cloud on my soul and on my home, that can\n  never pass away on earth. I can never forget it. It sealed the doom of\n  our union, as it does of thousands.\n\n  \u201cHe was in feeble health; so was I; and both of us mentally depressed.\n  But the sickly germ was implanted, and conception took place. We were\n  poor and destitute, having made no preparations for a home for\n  ourselves and child. I was a stricken woman. In September, 1838, we\n  came to \u2014\u2014, and settled in a new country. In the March following, my\n  child, developed under a heart throbbing with dread and anguish at the\n  thought of its existence, was born. After three months\u2019 struggle, I\n  became reconciled to my, at first, unwelcome child. But the impress of\n  my impatience and hostility to its existence, previous to its birth,\n  was on my child, never to be effaced; and to this hour, that child is\n  the victim of an undesired maternity.\n\n  \u201cIn one year, I found I was again about to be a mother. I was in a\n  state of frightful despair. My first-born was sickly and very\n  troublesome (how could it be otherwise?), needing constant care and\n  nursing. My husband chopped wood for our support. Of the injustice of\n  bringing children into the world to such poverty and misery, I was\n  then as sensible as now. I was in despair. I felt that death would be\n  preferable to maternity under such circumstances. A desire and\n  determination to get rid of my child entered into my heart. I\n  consulted a lady friend, and by her persuasion and assistance, killed\n  it. Within less than a year, maternity was again imposed upon me, with\n  no better prospect for doing justice to my child. It was a most\n  painful conviction to me; I felt that I could not have another child\n  at that time. All seemed dark as death. I had begged and prayed to be\n  spared this trial again, till I was prepared to accept it joyfully;\n  but my husband insisted on his gratification, without regard to my\n  wishes and conditions.\n\n  \u201cI consulted a physician, and told him of my unhappy state of mind,\n  and my aversion to having another child, for the present. He was ready\n  with his logic, his medicines and instruments, and told me how to\n  destroy it. After experimenting on myself three months, I was\n  successful. I killed my child about five months after conception.\n\n  \u201cA few months after this, maternity was again forced upon me, to my\n  grief and anguish. I determined, again, on the child\u2019s destruction;\n  but my courage failed as I came to the practical deed. My health and\n  life were in jeopardy; for my living child\u2019s sake, I wished to live. I\n  made up my mind to do the best I could for my unborn babe, whose\n  existence seemed so unnatural and repulsive. I knew its young life\n  would be deeply and lastingly affected by my mental and physical\n  conditions. I became, in a measure, reconciled to my dark fate, and\n  was as resigned and happy as I could be under the circumstances. I had\n  just such a child as I had every reason to expect. I could do no\n  justice to it. How could I?\n\n  \u201cSoon after the birth of my child, my husband insisted on his\n  accustomed indulgence. Without any wish of my own, maternity was again\n  forced upon me. I dared not attempt to get rid of the child, abortion\n  seemed so cruel, so inhuman, unnatural, and repulsive. I resolved\n  again, for my child\u2019s sake, to do the best I could for it. Though I\n  could not joyfully welcome, I resolved quietly to endure, its\n  existence.\n\n  \u201cAfter the birth of this child, I felt that I could have no more to\n  share our poverty and to suffer the wrongs and trials of an unwelcome\n  existence. I felt that I had rather die at once, and thus end my life\n  and my power to be a mother together. My husband cast the entire care\n  of the family on me. I had scarcely one hour to devote to my children.\n  My husband still insisted on his gratification. I was the veriest\n  slave alive. Life had lost its charms. The grave seemed my only\n  refuge, and Death my only friend.\n\n  \u201cIn this state, known as it was to my husband, he thrust maternity\n  upon me twice. I employed a doctor to kill my child, and in the\n  destruction of it, in what should have been the vigor of my life,\n  ended my power to be a mother. I was shorn of the brightest jewel of\n  my Womanhood. I suffered, as woman alone can suffer, not only in body,\n  but in bitter remorse and anguish of soul.\n\n  \u201cAll this I passed through, under the terrible, withering\n  consciousness, that it was all done and suffered solely that the\n  passion of my husband might have a momentary indulgence. Yet such had\n  been my false religious and social education, that, in submitting my\n  person to his passion, I did it with the honest conviction that, in\n  marriage, my body became the property of my husband. He said so; all\n  women to whom I applied for counsel, said it was my duty to submit,\n  that husbands expected it, had a right to it, and must have this\n  indulgence, whenever they were excited, or suffer; and that in this\n  way alone could wives retain the love of their husbands. I had no\n  alternative but silent, suffering submission to his passion, and then\n  procure abortion, or leave him, and thus resign my children to the\n  tender mercies of one with whom I could not live myself. Abortion was\n  most repulsive to every feeling of my nature. It seemed degrading,\n  and, at times, rendered me an object of loathing to myself.\n\n  \u201cWhen my first-born was three months old, I had a desperate struggle\n  for my personal liberty. My husband insisted on his right to subject\n  my person to his passion, before my babe was two months old. I saw his\n  conduct then in all its degrading and loathsome injustice. I pleaded,\n  with tears and anguish, for my own and my child\u2019s sake, to be spared;\n  and had it not been for my helpless child, I should then have ended\n  the struggle by bolting my legal bonds. For its sake, I submitted to\n  that outrage, and to my own conscious degradation. For its sake, I\n  concluded to take my chance in the world with other wives and mothers,\n  who, as they assured me, and as I then knew, were all around me,\n  subjected to like outrages, and driven to the degrading practice of\n  abortion.\n\n  \u201cBut, even then, I saw and argued the justice of my personal rights in\n  regard to Maternity, and the relation that leads to it, as strongly as\n  you do now. I saw it all as clearly as you do. I was then, amid all\n  the degrading influence that crushed me, true and just in my womanly\n  intuitions. I insisted on my right to say when and under what\n  circumstances I would accept of him the office of Maternity, and\n  become the mother of his child. I insisted that it was for me to say\n  when and how often I should subject myself to the liability of\n  becoming a mother. But he became angry with me; claimed ownership over\n  me; insisted that I, as a wife, was to submit to my husband, \u2018_in all\n  things_;\u2019 threatened to leave me and my children, and declared I was\n  not fit to be a wife. Fearing some fatal consequence to my child or to\n  myself, being alone, destitute, and far from helpful friends, in the\n  far West, and fearing that my little one would be left to want, I\n  stifled all expressions of my honest convictions, and ever after kept\n  my aversion and painful struggles in my own bosom.\n\n  \u201cIn every respect, so far as passional relations between myself and\n  husband are concerned, I have ever felt myself to be a miserable and\n  abject woman. I now see and feel it most deeply and painfully. If I\n  was with a child in my arms, I was in constant dread of all personal\n  contact with my husband, lest I should have a new maternity thrust\n  upon me, and be obliged to wean one child before its time, to give\n  place to another. In my misery, I have often cried out, \u2018O God! is\n  there no way out of this loathsome bondage?\u2019\n\n  \u201cIt was not want of kindly feelings towards my husband that induced\n  this state of mind, for I could and did endure every privation and\n  want without an unkind feeling or word, and even cheerfully, for his\n  sake. But every feeling of my soul did then, does now, and ever must,\n  protest against the cruel and loathsome injustice of husbands towards\n  their wives, manifested in imposing on them a maternity uncalled for\n  by their own nature and most repulsive to it, and whose sufferings and\n  responsibilities they are unprepared and unwilling to meet.\n\n                                                    \u201cYours,\n                                                                \u201c\u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014.\u201d\n\n\u201cStrong language!\u201d\u2014\u201cToo strong and sweeping epithets!\u201d Can you, as a\nman, a husband and a father, read the above extract, and feel or say\nthat my language is too strong? The above is the experience of a living\nwife and mother, nearly _verbatim_ as written by herself. It is a\nsimple, unvarnished, affecting story, but bearing on its face the stamp\nof truth, and the evidence of a sense of conscious injustice inflicted\nby the husband, and of a degradation self-inflicted, solely to escape\nwhat seemed to her a greater evil. Can such \u201cloathsome injustice,\u201d on\nthe part of husbands and fathers, towards their wives and unborn\nchildren, be reprobated in too strong terms?\n\nHusbands! it is your licentiousness that drives your wives to a deed so\nabhorrent to their every wifely, womanly and maternal instinct; a deed\nwhich ruins the health of their bodies, prostitutes their souls, and\nmakes marriage, maternity, and womanhood itself, degrading and\nloathsome. No terms can sufficiently characterize the cruelty, meanness,\nand disgusting selfishness and injustice of your conduct, when you\nimpose on them a maternity so detested as to drive them to the\ndesperation of killing their unborn children, and often themselves.\n\nIs it a wonder that wives seek to justify themselves in resorting to\nante-natal child-murder? I do not wonder at it. The wonder is, that a\nwoman should live one hour, as a wife, with one who imposes on her a\nrepulsive maternity, thus doing to her, and her child, the greatest\npossible wrong; or who can, for one moment, subject her to the liability\nof becoming a mother, when her own nature repels the office. One such\nmaternity, imposed after the husband knows that his wife shrinks from\nit, should lead every woman to \u201cbolt the legal bond\u201d that binds her to\nsuch a man. If she does not, but submits to the injustice, she wrongs\nher child, her husband, and her own soul. The same plea may be offered\nin extenuation of ante-natal child-murder, under circumstances of\nenforced, repulsive maternity, that is offered in justification of\nMargaret Garner, the fugitive-slave mother, who cut the throat of one\nchild and threw another into the river, to save them from the savage\nclutch of licensed kidnappers.\n\n_Ante-natal child-murder,\u2014a mother killing her unborn babe to save it\nfrom a worse doom!_ It is a fearful alternative; one whose results to\nthe soul of the mother are no less deadly than to the forming body of\nher child. It prostitutes, crucifies, murders, whatever is pure, lovely,\nwifely, motherly and womanly in her soul; and, for the time being, as it\nwere, blots from it the superscription and image of God. She murders her\nunborn babe, and often herself, to save herself and child from what she\nconsiders a more loathsome and repulsive doom. Who can harshly and\ncoarsely condemn her? She feels that death to herself and babe, at her\nown hands, is far preferable, and less criminal, than a loathed\nmaternity, and the birth of an unwelcome and hated child. To save\nherself and child from slavery, the slave mother cuts its throat, and\nthen her own. The wife, to save herself and child from what she regards\nas a no less horrible doom, imposed by the husband, destroys her unborn\nchild, and brings death to her own soul, if not to her body.\n\nO man! where is thy manhood, that thou canst inflict this wrong on the\nwoman, who, with an all-trusting love, lays herself in thy bosom,\nreposing fearless confidence in thy manly love and power to shelter her\nfrom harm? Husband! where is thy love, thy justice, thy tenderness, thy\nmanliness, thy conscience, thy God, that thou canst impose these\nsufferings and responsibilities on thy wife, despite her tears and\nentreaties to be spared till she is ready joyfully to welcome them for\nthy sake and her own? Fathers! where is your reverence for your\noffspring, your tender regard for the claims of your unborn children,\nand your respect for all that qualifies you to be fathers and your wives\nmothers, that you beget children to ante-natal murder, or to the, if\npossible, more terrible doom of an existence undesired, and abhorrent to\nthe mothers that bore them?\n\nHusbands! listen to the voice of God, speaking to you through your\nwives, and, in the name of those most dear to your hearts, and, most\nessential to the happiness and glory of your life and your homes, give\nheed to their protests against an undesigned and repulsive maternity!\n\n                                                                H. C. W.\n\n\n\n\n                               LETTER V.\n               THE WIFE\u2019S APPEAL\u2014THE HUSBAND\u2019S RESPONSE.\n\n\nDEAR FRIEND:\n\nIn the three preceding letters, I have endeavored to present to you the\ncrime of an undesigned and undesired Maternity, especially in its\nbearing on the mother and the child. I have shown how it wrongs the\nmother by crushing out of her heart her love and respect for her\nhusband, and converting them into a settled feeling of bitterness and\ncontempt: and also by filling her with feelings of murderous hostility\ntowards her child, and driving her to deeds which her soul abhors,\u2014thus\ndestroying her self-respect, and making her to seem like a loathsome and\ndegraded object in her own estimation. I have shown, also, how it wrongs\nthe child, by depriving it of a mother\u2019s loving sympathy, by forcing it\ninto an existence that is detested by father and mother, by stamping on\nit, before birth, disease and crime, and tendencies to all that is evil,\nand thus subjecting it to the detestation of its fellow-beings, in its\nfuture manhood or womanhood. The father perpetrates the deepest crime\nagainst the child, by committing its ante-natal education to the hands\nof one to whom its very existence is her abhorrence and loathing. What\ngreater crime could a husband and father commit against his wife and\nchild? None; no, _none_!\n\nIn this letter, I will give you the experience of a husband and wife, as\ngiven by themselves, and by a mutual friend, who is also a wife and a\nmother. I extract from their letters with few omissions. See, in the\nexperience of this wife and mother, the deep, unutterable anguish, and\nthe deeper woe of conscious degradation, to which woman, in her mistaken\nnotions of conjugal duty, her fear of losing a husband\u2019s love and\nconfidence, and her horror of an undesired maternity, will subject\nherself. Read over her experience, as detailed by her friend and\nherself, and then say if any crime man can commit, can surpass that\nwhich husbands and fathers often do to their wives and children, merely\nfor the momentary gratification of their sensual passions:\n\n  \u201cSome fifteen years ago, a man of culture, and engaged in public life,\n  was united in marriage with an intimate friend of mine. With pride and\n  confidence, he selected her from a large and admiring circle of\n  friends, as one embodying his ideal of womanly excellence. My friend\n  was thought a fortunate girl (only seventeen), and many thought him\n  quite as fortunate. They were much in society, and she began to enjoy\n  life intensely.\n\n  \u201cShe was too much a woman not to desire offspring some time, but she\n  felt unprepared to have maternity forced upon her youth and\n  inexperience. It came at a time when her husband\u2019s calling led him\n  much from home, to mix in the society she so much enjoyed, and which\n  she felt was contributing to make her what she so much desired to\n  be,\u2014her husband\u2019s fitting and equal companion. It was not without a\n  severe struggle she resigned these advantages and checked her\n  aspirations. However, she submitted, though she keenly felt the\n  sacrifice.\n\n  \u201cThough overwhelmed with the greatness of her responsibilities, and an\n  undefined dread of physical suffering, she was determined not to\n  appear weak, but bravely to meet and bear the burden imposed upon her.\n  Her husband was absent when the trial hour came; but when he returned,\n  he took his babe and wife to his bosom with pride and joy, though its\n  gestational development had, apparently, scarcely given him an anxious\n  thought.\n\n  \u201cMy friend\u2019s future looked bright. She did not see or understand the\n  fact, that she was to continue to develop the germs of human beings\n  into life, with little sustaining help from the father, whose caresses\n  generally ended in exhausting her vital powers by passional\n  indulgence. She did not complain, but rather rejoiced, as she saw her\n  other powers of attraction to her husband depart one by one, that she\n  was so organized as to be able to meet what she knew he considered an\n  essential want of his nature.\n\n  \u201cEleven years passed, at which time she gave birth to her sixth child.\n  She was a devoted mother, of a joyous spirit, and possessed of\n  wonderful elasticity. But woman cannot be entirely happy in maternity\n  alone, without the presence and sustaining power of her husband. If\n  she is a true wife, she desires to be more to her husband than merely\n  the mother of his children.\n\n  \u201cHer husband made for her a beautiful material home, and seemed happy\n  when with her; but he was much away; he sought other pleasures, social\n  and intellectual, in which she could not participate;\u2014she must stay at\n  home, alone, with her children. Little did he know the trials of\n  patience and strength in his wife, in being compelled to bear the\n  responsibility of the health and training of her little ones alone.\n  The world called her a happy wife, and she felt that she ought to be\n  so; but a dark cloud was coming over her once joyous spirit. She began\n  to realize the fact, so fatal to a wife\u2019s happiness, that her husband\n  did not feel her to be his equal, and a fitting companion to meet his\n  social and intellectual necessities. When he brought home a friend,\n  she listened to conversations and discussions in which she could not\n  participate. She felt keenly the growing distance between them, and\n  she knew too well how it had come about.\n\n  \u201cShe quietly made up her mind to have no more children. How did she\n  propose to bring it about? Not by asking her husband to deny himself\n  his accustomed indulgence; no, that, she thought, would be to cut\n  herself off from her strongest hold on his affection and confidence,\n  and to sever the last link of the chain that bound them together. She\n  did not expect that any precaution would enable her to escape\n  conception. She brought herself to do what was most repugnant to her\n  nature, and which, as she felt, would destroy her self-respect, and\n  make her, in her own estimation, a degraded woman, namely, TO PROCURE\n  ABORTION.\n\n  \u201cThe first shock given to her constitution by this abuse of her nature\n  was comparatively light. But once did not suffice. As a longer\n  interval passed without a new-born babe than ever before, she had\n  begun to take her place by her husband\u2019s side in society, earnestly\n  praying that she might be spared maternity evermore. Her husband\n  delighted to have her with him. He felt that he had a right, by law\n  and the customs of society, to his gratification; he persevered in\n  demanding it, and she continued to yield. Several times in four years\n  did she nip the young flower of f\u0153tal life in the bud, and each time\n  told more and more terribly on her constitution, until the power of\n  conception was nearly destroyed, at little more than thirty-five years\n  of age. She was shorn of her Womanhood, and became a sickly,\n  broken-down wife and mother, in the very spring-time, as it were, of\n  her life, being driven frequently to perpetrate a degrading outrage\n  upon herself, or endure a maternity abhorrent to her soul;\u2014and all to\n  gratify the sensual passion of her husband, thinking thereby to secure\n  his affection and respect. How fatally mistaken! By yielding, she\n  strengthened his _passion_, but not his love.\n\n  \u201cReflecting on her sad experience, in the light of your book on\n  \u2018Marriage and Parentage,\u2019 which I had placed in her hands, she saw\n  clearly where the wrong had been, but for a long time felt powerless\n  to destroy what she regarded as her last hold on her husband. He was\n  absent, and I prevailed on her to write and lay the matter frankly and\n  plainly before him, and send him your book. She was then prostrated in\n  body and soul by the last outrage upon her womanly and maternal\n  nature. She wrote, and, hoping that you may do good with these\n  letters, the husband and wife have granted me the privilege of copying\n  portions of them for you. Here is a part of hers to him:\n\n  \u201c\u2018MY DEAR HUSBAND:\n\n  \u201c\u2018I feel like lying down and weeping that I have become unworthy,\n  intellectually and spiritually, of mating with you; but _love_ is the\n  foundation of true marriage, is it not? and I feel strong in my\n  love-nature. It is high, and deep, and rich, and who shall say, if\n  rightly cultivated, what flowers of intellect and spirituality might\n  not blossom out from its soil?\n\n  \u201c\u2018My husband! forgive me if I say, that I deeply and sadly feel that\n  my Womanhood has been robbed of its most precious charm, for _your_\n  sake, through a weak indulgence and subjection to that in you which is\n  lower than the spiritual. My body has been painfully desecrated,\n  perhaps not more by your act than mine. You suffer the loss of that\n  refining and ennobling influence which only an _undefiled_ woman can\n  impart to man.\n\n  \u201c\u2018In view of our past, words cannot express my remorse and\n  self-condemnation; but believe me, the bitterest suffering is caused\n  to me by the knowledge that through this sin and misery, I am rendered\n  incapable of becoming to you a tithe of what I desire to be. How can\n  you do otherwise than shrink from the wreck I am fast becoming? And\n  though I may feel, in my moments of anguish and remorse, that _you_\n  are as much the cause of my mental and physical wreck and imbecility\n  as I am, God grant I may not unjustly murmur or accuse you!\n\n  \u201c\u2018It is said, \u201cMen never love complaining women.\u201d Alas! if they\n  treated their wives with half the respect and tender consideration\n  they do other women, there would be less ground for complaint. I am\n  convinced, _that in proportion as woman yields to the demands of\n  animal passion in her husband, in that same ratio he loses his love\n  and respect for her_. By bitter and humiliating experience, this\n  conviction is forced upon me.\n\n  \u201c\u2018My husband! I love you. The power lies in you to bless and save me;\n  the power lies in me to bless and save you; but have we not cursed\n  each other instead? I cry unto you for life,\u2014will you give me death? I\n  would make my Womanhood a crown of glory to your life, your Manhood to\n  mine. Shall we allow the very life-essence of our being to be\n  exhausted in sensual indulgence, till we lose the power to feel and\n  appreciate a pure spiritual love? My heart is reaching out to you for\n  life, at the same time that my body is suffering untold agonies from\n  the outrages perpetrated on my nature to escape the anguish and horror\n  of an unwelcome maternity; outrages which have polluted and humbled my\n  soul, and nearly destroyed my body\u2014all for your sake; that I might\n  retain your love and respect.\n\n  \u201c\u2018I would rather lay down my life now, than live without your love.\n  Can we not love purely and nobly, without prostituting that love in\n  mere sensual indulgence? My soul would arise and go to you as an\n  inspiration from God; but I am suffering, and a realization of my\n  present condition, my physical diseases, and mental anguish, and the\n  knowledge that it was all caused by having maternity put upon me when\n  I was not prepared joyfully to meet its trials and responsibilities,\n  and the consciousness of the terrible outrage that I have been driven\n  to perpetrate on myself and your unborn children, harden my soul, and\n  lower me in my own opinion, so that I do now feel, and shall yet more\n  deeply feel, if this function is still to be imposed upon me, that I\n  am unworthy to appear in society. But for the consciousness that your\n  passion has been, unconsciously and ignorantly, it may be, the primary\n  cause of my misery and conscious degradation, I should scarcely dare\n  to claim the right any more to rest in your bosom as your wife. We\n  have both erred.\n\n  \u201c\u2018You love my person; you worship the _animal_ in me. If you love not\n  my mind, my heart and soul more, and feel not more reverence and\n  worship for the God in me than for the animal, if I am unworthy and\n  unable to meet the wants of your intellectual and spiritual nature,\n  PERISH ALL OUTWARD BONDS! Tell me, have I no power to hold you by any\n  bonds but the sensualistic? Has my soul no power over you? If this be\n  so, let me no longer seek to hold you at all. It crushes me, and\n  overwhelms me with conscious degradation, to feel that I have no power\n  over your intellectual and moral nature; that you come to me, caress\n  me, and call me WIFE, only that I may administer to your sensual\n  pleasure, and that you have no fond regard and loving adoration for\n  me, except for my mere outward, physical womanhood. I cannot live so,\n  feeling that your presence and caresses are ever to be but a prelude\n  to the surrender of my person to your animal passion.\n\n  \u201c\u2018I know I have powers of soul, which, if suffered to be developed,\n  without this horrible crucifixion, might bless you. I will not yet\n  believe you will turn a deaf ear to this appeal of your wife, who, as\n  you know, has had, and can have, no life apart from you. I pray, with\n  tears, that you will spare me from a maternity which my soul\n  repudiates, and whose sufferings I cannot endure. You will not deny me\n  this privilege, which, more than anything else, I ask of you.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Though much guilt is on my soul, through repeated efforts to get rid\n  of the results of your passional relations with me, and save myself\n  from the pain and anguish of a maternity I have felt unable to bear,\n  and of giving birth to children that I do not want, yet I will not\n  despair of salvation reaching me through your love. To live as pure as\n  my aspirations are, and have my life the natural outgrowth of the deep\n  love which I feel and must express or die, would bring us both nearer\n  heaven.\n\n  \u201c\u2018I cannot consent to have the woman, _the real soul-and-spirit woman_\n  in me, obliterated. I cannot believe it is my destiny to have the\n  _woman_ expunged from my nature. I want to be a strong, pure woman. I\n  want to be lovely to you. Yet, heretofore, the strongest\n  manifestations of love to you have, usually, had little other effect\n  than to arouse your animal nature, and thus have been so turned as to\n  render me unlovely; for a wife must become unlovely and repulsive to\n  her husband, the moment he ceases to reverence her soul, and feels\n  that she is to him but the means of mere sensual gratification.\n\n  \u201c\u2018You will acknowledge that there is terrible wrong somewhere. May God\n  show us a Moses to lead us out of this wilderness, this Egypt! You\n  have often chided me for feeling unworthy of your love; reminding me\n  how strange it was, since other and worthy men regarded me highly, and\n  that I did not feel myself unworthy _their_ regard. Were there no\n  abuse of our sexual nature, your tender and noble love would so\n  elevate and consecrate the functions of my Womanhood, that I should no\n  more be tormented with that want of self-respect, which, alone, ever\n  causes me to doubt your love, and feel unworthy of it. I feel, at\n  times, that love would not, could not, thus crush my Womanhood; that\n  it would, by intuition, guide you in your passional relations with me,\n  so as never to do a wrong or outrage to my nature, even unwittingly.\n  The feeling which other men\u2019s regard awakens in me is not brought down\n  and thus prostituted to sensual gratification, but is awakened only to\n  vitalize and bless soul and body. Help me and save me, by your manly\n  strength, even from myself!\n\n  \u201c\u2018I appeal to you, in behalf of myself, of my husband, and my\n  children. Deep and enduring consciousness of guilt and shame must rest\n  on my soul, in view of the outrages I have perpetrated on myself and\n  my unborn children, whom I was reduced to the necessity (as it then\n  seemed to me) of killing before they were born, or of cursing with an\n  existence loathed and detested even by the mother that bore them.\n\n  \u201c\u2018My husband! you will, for _my_ sake, for _your own sake_, for _our\n  children\u2019s_ sake, reflect on these things, and send me your\n  reflections. You will respond to this appeal from\n\n                                                    \u201c\u2018YOUR LOVING WIFE.\u2019\n\n\n                        THE HUSBAND\u2019S RESPONSE.\n\n  \u201c\u2018MY SUFFERING WIFE:\n\n  \u201c\u2018I have a word to say to you now, such as I never said before. Your\n  letter has revealed you to me as I have never before seen you. It\n  shows me to what utter misery I have brought you;\u2014how, for my\n  gratification, you have descended into the lowest hell.\n\n  \u201c\u2018You intimate that I treat other women, personally, more tenderly and\n  reverently than I do you. That is true: to my shame and regret I say\n  it. And yet, why should I do so? Why should I crush and desecrate you,\n  while I have too much respect for other women ever to think of doing\n  the same to them? There is no reason for it. You are my dearest love.\n  I should treat _you_ more tenderly than any others; be more careful of\n  your health, and beauty of body and soul. Of all women, the husband\n  should most anxiously watch over the health of his wife, and most\n  shrink from the abuse and desecration of her physical as well as\n  spiritual womanhood.\n\n  \u201c\u2018But I have not been wholly blind to your deep misery. I have seen\n  it, and, at times, feared that I might be the cause. I did not dare\n  ask the cause. Feeling not myself that degradation and misery of which\n  you speak, I did not know how much you suffered; but I should have\n  known, had I not been blinded by passion, and by the false idea that\n  man had a right to the indulgence of his passional nature whenever he\n  wished it, and that, too, without regard to the feelings of his wife,\n  or the welfare of the child that might ensue.\n\n  \u201c\u2018True, I, at times, heard your words of remonstrance and entreaty,\n  but they did not touch my heart; my passion made me deaf or\n  indifferent to your appeals to my manhood to spare you from a\n  maternity which you could not joyfully welcome. I was lost in my own\n  hell, and tormented. I was blind; but now and then, glimpses came to\n  me, from your own keen anguish, of the real truth. But the blur of\n  selfish, craving passion, would come over my sight, and I would go on\n  my old way, cheating myself always, and sometimes you, into the\n  feeling that it was all right; that man had a right to that\n  indulgence, whatever might be the conditions of the wife, and whatever\n  her feelings in regard to Maternity. At least, I persuaded myself and\n  you _that I could not help it_, and that my health would suffer unless\n  I frequently held that relation with you.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Now that blind dominion of passion is at an end. Your appeal to my\n  manhood has reached its deepest depths. The gratification of animal\n  passion shall no more guide me in my relations to you. That it ever\n  has is my shame, as well as your degradation. I wish you could see my\n  soul as it now is; you would see a revolution in it. The deep wail of\n  your spirit has reached my heart, and I am ready to go up with you out\n  of the perdition into which my uncontrolled sensualism has cast us.\n\n  \u201c\u2018You have descended into hell, for my gratification. You have\n  consented to terrible anguish of body and soul, for no higher object\n  than my momentary pleasure. You have sacrificed your body and soul,\n  your self-respect, your unborn children, on the altar of my\n  ungovernable passion. From this hour, I will seek to repair the wrong\n  I have done you. I have forced on you, in contempt of your entreaties,\n  a maternity which could not be otherwise than most hateful to you. I\n  have compelled you to pass through sufferings of body and anguish of\n  mind which you were not ready to meet, and which were all the more\n  severe, because they were imposed by one whom you loved, and who\n  should have known better. I have imparted to you the elements of a new\n  life, when your very soul spurned and loathed them. I have filled your\n  heart with deadly hatred towards the young life, my own child, that\n  was being developed beneath it. I have compelled you to a deed of all\n  others the most loathsome and hateful to a pure, refined and noble\n  woman,\u2014to the _murder_ (it should have no other name) of your\n  children, to the murder of _my_ children, ere they were born, to save\n  them from the more fearful and horrible doom of an unwelcome and hated\n  existence.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Talk not to me of _your_ guilt, of your unworthiness to stand by my\n  side, and to tread with me the path of life as a true, noble and\n  loving wife. If you are guilty, what am I? If you feel degraded by the\n  loss of self-respect, what ought I to feel? The fault is all my own. I\n  should have known better, and had a higher appreciation of the\n  passional relation. Had I consulted your wishes as to maternity, had I\n  counselled with you as to when you could, with safety and exultation,\n  take charge of the germ of my child, and naturally develop it into\n  life, had I never imposed on you a repulsive and abhorred maternity,\n  would the stain of abortion now darken your soul? Yes, I see it all:\n  the deep damnation of the deed is my own, and would to God that the\n  penalty might descend on me; that I could save you, my long-suffering,\n  too lenient and forgiving wife, the pain and anguish!\n\n  \u201c\u2018God help me! I am very sick at heart. The bitterness of death enters\n  my soul, as I reflect on the unseen and unexpressed pain of body and\n  desperation and anguish of soul to which my ungoverned passion has\n  brought you. Can you forgive me? Can you again restore me to your\n  loving confidence? Can you ever again respect my manhood, which has\n  brought upon you all this woe? I will, henceforth, comply with the\n  teachings of the book you sent me, and hold my entire nature in\n  abeyance to your wishes and happiness, and in all my passional\n  relations with you, my object shall be your health and happiness,\n  rather than my own gratification. I will be to you an ERNEST, God\n  helping me.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Dearest! believe me and trust me now, for I mean what I say, and it\n  shall be done. I have written it here, and this shall be my pledge;\n  and if ever I urge on you a relation that will subject you to the\n  liability of maternity, when you do not call for it, lay this pledge\n  before me and it shall be respected.\n\n  \u201c\u2018We shall yet rejoice together on earth as we never did before. This\n  world may not bring to you entire restoration to health of body, nor\n  peace of mind, nor yet self-abandoned trust in your husband; but the\n  effort to effect this, on my part, shall not be wanting. Believe me,\n  and trust to the love, the faith and energy which your letter, and\n  that experience of Ernest and Nina, have awakened in me. We will\n  together seek the aid of the angel helpers, who never condemn save to\n  restore and bless, and who are even now lifting up and vitalizing the\n  desponding and heart-stricken.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Dear wife! look up, and trust\u2014_trust_\u2014TRUST! and with strong nerve,\n  and in conscious pride and innocence, you shall yet stand by my side,\n  and tread with me the pathway of the future, a proud, loving,\n  trusting, joyous wife. Your soul shall yet shine with deeper lustre on\n  my manhood, to elevate and save your conscience-stricken, but not\n  despairing husband. You shall yet be, in deed and in truth, my\n  Saviour, and I will be yours.\n\n  \u201c\u2018These are not idle words, but come from the heart of your loving,\n  penitent, yet hopeful and confident\n\n                                                             \u201c\u2018HUSBAND.\u2019\n\n  \u201cIt will do your heart good to know that that husband has, thus far,\n  been true to his pledge; that that wife is now blooming again in\n  comparative health. Hope and triumph are shining in her face, love\n  quickens the intellect, and vitalizes the whole woman. And woman is\n  intuitional, to understand and appreciate a true and noble manhood.\n  You will not wonder, then, that she feels nearer to him, in mind and\n  spirit, than ever before, for now she understands him, and he her.\n  Could they have talked over the subject of passional relations, and\n  understood each other before they entered upon their marriage life, it\n  had saved her years of anguish. May their history be a beacon light to\n  warn others to shun the rocks and shoals that lie, unseen, in the\n  inner depths of wedded life!\n\n  \u201cIt may encourage you to know that they owe their salvation to _you_,\n  though they allow that I have had a hand in it. True, it was through\n  me that the experience of Ernest and Nina came to their knowledge, but\n  I am quite willing that the author of \u2018MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE\u2019 should\n  bear the responsibility and have the glory of their redemption. Their\n  names are sacredly private. They would meet you without feeling that\n  you know them. I shall not reveal them further than I have done.\n\n  \u201cGod speed you in your efforts to vindicate the most sacred and\n  important of all human rights,\u2014_the right of woman to say when and\n  under what circumstances she shall assume the office of Maternity, and\n  the right of her child to a joyous welcome into life_.\n\n  \u201cThe crime of an enforced and abhorred maternity! Well and truly do\n  you call it, \u2018THE CRIME OF EARTH.\u2019 In whatever light it is viewed,\n  whether in its bearing on the mother, on the child, on the husband, on\n  home, on society, or on humanity, it is, indeed, THE CRIME OF CRIMES.\n\n  \u201cWith fervent prayers for the triumph of truth on this subject, I am\n\n                                                    Your friend,\n                                                                    \u2014\u2014.\u201d\n\nMy friend, how many wives would thus appeal to their husbands, if they\ndared? \u201cSever the last link of the bond that binds her to her husband!\u201d\nMere sensualism \u201cthe last link\u201d in such a union! I do not like to talk\nof _chains_, _links_, and _bonds_, in connection with such a relation.\nTalk of these in connection with slaveholders and slaves, but let them\nnot sully a relation like this. \u201c_The last link_,\u201d indeed! Yet it is\ntrue; it is, often, the first, and last, and only link in the chain that\nbinds the husband to the wife, in what is called marriage. Man seeks\nwoman as a legal wife, that he may legally and respectably give\nindulgence, without restraint, to his passion. If the wife seeks to\npreserve her soul and body from desecration, he threatens to leave her,\nand seek his gratification where he can find it. She submits, to keep\nhim with her; both of them, unmindful and regardless of the results to\nthe mother and the child. \u201cPerish all outward bonds\u201d of marriage at\nonce, rather than that the relation should continue in this way!\n\nWives! be frank and true to your husbands, on the subject of maternity,\nand the relation that leads to it. Interchange thoughts and feelings\nwith them, as to what nature allows or demands, in regard to these. Can\nmaternity be natural, when it is undesigned by the father, or undesired\nby the mother? Can a maternity be natural, healthful, ennobling to the\nmother, to the child, to the father, and to home, when no loving,\ntender, anxious forethought presides over the relation in which it\noriginated?\u2014when the mother\u2019s nature loathed and repelled it, and the\nfather\u2019s only thought was his own selfish gratification; the feelings\nand conditions of the mother, and the health, character and destiny of\nthe child that may result being ignored by him? Wives! let there be a\nperfect and loving understanding between you and your husbands, on these\nmatters, and great will be your reward.\n\nMaidens! a word to you. Never enter into the physical relations of\nmarriage with a man, until you have conversed with him freely and fully\non maternity, and the relation that leads to it. Learn distinctly his\nviews and feelings, and his expectations, in regard to that purest and\nmost ennobling of all the functions of your nature, and the most sacred\nof all the intimacies of conjugal life. Your self-respect, your beauty,\nyour glory, your heaven, as a wife, will be more directly involved in\nhis feelings and views and practices, in regard to that relation, than\nin all other things. As you would not become a weak, a miserable,\nimbecile, unlovable and degraded wife and mother, in the very prime of\nyour life, come to a perfect understanding with your chosen one, ere you\ncommit your person to his keeping in the sacred intimacies of home.\nBeware of that man, who, under pretence of delicacy, modesty, and\npropriety, shuns conversation with you on this relation, and on the\nhallowed function of maternity. Concealment and mystery, in him, towards\nyou, on all other subjects pertaining to conjugal union, might be\noverlooked; but if he conceals his views here, rest assured it bodes no\ngood to your purity and happiness as a wife and a mother. You can have\nno more certain assurance that you are to be victimized, your soul and\nbody offered up, _slain_, on the altar of his sensualism, than his\nunwillingness to converse with you on subjects so vital to your\nhappiness. In the relation he seeks with you will he, _practically_,\nhold his manhood in abeyance to the calls of your nature and to your\nconditions, and consecrate its passions and its powers to the elevation\nand happiness of his wife and children? If not, your maiden soul had\nbetter return to God unadorned with the diadem of conjugal and maternal\nlove, than that you should become the wife of such a man and the mother\nof his children.\n\nHow much of woman\u2019s suffering and degradation, under the horrors of an\nunnatural maternity, are owing to herself, I will not say. My appeal is\nto husbands, and I would show them the extent of their responsibility in\nthis crime. Doubtless, woman might save herself much anguish and\nsuffering, if she would approach man frankly, in womanly love,\ntenderness, and dignity, and open to him the depths of her soul in\nregard to Maternity, and the relation in which it originates. Men are\nnot all below the brutes, in their nature. If woman were true to\n_purity_, to justice, to her own nature, and would be just and true to\nher husband and her children, and freely and lovingly converse with man\non these relations and functions, he would, often, with manly pride and\naffection, respond to her. On no subject would a true and noble man\nrespond to the words of a pure and trusting woman with more manly pride\nand dignity, and a more conscious self-respect, than on Maternity, and\nthe relation that leads to it. Let wives, then, be true to themselves,\nif they would have their husbands true to them!\n\n                                                                H. C. W.\n\n\n\n\n                               LETTER VI.\n         WORDS FITLY SPOKEN, BY ONE WHO SPEAKS WITH AUTHORITY.\n\n\n DEAR FRIEND:\n\nWould you secure for yourself, your wife and your children, a pure and\nhappy home? Of one thing, then, you must never lose sight. You now\nregard your wife as fitted to be your companion, intellectually and\nsocially, as well as affectionally. Be sure that no effort is wanting,\non your part, to keep her so. If her intellect becomes stunted, and she\nbe deprived of the means and opportunities for improvement, while you\nenjoy every opportunity to cultivate and enlarge your intellectual\npowers, how can she possibly feel herself fitted to be your equal\ncompanion?\n\nLet me ask you carefully to read over the \u201cAppeal of the Wife to the\nHusband,\u201d in the last letter. Mark well what she says on this subject;\nhow she feels, as she finds herself losing all power to sympathize in\nthe intellectual aspirations and pursuits of her husband. She,\nintellectually, was sinking, while he was rising; was growing poorer,\nwhile he was growing richer; and he took little pains to impart to her\nhis increasing intellectual wealth. All opportunities for intellectual\ngrowth were precluded by the anxieties of maternity, which he, without a\nthought for her intellectual welfare, was constantly imposing upon her.\nNever impose this function upon your wife, at the expense of her\nintellectual growth. No wife can ever be made intellectually poorer by\nmaternity, and the cares of a mother, when that relation is joyfully\nwelcomed, and those cares are shared by the husband. But how can a\nwife\u2019s intellect ever be expanded with new and noble thoughts, when the\nphysical sufferings and mental anguish of a frequent and an undesired\nmaternity are ever present?\n\nStay at home with the mother of your children, except when necessary\navocations call you away. Share with her the cares, the anxieties and\njoys, of the nursery. There cultivate your intellectual powers together\nby reading, and by conversation,\u2014especially, on all subjects pertaining\nto parentage and the ante-natal, as well as the post-natal, development,\neducation and life of your children. How anxious will every true and\nloving husband and father be, to unite with his wife and the mother of\nhis children, in the nursery, to impart and to receive all possible\nlight in regard to these matters!\n\nNeither should you ever impose maternity on your wife at the expense of\nher _social_ nature. Never go abroad to enjoy and develop your own\nsocial nature, and leave her at home alone in the nursery, preparing to\ngive birth and a worthy reception to your child, or to spend her weary\nhours in solitude, in anxious watchings over your children, and in\nlongings for your presence and your sympathy. Stay with her, and share\nwith her all the joys and all the sorrows, all the sweet rest and all\nthe weary labors, of a maternity imposed by you, and of developing into\nnoble men or women the offspring of your mutual love.\n\nBut how crushed, intellectually and socially, must that wife become, on\nwhom an ignorant, a thoughtless, or a brutal husband, is ever imposing a\nmaternity from which her soul recoils! Her intellect becomes dwarfed and\nher social nature dead. How can it be otherwise, especially when driven\nto the deed of ante-natal murder, to escape the horror of giving birth\nto children accursed by the mother that bore them? Hope becomes extinct,\nand the light of her soul goes out in utter darkness!\n\nThe following letter must speak for itself. It is nearly a _verbatim_\nextract from a letter, the original of which is now before me. No man,\nespecially no husband, can read it, and not feel quickened in all that\nis truly manly, noble and God-like. Of this woman, as to her style and\nher sentiments, every true man will feel that to be true which the\npeople said of the teachings of Jesus\u2014\u201cHE SPEAKS AS ONE HAVING\nAUTHORITY.\u201d May her words of power find a response in the heart of every\nhusband and wife, and of every man and woman!\n\n  \u201cThe subject of an undesigned and undesired maternity,\u2014how it affects\n  the mother towards the child, towards the function of Maternity\n  itself,\u2014these are matters, on which, as a wife and a mother, and a\n  friend of Human Progress, my mind has been deeply exercised since they\n  were first presented to me. The delicate and hallowed beauty with\n  which you invest maternity, and the relation that leads to it, renders\n  it easy for me to impart to you my views on these subjects, while I\n  feel instinctively repelled from any approach to them with most other\n  persons, both men and women.\n\n  \u201cThe thoughts I have do not flow from my own experience. I have never\n  given birth to a child not earnestly desired. Yet, being a woman and a\n  mother, it seems to me no difficult matter to judge correctly as to\n  what must necessarily be the emotions and effects produced by such a\n  maternity.\n\n  \u201cBut I must express my earnest conviction, that any woman, any wife,\n  who permits herself to be made the instrument of bringing into life a\n  new existence, unwelcome to her own soul, must, in some degree, be\n  wanting in that self-respect which is an inseparable accompaniment of,\n  nay, an essential element in, true nobility of character. That woman\n  must feel degraded before her own soul, who, for any cause, in or out\n  of _legal_ marriage, suffers herself to be made the means of such an\n  outrage upon her innocent and helpless babe. Better, a thousand times,\n  that she leave her legal husband at once and forever, than allow soul\n  and body to be thus prostituted, and herself to be made accessory to a\n  deed so unnatural and unjust as that of giving birth to a child whose\n  existence is repudiated and loathed by her own heart.\n\n  \u201cPublic opinion, based on his superior physical strength and\n  (hitherto) superior intellectual development, has accorded to man the\n  dignity of lordship. Looking over the face of the earth, he says, \u2018See\n  all things for my use, even woman.\u2019 And as the Bible, in many of its\n  teachings, as these are explained, sanctions this arrogance, declaring\n  that the \u2018man was not made for the woman, but the woman for the man,\u2019\n  she herself, the just authority of Nature being educated out of her,\n  and the arbitrary authority of man educated into her, believes it her\n  duty to yield implicit obedience to all the demands of the man to whom\n  she has declared allegiance at the altar;\u2014the _altar_, truly; for\n  there she is frequently offered a propitiation to satisfy the demands\n  of man\u2019s unholy passion; and from henceforth this being, created with\n  reason, conscience and intuitions of her own, and for her own\n  guidance, believes it her highest duty to sacrifice all these to the\n  authority and the licensed sensualism of the husband, for whose\n  pleasure she was created, and to \u2018obey even as Sarah obeyed Abraham,\n  calling him Lord.\u2019\n\n  \u201cThis much may be said to account for the fact that so many women,\n  otherwise excellent and amiable, lend themselves to the commission of\n  this great crime; a crime against themselves, against their children,\n  against their husbands, against our great humanity. And while thus\n  prostituting their persons according to law (made for this very end,\n  and solely by those who prostitute them), they deceive themselves into\n  the stupid belief that they are leading pure and virtuous lives, and\n  look with scorn and contempt upon the poor sister who commits the same\n  unnatural and revolting deed in an unlawful and less reputable manner.\n\n  \u201cHuman decrees and enactments can never alter or reverse human\n  obligations. What is wrong without a license or commission from human\n  government, is wrong with such a license. If an undesigned and\n  undesired maternity be a dark and damning sin against the child, the\n  mother, and humanity, against God, without the sanction of the Church,\n  the State, and public opinion, it is a sin of an equally dark and\n  damning character with such sanction. In every case where the act that\n  leads to maternity would be a sin, a foul and monstrous crime, and the\n  shame and infamy of one or both parents, without the sanction of human\n  laws, it would be the same with such sanction, and in a legalized\n  union. Those women, therefore, who for any cause, allow an undesired\n  maternity to be imposed on them by men holding the legal relation of\n  husbands, and permit themselves to be made the means of giving\n  existence to children whom they do not want, in legal marriage, ought\n  to be, and one day will be, regarded in the same light as those are\n  who become mothers outside of wedlock. If it be wrong for a woman to\n  become a mother, without the consent of Church and State and society,\n  it is wrong for her to become a mother with such consent. If right\n  with such consent, it is right without it. Whatever it is right to do\n  with a civil, ecclesiastical or social license, it is right to do\n  without it.\n\n  \u201cIf woman\u2019s life be made a curse by the constant endurance of\n  suffering, consequent upon a too-frequent maternity, the religious\n  woman often endeavors to stifle the outcries and accusations of reason\n  and intuition by the absurd plea that she \u2018must have all the children\n  whom it is God\u2019s will to send.\u2019 Occasionally, one is found weak\n  enough, and wickedly fond enough, to say, as Miss Bremer, with\n  contemptible silliness, makes one of her amiable characters in \u2018The\n  Home\u2019 say, \u2018that though she had such a large and rapidly increasing\n  family, and her husband\u2019s means of providing for it were somewhat\n  limited, yet he _never grumbled_, and was always ready to welcome each\n  new child as it came!\u2019 Grumble, indeed! A husband \u2018grumbling\u2019 that his\n  wife has conceived! A father \u2018grumbling\u2019 at the birth of a child!\n  \u2018Always ready to welcome each new child as it came!\u2019\u2014and this said by\n  a wife of her husband, as the strongest testimony to his manliness and\n  justice as a husband and father, and as the highest reason why she\n  should love and honor him! What man so base, so ignoble, so fallen,\n  and so deserving a dungeon or the gallows, as he who imparts the germ\n  of a new life to his wife, to gratify his passion, and then \u2018grumbles\u2019\n  because a child is born, and thrusts it from him? Man can give no\n  greater proof of the utter degradation and ruin of his moral nature.\n  Yet not to grumble at a maternity of his own imposing, and not to\n  repel and cast off the babe for whose undesired existence he is\n  responsible, is Miss Bremer\u2019s highest conception of manhood!\n\n  \u201cBut a false religious education is not the only reason why woman\n  weakly and unrighteously yields herself to the base and brutal passion\n  of her husband; for a passion, though all pure and ennobling when its\n  demands are just and naturally answered, becomes most base and\n  brutalizing to men and women, when indulged at the expense of the\n  child, and contrary to the wishes of the wife and mother. As society\n  is now constituted, she is his dependant. The laws make her\n  subservient to his will, while she continues a wife, and all-pervading\n  custom has, in great measure, deprived her of the dignity which an\n  independent ability to engage in business for herself, outside the\n  domestic circle, would confer.\n\n  \u201c\u2018_Can do_ is easily carried about,\u2019 is a pithy old Scottish proverb;\n  and this same \u2018Can do\u2019 is a good and sturdy staff of self-support,\n  when a woman finds that the man on whom she fondly leaned would become\n  to her, not a tower of strength and a refuge from the storm, but the\n  oppressor to crush both soul and body, and make of her very Womanhood\n  an unworthy thing. Let woman respect herself. She will gain nothing by\n  submitting to wrong and outrage. No wife ever gained or perpetuated\n  the love and respect of a husband, deserving the name, by yielding to\n  his passion, merely to please him.\n\n  \u201cIt is the popular, but foolish and unthinking belief, that children\n  owe great obligations to their parents for bringing them into life;\n  but is not the contrary the fact, that parents are under the strongest\n  possible obligations to their children to render that being good,\n  wise, and happy, which they themselves have forced upon their child?\n  Assuming this as self-evident, then is it clear that such existence\n  should not be the result of blind, unthinking passion, but of careful,\n  wise and loving design.\n\n  \u201cThe act in which the child originates is performed, often, solely for\n  the momentary gratification of one or both parents. No thought for the\n  welfare, the physical, mental and spiritual organization and\n  tendencies of the child that may ensue, is entertained. No careful and\n  anxious forethought for the character and destiny of the child is\n  exercised, but the gratification of mere animal passion is the sole\n  object sought. The child comes into being undesigned by the father and\n  undesired by the mother,\u2014the offspring of reckless, selfish, sensual\n  lust, and not of tender, self-forgetting, noble love. How grievous the\n  wrong done by the father to the mother, and by the mother to herself,\n  and by both to the child who is thus thrust into the world by\n  violence! What hope can exist for such a child? The felon\u2019s doom was\n  written on his soul before he was born. His parents consigned him to\n  the dungeon or the gallows ere he drew the breath of life.\n\n  \u201cThe woman who, in youth, is flattered and caressed for the charms of\n  her person, the sweetness of her temper, and the goodness of her\n  heart, when married to a man who thus regards her as but the\n  instrument of his pleasure, soon loses the charms for which she was\n  caressed, and, while the husband is in his prime, she enters upon a\n  premature old age; her physical strength exhausted by the almost\n  constant suffering and agony attendant upon giving existence to those\n  poor, unwelcome ones,\u2014her beauty faded, her temper soured, her whole\n  soul embittered by a consciousness of her hard lot, and her mental\n  nature stunted in its growth,\u2014for what leisure has she to attend to\n  the wants of her own spirit, while her energies are taxed to the\n  utmost with the care of her living children, who are solely dependent\n  on her, and she preparing to add another to the number? How can she\n  fill the treasure-house of her own soul with \u2018things new and old,\u2019\n  under all these adverse circumstances, and while the present physical\n  wants of her little ones are constantly clamoring, \u2018Give! give!\u2019 Does\n  not reason, does not justice, demand for woman that she have full\n  opportunity for the development of her own Womanhood, soul, body, and\n  spirit? Has not she, as an individual child of God and member of the\n  human family, a _right_ to this? Does not the well-being of such\n  children as she may righteously bring into existence loudly call for a\n  full and _practical_ recognition, on the part of every husband and\n  every man, of her right to decide for herself when, how often, and\n  under what circumstances, she shall assume the office of Maternity, or\n  be subjected to the relation that may issue in maternity? Does not the\n  happiness, the best interest of the husband, require it? Does not\n  Humanity itself demand it?\n\n  \u201cAnd how must that woman, in whose soul the theory of passive\n  obedience has not wholly eradicated nature, regard the husband who\n  causes her thus to curse \u2018the day wherein she was born\u2019 a woman? In\n  her inmost soul, she must look upon him as the half-enlightened slave\n  looks upon his master, and bitterly reproach him for victimizing her\n  to his own base passion, and for his own short-lived gratification,\n  irrespective of the woful consequences to her whom he has sworn to\n  cherish, honor and protect. And justly does she thus regard him. No\n  wife can love and honor such a husband. He is to her what the\n  executioner is to the victim, or the slaveholder to his crushed and\n  outraged slaves. She cannot but loathe him.\n\n  \u201cCan love do any injury to its object? Must not the wife become\n  alienated from the husband, who, instead of cherishing her health and\n  beauty, and seeking her happiness, subjects her to the loss of all\n  these, and instead of honoring, basely enslaves her to his own\n  infamous passion?\u2014who, instead of protecting from evil, exposes her to\n  sickness, sorrow and death, not in accordance with her own free will,\n  her own glad choice, in pursuit of an object worthy and great enough\n  to inspire hope, courage and strength to meet the coming suffering,\n  and the attainment of which shall amply compensate, and cause her \u2018to\n  remember no more the anguish, for joy\u2019 that a new life is given unto\n  her, but simply and solely that his own mean, selfish, animal nature\n  may find present satisfaction? Deserves such a man the blessings of a\n  home of love and harmony, the devotion of wife and little ones? Alas!\n  no; he has planted only curses, and \u2018whatsoever a man soweth, that\n  shall he also reap.\u2019\n\n  \u201cMust not such a wife, too, regard the creative function in both\n  herself and husband with loathing and abhorrence? And did not the\n  power of refusing this unwelcome maternity reside within herself, who\n  could blame her for reproaching even the great Creator for so endowing\n  her with a capacity for unremunerative suffering? And what must be the\n  atmosphere of that house (I will not dignify it by the sacred name of\n  _home_), where the wife and mother regards her own nature as\n  degraded,\u2014her husband the tyrant who degrades, and her children the\n  fruits of this degradation? Is that house a fit nursery for the germs\n  of a noble Humanity? Do not plants there take root which cumber the\n  earth, and, in their turn, fill it anew with those briers and thorns\n  of human kind, which render its habitations places of cursing and\n  bitterness?\n\n  \u201cAlas for the poor child of such a parentage! Receiving his very being\n  by a base act of the father, nourished until birth underneath the\n  heart of the mother, whose whole nature protests against its\n  existence, feeding upon her bitterness, hatred, and sense of\n  humiliation, the gall and wormwood of her soul infused into its young\n  being, coming at last into the world destitute of the inheritance of\n  love,\u2014the inheritance justly his own,\u2014where shall be the resting-place\n  of that child\u2019s soul? Around what can it lovingly cling? Even its own\n  mother regards it as an unwelcome intruder; in whose loving bosom\n  shall it be tenderly nurtured?\n\n  \u201cPerhaps the mother who bore him used her best endeavor to cut short\n  his earthly existence ere he saw the light; and, failing in this, when\n  ushered into the world, grudges him the care and sustenance necessary\n  to sustain that existence. Or if, as is more frequently the fact, with\n  the actual presence of the helpless innocent in her bosom, somewhat of\n  the mother\u2019s heart awakens into life, it is not that rich, overflowing\n  life of love which pours the wealth and fulness of her own being into\n  his. She cares for him as the animal cares for its young in its utter\n  helplessness; and then the weary woman, with many other children about\n  her, and preparing for a new maternity, thrusts him from her as soon\n  as possible, and the little yearling must \u2018tak the stirk\u2019s sta\u2019 (the\n  stall of the yearling calf). What can the poor, unwelcome child\n  become? How small are his chances for a virtuous life! If he thinks\n  God has so created him, well may he plead with poor Burns\u2014\n\n                    \u2018Thou knowest thou hast formed me\n                    With passions wild and strong.\u2019\n\n  \u2018Can a bitter fountain send forth sweet water?\u2019 \u2018Where shall I get\n  them?\u2019 was the reply of a criminal to Jonathan Edwards, who told him\n  he must have better thoughts.\n\n  \u201cAlas for poor Humanity! \u2018Let there be light,\u2019 that man may know that\n  the relation that leads to maternity can only be ennobled when its\n  object is the creation of a new and glorious life; that his passional\n  nature can only derive dignity and beauty from the control of love and\n  reason; that otherwise, it is of the earth, earthy, and debases him\n  below the level of the brute. \u2018Let there be light,\u2019 that woman, in\n  whose soul resides the power, may say to this overwhelming flood of\n  evil, \u2018Here shall thy proud waves be stayed!\u2019 The errors of a false\n  religious education, bad laws, and bad customs, have, hitherto, formed\n  some extenuation for this weak subserviency; but this ignorance has\n  been tolerated full long, and now the great cry of God and Humanity\n  goes forth calling for repentance,\u2014that \u2018a new heavens and a new earth\n  may be created, wherein shall dwell righteousness.\u2019\u201d\n\nMan has a heart, and that heart can be reached by the loving and earnest\nappeal of a true woman. Words, such as those contained in the above\nextract, will never be uttered in vain. They are the true oracles of\nNature\u2019s God, as revealed in the soul of the wife and the mother. Let\nthe father hearken to the mother as she pleads, in behalf of her\nchildren, that they may not be cursed with an unwelcome existence. Let\nthe husband listen to the prayer of his wife, that she may be spared a\nmaternity whose responsibilities she is not prepared joyfully to assume.\nHumanity utters her indignant protest against man, when, to gratify his\nsensual passion, he perpetrates the greatest possible outrage against\nwoman, as a wife and mother, and as a woman, by subjecting her to the\nnecessity of cursing her child with an abhorred existence, or of killing\nit before it is born. Protestations of love and devotion must ever seem\ninsulting and disgusting to a true woman, from a man who would thus\nrecklessly inflict upon herself and her child this foul wrong. In vain\ndoes such a man prate of his regard for the purity and honor of woman,\nof his reverence for marriage and parentage, and of his desire for the\nelevation of our common humanity; his life, in the sacred privacy of\nhome, is an insult to his wife, an outrage upon the mother of his\nchildren, an act of living injustice and cruelty to his offspring, and a\ncrime of deepest infamy against all that is true, pure and noble in\nhuman nature.\n\nMan will not always be thus heedless of the health and happiness of his\nwife; he will not always be thus unjust and inhuman to his innocent and\nunconscious children, by making them objects of dread, of loathing and\ncursing, to the very heart under whose pulsations they receive their\nante-natal development. He will subject his manhood to the health and\nhappiness of his wife and children; and in doing so, will receive the\nrichest reward earth can bestow,\u2014the perfect trust of a devoted wife,\nand the loving respect of a healthy, happy and joyous offspring.\n\n                                                                H. C. W.\n\n\n\n\n                              LETTER VII.\n    THE DREAD ALTERNATIVE\u2014ANTE-NATAL MURDER, OR AN UNWELCOME CHILD.\n\n\n DEAR FRIEND:\n\nThe following experience of a woman, given in her own words, will make\nits appeal to all that is pure, manly and noble in manhood. It is the\ncry of anguish from woman\u2019s riven heart to man, to save her from the\nagony and blighting curse of a maternity whose sufferings she is not\nprepared joyfully to meet, and from which her entire nature shrinks with\ndread and loathing; to save her from the revolting alternative of\nkilling her child before it is born, or of giving life to one whose very\nexistence is loathed by her. Several times, the crime of an undesired\nmaternity had been perpetrated upon her by her husband, and each time\nthe child had been killed by herself or by a doctor, before its birth.\nShe was asked how she felt under these outrages, and what was the result\non her physical, social and spiritual nature. The following is her\nanswer:\n\n  \u201cHow did I feel? I felt that I was committing a damning sin. My soul\n  shrank from the deed with intense horror and loathing. The\n  remonstrances of a guilty conscience I could not silence. I had\n  submitted to the relation in which maternity originates, thinking it\n  my duty, as a wife, to do so whenever my husband demanded. I told him\n  that my very soul shrank from maternity; that I was not yet prepared\n  for its responsibilities and agonies, and begged of him not to impose\n  that burden upon me till I could joyfully welcome it, which I felt\n  that I should, in due time. But he heeded not my prayer. He insisted\n  on the relation. Conception and maternity ensued.\n\n  \u201cMy soul died within me. An ever present loathing of the new life that\n  was being developed within mine was in my heart. My own soul, and the\n  God whose voice was heard within, repudiated its existence. I could\n  not help the feeling. The spirit of murder, towards the unconscious\n  child in embryo, was ever present to me; yet my soul shrank with\n  horror from the deed. Shall I kill my child before its birth, or give\n  existence to one whose birthright inheritance is _a mother\u2019s curse_?\n  was the question I found myself debating continually;\u2014for my curse was\n  on its very life.\n\n  \u201cI consulted a woman, a friend in whom I trusted. I found that she had\n  perpetrated that outrage on herself and on others. She told me it was\n  not murder to kill a child any time before its birth. Of this she\n  labored to convince me, and railed in the aid of her \u2018family\n  physician,\u2019 to give force to her arguments. He argued that it was\n  right and just for wives thus to protect themselves against the\n  results of their husband\u2019s sensualism,\u2014told me that God and human laws\n  would approve of killing children before they were born, rather than\n  curse them with an undesired existence. My only trouble was, with\n  God\u2019s view of the case. I could not get rid of the feeling that it was\n  an outrage on my body and soul, and on my unconscious babe. He argued\n  that my child, at five months (which was the time), had no life, and\n  where there was no life, no life could be taken. Though I determined\n  to do the deed, or get the \u2018family physician\u2019 to do it, my womanly\n  instincts, my reason, my conscience, my self-respect, my entire\n  nature, revolted against my decision. My Womanhood rose up in\n  withering condemnation. And, after the deed was done, I felt that I\n  could never respect myself again; that I could never again appear in\n  society; that if I did, all that was pure and true in manhood and\n  womanhood would shrink from me as a polluted, disgusting object.\n\n  \u201cI tried to cast the blame on my husband, who had imposed the\n  necessity upon me. I tried to feel that the outrage and the guilt were\n  all his own; that, had he heeded my prayer, and dealt justly by me, I\n  should never have been driven to the dread alternative of ante-natal\n  murder, or of giving birth to a child I did not want. But I saw and\n  felt, that however great the wrong he had done to me, the fact still\n  remained,\u2014my nature was outraged, if not by my consent, yet by my\n  sufferance. I knew I could have saved myself from maternity, had I\n  been resolute to do so; and that, having submitted to the relation in\n  which it originated, I had no right to add to the outrage by killing\n  my child. I felt myself to be a crushed, prostituted, abandoned woman.\n  Can any apology be offered for a woman who commits the crime of\n  ante-natal murder, after she has voluntarily yielded to the relation\n  that leads to maternity?\n\n  \u201cMaternity, with its prospective agonies and its abhorred\n  responsibilities (for I did not yet call for a child), was again\n  thrust upon me in a few months; but I shrunk from destroying my child\n  again. I gave birth to two living children. Then my soul rebelled\n  against having more; but my husband was deaf to my prayers and my\n  tears, though he himself was opposed to my having any more children,\n  and insisted it was my fault if I did, though he persisted in his\n  right to his sensual indulgence. How could I avoid having more\n  children, when he was continually demanding of me the relation which\n  naturally leads to offspring? \u2018Kill them,\u2019 was his reply, \u2018before they\n  are born, or do something to prevent conception!\u2019\n\n  \u201cHis injustice and heartless selfishness cut me to the quick,\u2014stung my\n  very soul. \u2018This is the man,\u2019 I said to myself, \u2018who has promised to\n  love, cherish, and _protect_ me; who expects me to love him tenderly\n  and evermore; whom I have promised to love till death separates us;\n  and yet, this is the man who, without regard to my wishes and\n  conditions, insists on his right to gratify his passion, though at the\n  expense of my body and soul!\u2019 My soul rose in rebellion against him.\n  It became evident to me, that the gratification of his passion was his\n  only object in seeking me as a wife; that this was the only claim he\n  had upon me, or wished to have, and that he had no higher idea of\n  marriage than as a means of licensed, reputable indulgence.\n\n  \u201cI became desperate. I could not leave my children. I knew if I left\n  him, I could give no reason for the step, except my aversion to having\n  maternity thrust upon me in defiance of the demands of my own nature,\n  and I knew that all would condemn me, if I left him to escape from\n  such an outrage, as this was not considered a wrong to me, but his\n  right. Every feeling of my soul revolted against his taking possession\n  of my person, without my consent, to blight and curse my body and soul\n  to gratify his animal nature.\n\n  \u201cI came to the conclusion to stand by my own rights, and defend my\n  person against his sensualism. I told him, candidly, how I felt, and\n  that I must protect myself, in this respect, for he would not. I told\n  him I was living daily in deadly fear of his passion, and of\n  maternity; that the relation in which it resulted had become repulsive\n  to me, and that he had brought me to view myself as a loathed, abject\n  and prostituted woman. His wrath was roused; and finally, from fear of\n  breaking up my family and having my helpless living children taken\n  from me, I submitted to a hell which had no mitigation, until\n  separation gave it to me.\n\n  \u201cIn my intercourse with men, I have found few who did not view\n  marriage and a wife as my husband did, as a mere means of sensual\n  gratification. Companionship, intellectual, social, and spiritual\n  growth, and elevation, they think little of, in connection with a\n  wife. They see no soul, no God, in the wife; only the mere animal, to\n  administer to the brute in them.\u201d\n\nIn the presence of a just and pure God, and before the laws of Nature\nthat are designed to govern all conjugal relations, does marriage give\nto the husband any right over the person of the wife, or to the wife any\nrights over the person of the husband, which neither had before? Has a\nhusband any more right to _demand_ of his wife the surrender of her\nperson to his passion, than he has to demand that surrender of any other\nwoman? True marriage creates necessities in each, and gives vitality and\nintensity to wants in each, which the presence, the love and\ncompanionship of the other can supply; but a pure conjugal love creates\nno rights, and never thinks or talks of rights over the property, the\nbody, or the soul of the loved one. Indeed, a true man, whose soul is\nfilled with a holy conjugal love for a woman, would scorn and loathe any\npersonal caresses or surrender from her, when he knew she gave them\nmerely from a sense of duty, and only because she believed he had a\nright to them. A man must be shorn of all true manliness, and become\nutterly debased and prostituted, before he can, in or out of legal\nmarriage, accept the personal surrender of a woman to his passion, when\nhe knows the surrender is made solely to please him, or from some false\nidea of duty. However tenderly, truly and devotedly a man may love a\nwoman, she is not, therefore, under obligations to receive any\nexpressions from him, except such as her own necessities demand.\nWhatever manifestations of yourself you would make to your wife, before\noffering them, create in her the necessity of demanding and of receiving\nthem. If your nature prompts you to reveal yourself to her in the\nrelation that leads to maternity control yourself, and be sternly true\nto yourself, to your wife, and your child that may ensue, until, by all\nother loving and endearing manifestations, you have created in her\nnature an earnest call for maternity. Then would she joyfully accept of\nyou the germ of a new life, and, for the sake of her husband and her\nchild, consecrate all the energies of her soul to its true development.\n\nRead the following. The extract is from a letter written by one who has\nproudly and nobly filled the stations of a wife and a mother, and whose\nchildren and grandchildren surround her and crown her life with\ntenderest love and respect. She has seen many of the companions of her\ngirlhood victimized, and literally offered up on the altar of\nsensualism, in legal marriage. Their husbands demanded passional\ngratification as their _right_, irrespective of consequences to wife or\nchildren, and they submitted as a _duty_. Their career was short, in\nmany cases, and in others, they live but wrecks of their former selves.\nA relation that should have ennobled and saved them, has crushed them to\ndeath:\n\n  \u201cIt has often been a matter of wonder to me that men should, so\n  heedlessly, and so injuriously to themselves, their wives, and\n  children, and their homes, demand at once, as soon as they get legal\n  possession of their wives, the gratification of a passion, which, when\n  indulged merely for the sake of the gratification of the moment, must\n  end in the destruction of all that is beautiful, noble, and divine, in\n  man or woman. I have often felt that I would give the world for a\n  friendship with man that should show no impurity in its bearing, and\n  for a conjugal relation that would, at all times, heartily and\n  practically recognize the right of the wife to decide for herself\n  when, how often, and under what auspices, she should be a mother, or\n  enter into the relation that leads to maternity.\n\n  \u201cIt is often said in my hearing, by women, that a woman who is not\n  willing to submit her person to the passion of her husband, whenever\n  he shall demand, is not fit to be a wife; and if she becomes so, and\n  her husband forsakes her for other women, and neglects his children,\n  he is to be pitied, and the wife condemned and held responsible for\n  all the results. The law gives the husband cause for divorce if the\n  wife persists in withholding her person from his embrace, which, when\n  thus thrust upon her against her wishes, becomes loathsome and\n  damnable. The community of women generally endorse this state of\n  things, and are educated to believe that God gave man such fierce\n  passions that he cannot control them; that they must be gratified\n  whenever excited, though at the expense of woman\u2019s health and\n  happiness and the happiness of her children.\n\n  \u201cWill man ever be pure, noble and strong enough to protect woman, in\n  or out of legal marriage, against his own passion? Must woman always\n  put herself on the defensive, to protect herself against man? Will man\n  never see the fact as it is, that all that is manly, true, great and\n  noble in his nature, must be preserved and perpetuated only by the\n  protection of woman against being victimized to his sensual\n  gratification? O man! thou art all noble and God-like, to the loving\n  and trusting heart of woman! She longs to come to thee, to save thee,\n  and to be saved by thee. But thou mayest be assured that thy heaven,\n  in time and eternity, can be secured only by saving woman from\n  prostitution. While she is regarded by thee as the means of sensual\n  gratification, rather than as the vitalizing, redeeming power of thy\n  manhood, she will bring desolation and death to thy soul, and thou to\n  hers. To man, woman looks for strength. How she longs to rest in\n  him,\u2014how she longs to give herself to him in a self-abandoning\n  trust,\u2014and how she longs that he may ever be worthy such a trust, the\n  heart of the true woman and wife alone can ever know. But when woman\n  trusts and man proves weak, and betrays her longing and trusting\n  heart, no words can express her sickening, crushing disappointment and\n  anguish. Often do women prefer to die a lingering and loathsome death,\n  rather than confess themselves mistaken and disappointed in those whom\n  they have trusted.\u201d\n\nThe following extract from a private letter speaks the thought and\nfeeling of every true woman. Weigh well what the writer says of woman\u2019s\nright to protect herself against the reckless passion of man. Also, what\nshe says of woman\u2019s power over man, and of man\u2019s readiness to yield to\nthat power, when woman has the courage to appeal to his love:\n\n  \u201cI cannot conceive of a woman, who has willingly and joyfully received\n  into her own being the germ of a new existence, with the noble design\n  of rendering that existence happy, ever committing this foul deed\n  [abortion]. The cause of it must always be, the previous submission to\n  an unwelcome maternity. If this can be justified, if the laws of man\n  and of God oblige woman thus to degrade and violate the sacredness of\n  her own person, it follows that she, being thus outlawed, placed\n  outside the protection of all law, human and divine, has a right to\n  protect herself from further evil, and even avenge herself for the\n  past, as she best can; and that whether by taking the life of her\n  husband or of his child. Can this be denied as a necessary\n  consequence? and does not the bare statement of it disprove the\n  monstrous assertion that God, either by Nature or Revelation, has thus\n  placed her at the disposal of man\u2019s will? No living creature is\n  created without some means of self-protection; and in woman, that\n  weapon is _Self-Respect_.\n\n  \u201cIt makes my soul sick, even to a loathing of Humanity, to think of\n  this unnatural deed, and its foul cause. Alas! men and women do not\n  worship their own natures. \u2018Let us eat and drink,\u2019 they cry, \u2018for\n  to-morrow we die!\u2019\u2014\u2018Let us sacrifice the _human_ to appease the\n  _brute_.\u2019\n\n  \u201cDoes not the crime of murder consist mainly in the fact, that every\n  soul born on this planet has an inherent right to all the development\n  it can receive in this, its birthplace, and when deprived of corporeal\n  existence, is robbed of this right? If this be true then ante-natal\n  murder of the same nature and character as post-natal murder. Yet for\n  the one crime the criminal is accounted, by our judges, and by the\n  sentiment of the public, to be worthy of death; whereas, these same\n  judges, and this same public, incite to the commission of the other,\n  by subjecting woman to an abhorred maternity.\n\n  \u201cWhere is the wrong? In the _man_, first of all. He it is who subjects\n  the woman to this abhorred maternity, and for his own sensual\n  gratification. For him there is no apology, save the miserable one\n  that passion overcome love and reason, the animal triumphs over the\n  man, the sensual over the spiritual.\n\n  \u201cIn the mind of the woman who allows herself to become thus basely\n  subservient to her husband\u2019s will, how loathsome is the memory of\n  those progenitors who bequeath to the man a nature so mean, selfish,\n  tyrannical and animal, and to the woman a nature so tamely, so ignobly\n  subservient and unresisting! Where is the remedy? In the awakening of\n  woman to this great evil. Woman must assert and maintain her rights in\n  regard to maternity, ere any rational hope can be entertained for the\n  future. I cannot believe that man would become the fierce, selfish\n  tyrant he now is, if properly appealed to before his heart becomes\n  hardened by indulgence,\u2014that he who, in the general transactions of\n  life, is just and honorable, would become the selfish despot at home,\n  if the woman who is his wife fully respected her nature as woman, and\n  her individual sacredness.\n\n  \u201cLet woman, then, be appealed to. Let her \u2018arise from the dust, and\n  put on her beautiful garments,\u2019 for then, and not till then, shall her\n  light break forth as the morning, and Humanity become all glorious.\n  But while woman, by law, custom, and religion, is made subservient to\n  man\u2019s sensual gratification, without regard to her feelings and\n  wishes, while law, custom and religion bestow on man the right to\n  inflict on woman a maternity whose suffering and responsibilities she\n  is not prepared joyfully to welcome, and while woman, to gratify man\u2019s\n  sensualism, is subjected to the atrocious alternative of ante-natal\n  murder, or of giving existence to children whom her inmost soul\n  repels, there can be no hope of the regeneration and redemption, the\n  elevation and happiness of the race, and of peopling the earth with\n  nobler and more beautiful types of manhood and womanhood.\u201d\n\nHow many husbands are unwilling to have their wives get knowledge as to\ntheir right to decide when they shall become mothers, or be subjected to\nthe relation that leads to it! Let woman get light on this, if on no\nother subject, if she would be happy in her home. Slaveholders count him\nmost guilty who attempts to teach their slaves their right to be free.\nSo many husbands curse bitterly the man who would enlighten their wives\nin regard to Maternity, and the relation that leads to it. But true and\nearnest souls are pledged to spread light on this subject. Read the\nfollowing:\n\n  \u201cMarried women are often as ignorant, and about as degraded, as to\n  their rights and duties, respecting the function of Maternity and the\n  relation that leads to it, as are the slaves of the South in regard to\n  their rights. Many husbands are as unwilling that their wives should\n  get light on these subjects, as are slaveholders that their slaves\n  should be enlightened in regard to their condition. They must not be\n  allowed to know that they are not morally bound to submit. They must\n  have no will of their own; and by their weak subserviency, they even\n  say to their husbands, \u2018God thy law,\u2014thou mine,\u2019 as to Maternity and\n  the relation that leads to it. How can they know that there is any\n  other and nobler way, than to have children and complain, and complain\n  and have children, and submit themselves to their husbands\u2019 sensualism\n  with entire servility and silence?\n\n  \u201cNever has any man spoken a truer and more needed word than you have\n  spoken, or held out a more helpful hand to woman, to enlighten her\n  ignorance and to raise her from degradation, than you have done, in\n  your work on \u2018Marriage and Parentage.\u2019 To me and my husband, that book\n  has been as a message direct from God, to guide us in our most sacred\n  relations in the sanctuary of our home. We wait anxiously for your\n  work on \u2018The Crime of an Undesigned and Undesired Maternity.\u2019 We can\n  ensure for it a wide circulation in this region; for the _ante-natal_\n  history and education of human beings, in its bearing on their\n  _post-natal_ character and destiny, is becoming a subject of paramount\n  interest in many true and earnest souls.\u201d\n\nThe following testimony to the wide-spread practice of ante-natal murder\nis from one who has carefully noted the progress of this crime, and its\ndire effects on the physical and moral conditions of those who\nperpetrate it, and on their husbands and their homes:\n\n  \u201cA friend of mine told me that she should have killed two of her\n  children, ere they were born, had she known how. She tried, but could\n  not succeed. The children whom she tried to murder were born alive,\n  and are now living; but they are stamped with the spirit of revenge\n  and murder. They struggled into life against the spirit of murder, and\n  the maternal curse must remain upon their souls till eternity shall\n  cast it out. This friend and myself made an estimate of the number of\n  our near neighbors who, to our knowledge, had killed one or more of\n  their children before they were born. Six, out of nine, had done the\n  deed, or had procured the services of a \u2018family physician\u2019 to do it\n  for them. They all justified the practice of ante-natal murder. A\n  doctor in a neighboring village, who ever frowns upon this unnatural\n  deed, assured me, recently, that he had been applied to by six\n  different women in this little village, in one week, to murder their\n  children before birth. Some of these women were the most fashionable,\n  wealthy and respected women of the town, and two of them were\n  church-members. They all insisted it was less criminal to kill\n  children before they were born, than to curse them with an unwelcome\n  existence.\n\n  \u201cMy husband and I have done what we could to circulate your work on\n  \u2018Marriage and Parentage\u2019 in this region, and, already, it has brought\n  comfort to many homes where happiness had been well-nigh wrecked by\n  the unnatural demands of husbands, and by their imposing maternity on\n  their wives when they were unprepared to meet the consequent\n  suffering.\u201d\n\nThe following shows how common, in cities, is the practice of ante-natal\nmurder. What a testimony against husbands who impose on their wives\nmaternity, without design, and contrary to their own wishes, and the\nwishes of their wives!\n\n  \u201cA physician in a neighboring city told me that it was very common,\n  among the more fashionable and wealthy among whom he practised, for\n  husbands, who wished to have their wives always ready for society, to\n  bring them to him and offer large sums of money to induce him to\n  procure abortion, and to prevent conception. Invariably, those who\n  practise this outrage on themselves lose their health, become\n  low-spirited, feel humbled and prostituted, and are made irritable,\n  complaining, nervous invalids for life, and wholly incapacitated for\n  the enjoyments of society. I know many who practise this foul crime.\n  Those who do it generally lose their self-respect, become ashamed of\n  their womanhood, and shrink away from society, conscious that they\n  deserve to be shunned or pitied, by all that is pure and noble. O!\n  why, why do husbands impose on their wives an alternative so horrible?\n  Why do women ever submit to a relation that subjects them to the\n  possibility of a maternity, whose sufferings they are not prepared to\n  meet? They had better starve, better die!\n\n  \u201cYet, in my ignorance, to please my husband, and to escape the agonies\n  of an undesired maternity, have I allowed this most unnatural outrage\n  to be perpetrated upon myself and my unborn children. I know the agony\n  of soul, and the conscious shame and degradation woman feels, when,\n  having allowed her husband to impose on her a maternity which her soul\n  abhorred, she resorts to ante-natal murder to avoid giving birth to a\n  child she does not want. I know no woman can practise this outrage on\n  herself, or allow another to practise it upon her, without injury to\n  body and soul. No woman, after doing this deed, can stand before her\n  own soul, or before her fellow-beings, as she did before.\n\n  \u201cThe unwelcome child!\u2014maternity, abhorred by the mother and without\n  design by the father!\u2014you call this \u2018THE CRIME OF EARTH!\u2019 It is. Lay\n  it open to the eyes of all, in its bearing on the purity and happiness\n  of home, and on the character and destiny of the race. \u2018_Let there be\n  light!_\u2019 In the name of God and humanity, and by all that is pure and\n  lovely in man or woman, and by all that is sacred and dear in the\n  relation of mother and child, \u2018LET THERE BE LIGHT!\u2019\u201d\n\nThe following extract is from a wife and mother, who, with her husband,\nis laboring earnestly and efficiently to elevate the human type. They\nare ever active to surround themselves and their children with\nknowledge, with just, pure and ennobling views and principles in regard\nto marriage and parentage. They think this the _only_ way to save their\nsons and daughters from the deep wretchedness and degradation of\ninharmonious conjugal relations, from polluted homes, and from the crime\nof giving existence to children they do not want. Mark! the woman, whose\nmodesty is shocked at every effort, however truthful, earnest and\ndelicate it may be, to enlighten husbands and wives in regard to the\nnatural laws designed to govern Maternity, and the relation that leads\nto it, does not feel at all shocked by _ante-natal_ murder. She can even\njustify herself in doing this most foul and monstrous deed:\u2014\n\n  \u201cWhen you lectured in this place, on \u2018The Unwelcome Child,\u2019 one lady\n  went out of the house, affecting to be greatly shocked by what you\n  said. Yet, that same woman who went out muttering curses on you, for\n  warning husbands against imposing an undesired maternity on their\n  wives, has, to my knowledge, had such a loathed and wretched burden\n  thrust upon her twice, in two years, and each time has killed her\n  child before it was born. Another lady, my near neighbor, who thinks\n  such subjects should never be agitated, publicly, has three times,\n  within so many years, committed the crime of ante-natal murder. The\n  first child was seven months old when she killed it. She told me this\n  herself. She is now but twenty-four years old. She has one living\n  child, and this must suffer for life, from the outrages perpetrated\n  upon it by the mother, ere its birth. She says she cannot, and will\n  not, have any more children yet. She says her husband insists on his\n  gratification, and she cannot prevent conception, and has no\n  alternative but to kill the children before they are born, or give\n  existence to those whom her soul repels, and thus entail on them a\n  mother\u2019s curse. She justifies herself by saying, it is no greater sin\n  against the child, against herself, against society, and against\n  humanity, for a mother to kill her child before it is born, than to\n  give birth to it when her own heart loathes its existence.\n\n  \u201cShe is one of a large class, who are _thus_ trying to reconcile\n  themselves to _ante-natal_ murder. Still, she feels degraded, as all\n  must who do this deed. They _are_ degraded. A deed so unnatural and so\n  cruel can never be perpetrated without deep injury to the moral nature\n  of all concerned. The spirit that would kill a child before birth,\n  would kill it after; the spirit that would commit _ante-natal_ murder,\n  would commit _post-natal_ murder. But what shall be said of the\n  husband who subjects his wife to this fearful alternative? Can man do\n  a deed meaner, more selfish, more satanic?\u201d\n\nThe organic and constitutional tendencies of those who are born are\nfixed. It may take a mighty effort to correct their birthright\ntendencies to disease and to crime. Thousands say, as the writer of the\nfollowing extract says,\u2014\u201cWe were lamentably ignorant of the natural laws\nof Parentage when we married. Would that light had come to us sooner.\nBut we will not allow the happiness of our children, and our children\u2019s\nchildren, to be wrecked for want of knowledge.\u201d The following is the\ntestimony of a true and earnest woman, and loving and happy wife and\nmother:\u2014\n\n  \u201cBefore your visit to this place to lecture on \u2018The Ante-Natal History\n  of the Human Being, and its influence on his Post-Natal Character and\n  Destiny, in the body and out of it,\u2019 my husband and myself had talked\n  over the subject of Marriage and Parentage a great deal; but we never\n  had had it presented to our minds in so strong and clear a light\n  before.\n\n  \u201cWhen I was married, I was most lamentably ignorant of the laws of my\n  nature, especially of those designed to govern Maternity. But my\n  husband, in regard to maternity, and the relation that leads to it, is\n  a most kind and considerate man, and I love and honor him all the more\n  for it. I wish your book on \u2018Marriage and Parentage\u2019 had fallen into\n  our hands before our children were born; we might have given them more\n  loving hearts, and nobler natures, in body and soul, by understanding\n  better how surrounding influences affect us before birth. But I am\n  thankful for my sake, and for my children\u2019s sake, and for the sake of\n  the mothers that are to come after us, that your views are being so\n  widely made known through your writings and your lectures. If mothers\n  better understand the laws of Nature designed to govern maternity, and\n  the relation in which it originates, they will be more careful of\n  themselves, for sake of their children.\n\n  \u201cI have heard many mothers express their thankfulness for your visit\n  and your conversations and lectures here. You have given hope and\n  gladness to many anxious and despairing hearts. The mother of six\n  little ones, and who is about to add another to the number, said to\n  me, \u2018Such instruction is exactly what men and women need.\u2019 I felt\n  sorry for her; yet not so sorry for her as for the unborn babe; for I\n  know its existence is most unwelcome to the mother.\n\n  \u201cWhen I think of the great and good work in which you are engaged, my\n  heart blesses you, and bids you God-speed, for it is a subject of the\n  deepest interest to me as a wife and mother. Before this question of\n  Maternity, and the relation that leads to it, so far as the character\n  and destiny of the race are concerned, in this and in the future\n  state, all others sink into insignificance. It is most painful to hear\n  woman, in her vanity, her shallowness, and intellectual, social and\n  moral debasement, array herself against the only movement that ever\n  can raise her to a true estimate of herself as the mother of the race.\n  Till the right is conceded to her to determine for herself when, how\n  often, and under what conditions she shall be a mother, or be subject\n  to the relation that leads to maternity, woman can never become the\n  true and proud mother of a healthy, beautiful and noble offspring.\n  While she is a mother from necessity rather than from choice, she must\n  feel herself an abject, degraded being, and her children must partake\n  of her degradation. My husband and myself bid you God-speed! Our\n  hearts are with you.\u201d\n\nThe following fact was communicated by a wife and mother, as having\noccurred under her own observation, and in reference to her own\ndaughter. Let every father and mother read this, and see to what\nextremities their daughters are often driven, to save themselves from a\nmaternity whose sufferings they are not prepared to endure:\u2014\n\n  \u201cMy only daughter was married to a warm-hearted, impulsive young man\n  of twenty, when she was but sixteen. I besought him not to marry her\n  to gratify his passions, and endeavored to set before him and her the\n  certain consequences of a union formed for mere sensual purposes. She\n  was, and is, an innocent, artless, and frail creature. She was in poor\n  health, and I knew that absence from him preyed upon the life of her\n  body and soul. They married, and he took her to a distant western\n  State.\n\n  \u201cIn about four months, she came home to me, by his consent, a haggard,\n  emaciated wreck of a woman. The first moment she saw me alone, she\n  said to me, \u2018Mother, they say I am about to become a mother, and my\n  husband wished me to come to you, to see if you could not prevent it.\u2019\n  I told her it was impossible; she was so feeble, that the effort to\n  kill the child would kill her. She wept, and prayed me to save her\n  from the suffering and anguish of child-birth. \u2018I have,\u2019 said she,\n  \u2018the most loathsome and horrible feelings about it. I think it would\n  be a greater sin to give birth to a child, with the feelings I now\n  have towards it, than to kill it before it is born. The very thought\n  of giving birth to a child fills my soul with deadly enmity. My\n  constant prayer is, that the child may be destroyed. I would rather\n  die with it, than to give it birth under such circumstances. What will\n  the child be, after it is born, if I give birth to it with the\n  feelings I now have, and which I cannot help?\u2019\n\n  \u201cI earnestly tried to dissuade her from destroying it for several\n  days; but she became so desperate, that I feared she would kill\n  herself, and knew that if the child was developed and born, under such\n  a state of mind in the mother, it must inevitably be a desperado, or a\n  fugitive and vagabond on the earth. She had not one feeling of natural\n  desire for her child, but only sought its death. I took her to a\n  doctor, noted for his ante-natal murders, and he advised that the\n  child should be killed,\u2014and he killed it. Her husband came after her,\n  and was thankful the deed had been done.\n\n  \u201cBut the husband had no thought of restraining his passion, and\n  insisted on its gratification, though maternity should ensue. In a few\n  months, maternity was again imposed upon her. She has no power of\n  endurance. He and she again wished the child to be destroyed, and it\n  was, by the same doctor. With all this dreadful suffering and anguish\n  of his wife, he insisted on his gratification. He had no higher\n  conception of marriage, than as a means of mere sensual indulgence. To\n  own her body, and use it for his gratification, he deemed his right as\n  a husband. She regards maternity with repulsion, and the relation that\n  leads to it; still, like most women, she thinks it a great misfortune\n  that husbands cannot gratify their sensualism without imposing on\n  their wives the necessity of abortion, or of giving birth to children\n  they do not want, and she lives in constant fear of losing the\n  affection of her husband, if she does not quietly yield to his\n  passion.\n\n  \u201cAs to her husband, she really thought he could not control himself\n  without great injury. He had convinced her that the laws of God and\n  man gave him the right to that indulgence with his legal wife as often\n  as he desired, and if conception ensued, it was no fault of his; that\n  he was blameless, as to any wrong done. I could not but feel disgusted\n  and horrified, to see all that was lovely and good in my child thus\n  sacrificed to a man\u2019s low sensualism. When a husband thus deliberately\n  treats his wife as a mere means of sensual gratification, it blunts\n  all that is refined and noble in her, and makes him an object of\n  disgust to her. And she, in her nature, must exercise the\n  love-principle or starve, and she wastes it on others more congenial,\n  who will respect her womanly nature. Often this is the cause of her\n  throwing herself into temptation, and becoming a victim of the base\n  passions of those who are ever on the watch for such. Thus she is\n  driven, step by step, to utter prostitution,\u2014all from being made the\n  slave to the sensual passion of the husband. Had she had a\n  spiritually-minded and noble husband, or the courage to assert her\n  rights, her home would have been her heaven, and her progress and\n  improvement, not her degradation and ruin, the law of his life.\u201d\n\nRead the following. It must be an inhuman and monstrous religion which\ncan countenance a crime so unnatural as enforced maternity, or\nante-natal murder:\u2014\n\n  \u201cThose among us who are members of our churches, and are counted most\n  exemplary patterns of purity and piety, to my certain knowledge,\n  practise ante-natal murder, and they justify themselves by saying, \u2018It\n  would be a greater sin against children to entail on them the curse of\n  an abhorred existence, than to kill them before they are born!\u2019 These\n  pious women affected to be greatly shocked, when, in your lectures\n  here, you appealed to their husbands to control their passions, and\n  spoke of the crime of enforcing on women a maternity whose\n  responsibilities and sufferings they were not prepared joyfully to\n  welcome. But Nature is ever true to herself. No matter who they are\n  that perpetrate this outrage, whether rich or poor, high or low, pious\n  or impious, whether in the church or out of it, they become weakly,\n  and incurably diseased; their constitutions soon break down under this\n  abuse, and they pass away by consumption, or some nameless, wasting\n  disease, and their death is, by most people, attributed to a \u2018wise and\n  good Providence.\u2019 The husbands, the real murderers, are pitied, and\n  soon comforted by taking other wives, only to kill them in the same\n  way. How can a woman feel proud of the nature God has given her, after\n  thus abusing it? She cannot. She must feel in her soul that she is\n  degraded, and her very existence becomes a loathing to herself. Who\n  drives her to this inhuman deed?\u2014who, indeed, but the very husband to\n  whom she so fondly looked for protection from all harm?\u201d\n\nDEAR FRIEND,\u2014The following positions seem to me to be clearly sustained:\n\n1. That it is a crime of the deepest dye, for a husband to impose on his\nwife, without design, a maternity whose responsibilities and sufferings\nshe cannot joyfully endure.\n\n2. That it is a sin for a husband to urge his wife to submit to a\nrelation which may result in an undesigned and undesired maternity.\n\n3. That no wife can stand proud and stainless before her own soul, who\nallows herself to come into a relation with her husband which may entail\non her the curse of an unwelcome maternity, and reduce her to the\nrevolting alternative of ante-natal murder, or of giving birth to a\nchild whose existence is abhorrent to her soul.\n\nMay not every child, in justice, demand of its parents, as a birthright\ninheritance, (1) a healthy body, free from all tendency to disease; (2)\na healthy soul, free from all tendencies to idiocy, and insanity of\nintellect or of heart; (3) a designed existence, the result of a wise\nand tender forethought, and not of blind, impetuous, selfish, sensual\npassion; (4) a love origin, rather than a mere sensual, animal origin;\nand (5) a joyous welcome into life? As you cast your little ones afloat\non the ocean of eternal being, be careful to secure to them this outfit;\nthen may you hope to see them bravely and successfully outride the\nstorms of life, and enter into a true and endless rest. But what hope is\nthere for these poor, diseased, suffering little ones, the offspring of\na loathed and hated maternity, whose very existence, ere they were born,\nwas made accursed by the mothers that bore them, and by the fathers,\nwhose only thought or aim in the act in which they originated was mere\nsensual gratification? God pity these poor, unwelcome ones! No earthly\nparents welcome them into life with loving smiles. In whose warm, loving\nbosom can they be tenderly cherished? To whom can they look for love and\nsympathy? Again I say, GOD PITY THESE POOR, UNWELCOME CHILDREN!\n\nThat your home may never be cursed by an undesigned and undesired\nmaternity, or by an unwelcome child, is the anxious wish of\n\n                                                Your friend,\n                                                                H. C. W.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in\n      spelling.\n 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"The unwelcome child : $b Or, The crime of an undesigned and undesired maternity","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35252}