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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Radiant Motherhood
+       A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future
+
+Author: Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45711]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIANT MOTHERHOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RADIANT MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+
+
+_BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part I. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. 12s. net.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part II. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. £1 1s. net.
+
+    Ancient Plants. Illustrated. Published by Blackie. 4s. 6d. net.
+
+    The Study of Plant Life. 2nd Edition. Illustrated. Published by
+    Blackie. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Married Love. 8th Edition. Published by Putnam. 6s. net.
+
+    Wise Parenthood. 6th Edition. Published by Putnam. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    A Letter to Working Mothers. Published by the Author. 6d. net.
+
+
+TRAVEL.
+
+    A Journal from Japan. Published by Blackie. 7s. 6d. net.
+
+
+LITERARY.
+
+    Man, Other Poems and a Preface. Published by Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Conquest, a Three-Act Play. Published by French. 1s. net.
+
+    Gold in the Wood and The Race. Two Plays. Published by Fifield. 2s.
+    net.
+
+    With Prof J. Sakurai, Plays of old Japan, The Nō. Published by
+    Heinemann. 5s. net.
+
+
+    The author’s vivid and imaginative sympathy has really enabled her,
+    in some degree, to communicate the incommunicable.
+
+        ATHENÆUM.
+
+
+
+
+  Radiant Motherhood
+
+  A Book for Those Who
+  are Creating the Future
+
+
+  By
+
+  Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+  Doctor of Science, London; Doctor of Philosophy,
+  Munich; Fellow of University College, London;
+  Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
+  and the Linnean Society, London
+
+
+  LONDON
+  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, LTD.
+
+  TORONTO
+  THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+  _First published August 9, 1920_
+
+
+  _Copyright; translations and all other rights
+  reserved by the Author. Copyright in U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+_Dedicated to young husbands and all who are creating the future_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                       PAGE
+         PREFACE                                         ix
+ CHAPTER
+      I. THE LOVER’S DREAM                                1
+     II. CONCEIVED IN BEAUTY                              9
+    III. THE GATEWAY OF PAIN                             18
+     IV. THE YOUNG MOTHER-TO-BE:
+         HER AMAZEMENTS                                  32
+      V. HER DELIGHTS                                    39
+     VI. HER DISTRESSES                                  44
+    VII. THE YOUNG FATHER-TO-BE:
+         HIS AMAZEMENTS                                  52
+   VIII. HIS DELIGHTS                                    58
+     IX. HIS DISTRESSES                                  62
+      X. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT MOTHER   71
+     XI. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT FATHER   93
+    XII. THE UNION OF THREE                              99
+   XIII. THE PROCESSION OF THE MONTHS                   113
+    XIV. PRENATAL INFLUENCE                             130
+     XV. EVOLVING TYPES OF WOMEN                        146
+    XVI. BIRTH AND BEAUTY                               161
+   XVII. BABY’S RIGHTS                                  171
+  XVIII. THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE HUMAN CHAIN            183
+    XIX. THE COST OF COFFINS                            201
+     XX. THE CREATION OF A NEW AND IRRADIATED RACE      208
+
+
+  APPENDICES
+
+  A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD                        229
+  B. ON BIRTH                                                   231
+  C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH  233
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This book is written for the same young people who inspired _Married
+Love_. Many of my readers have asked me to write such a book as this,
+and I sincerely hope that it will not disappoint them. Many, many
+people have contributed facts which have helped me to write it. The
+book, however, is pre-eminently the work of my baby son and his father,
+whose beautiful spirits have been, and will be, through all eternity
+united with me in a burning desire to bring light into dark places.
+
+        M. C. S.
+
+
+
+
+Radiant Motherhood
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Lover’s Dream
+
+    So every spirit, as it is most pure,
+        And hath in it the more of heauenly light,
+    So it the fairer bodie doth procure
+        To habit in, and it more fairely dight,
+        With chearefull grace and amiable sight.
+    For of the soule the bodie forme doth take:
+    For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
+
+        SPENCER: _An Hymne in honour of Beautie_.
+
+
+Every lover desires a child. Those who imagine the contrary, and
+maintain that love is purely selfish, know only of the lesser types
+of love. The supreme love of true mates always carries with it the
+yearning to perpetuate the exquisite quality of its own being, and to
+record, through the glory of its mutual creation, other lives yet more
+beautiful and perfect.
+
+Existence being such a difficult compromise between our dreams and the
+material facts of the world, this desire may sometimes be thwarted by
+factors outside itself; may even be so suppressed as to be invisible in
+the conduct and unsuspected in the wishes of the lover. Yet the desire
+to link their lives with the future is deeply woven into the love of
+all sound and healthy people who love supremely.
+
+It is commonly said that most women marry for children, and not out of
+a personal love, and there is more truth in this saying than is good
+for the race. To-day, alas, many women cannot find the perfect and
+sensitive mate their hearts desire and they hope in _any_ marriage to
+get children which will mitigate the consequent loneliness of their
+lives. Sometimes they may, to some extent, succeed, but far less often
+than they imagine, for that strange and still but little understood
+force “heredity” steps in, and the son of the tolerated father may
+grow infinitely more like his physical father than he is like the dear
+delight his mother dreamed he might be.
+
+Few girls have not pictured in day dreams the joy of holding in their
+arms their own beautiful babies. No man of their acquaintance, however,
+may seem fine enough to be their father. Until she has been crushed
+by experience, or, unless she listens with absolute belief to the
+depressing information of her elders, each girl believes that her own
+intense desire for perfection will be the principal factor in creating
+the beautiful babies of her dreams. Often it seems as though this power
+were granted, for women sometimes bear lovely children by fathers in
+whom one may seek in vain for any bodily grace or charm.
+
+The century long working of economic laws based on physical force,
+the remnants of which still affect us, has resulted in man generally
+having the selective power and tending to choose for his wife the most
+beautiful or charming woman that his means allow; hence hitherto on
+the whole, the race has been bred from the better and more beautiful
+women. This has undoubtedly tended to keep the standard of physical
+form from sinking to the utter degradation which we see in the worst of
+the slums, and in institutions where live the feeble-minded offspring
+of inferior mothers who have wantonly borne children of fathers devoid
+of any realization of what they were doing.
+
+From these avenues of shame and misery, however, I must steer my line
+of thought, for this book is written pre-eminently for the young, happy
+and physically well-conditioned pair who mating beautifully on all the
+planes of their existence, are living in married love.
+
+Whether early in the days of their marriage or postponed for some
+months or more out of regard for his wife’s body and beauty, the hour
+will come when the young husband yearning above her, sees in his wife’s
+eyes the reflection of the future, and when their mutual longing
+springs up to initiate the chain of lives which shall repeat throughout
+the ages the bodily, mental and spiritual beauties of each other, which
+each holds so dear. Perhaps in lovers’ talk and exquisite whispers they
+have spoken of this great deed on which they are embarking, and each
+has voiced that intense yearning which filled them to see another “with
+your eyes, your hair, your smile,” living and radiant. The lovers dream
+that they will be repeated in others of their own creation, always
+young, running through the ages which culminate in the golden glories
+of the millenium.
+
+The dream is so wonderful, the thought that it pictures in the mind so
+full of vernal beauty, light and vigour that, were facts commensurate
+with it, its result should spring all ready formed from between the
+lips of those who breathed its possibilities like Minerva from the head
+of Jove.
+
+It seems incredible that such splendid dominant designs to fulfil God’s
+purpose should be hindered, and made to bend and toil through the hard
+material facts of the molecular structure of the world, and that it
+is only many months afterwards that the first outward body is given
+to this dream, and that then it is in a form not strong and dancing
+in lightness and beauty but weak and helpless with many intensely
+physical necessities which for months and years will require the utmost
+fostering care or it will be destroyed by material effects, hostile
+and too strong for it. Yet such is the limitation of our powers of
+creation. And underneath the intense passion of love and all its rich
+dreams of beauty is the slow building, chemically molecule by molecule,
+biologically cell by cell, against obstacles the surmounting of which
+seems a superhuman feat.
+
+Lovers who are parents give to each other the supremest material gift
+in the world, a material embodiment of celestial dreams which itself
+has the further power of vital creation.
+
+In this and all my work, I speak to the normal, healthy and loving in
+an endeavour to help them to remain normal, healthy and loving, and
+thus to perfect their lives. So in this book I do not intend to deal
+with those whose marriages are mistaken ones, or with those who do
+not know true love. I write for those who having made a love match
+are passing together through the ensuing and surprising years, and
+incidentally doing one of the greatest pieces of work which human
+beings can do during their progress through this world, and that is
+creating the next generation.
+
+In nature, the consummation of the physical act of union between
+lovers generally results in the conception of a new life. We share this
+physical aspect of mating and the resulting parenthood with most of the
+woodland creatures. How far many of the lowlier lives are conscious of
+the future results of their mating unions is a problem in elementary
+psychology beyond the realm of present knowledge. But that parenthood
+is the natural result of their union is to-day known, one must suppose,
+by almost all young couples who wed. I am still uncertain how far the
+two are _conscious_ of this in the early days of their union, when
+every circumstance encourages that supreme self-centredness of happy
+youth. Much must depend on the age, and on the previous experience and
+education of the two; much also on their relative natures. A profoundly
+introspective and thoughtful man and woman are more liable than
+others to be speedily aware of the many interwoven strands of their
+joint lives, and to live consciously on several planes of existence
+simultaneously.
+
+The supreme act of physical union as I have shown in my book, _Married
+Love_, consists fundamentally of three essential and widely differing
+reactions, having effects in correspondingly different regions. There
+is (_a_) the intimately personal effect on the internal secretions and
+general vitality of the individual partaking of that sacrament; (_b_)
+there is the social effect of the union of the two in a mutual act in
+which they must so perfectly blend and harmonize; and (_c_) there is
+the racial result which may lead to the procreation of a new life.
+
+In the early days of the honeymoon, personal passion and the
+concentrated delight of each in the mate is probably more than
+sufficient in all its rich complexity to fill the consciousness of
+the two who are thus united in a life-long comradeship to form that
+highest unit, the pair. But as education and the conscious control of
+our lives grow, the young pair who are so blissfully self-centred as
+not to remember or not to be aware of the racial effects of their acts
+are probably decreasing in numbers. Among the best of those who marry
+to-day, the majority only enter upon parenthood or the possibility of
+parenthood when they feel justified in so doing. The young man who
+profoundly loves his wife and who considers the future benefit of
+their child, protects her from accidental conception or from becoming
+a mother at times when the strain upon her would be too great, or when
+he is unable to give her and the coming child the necessary care and
+support. That myriads of children are born without this consideration
+on the part of their parents applies to the commonalty of mankind, but
+not to the best.
+
+Often to-day the betrothed young couple will speak openly and
+beautifully of the children they hope to have, while others equally
+full of the creative dream feel it too tender a subject to put into
+words, and may marry without ever having given expression to the
+possibility that they will generate through their love yet other
+lovers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Conceived in Beauty
+
+    ... Here in close recess
+    With flowers, garlands and sweet smelling herbs,
+    Espousèd Eve deck’d first her nuptial bed,
+    And heav’nly choirs the Hymenæan sung,
+    What day the genial angel to our sire
+    Brought her in naked beauty more adorn’d,
+    More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods
+    Endow’d with all their gifts....
+    ... Into their inmost bower
+    Handed they went; and, eased the putting off
+    Those troublesome disguises which we wear,
+    Straight side by side were laid; nor turn’d, I ween,
+    Adam from his fair spouse; nor Eve the rites
+    Mysterious of connubial love refused:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    These, lull’d by nightingales, embracing slept,
+    And on their naked limbs the flowery roof
+    Shower’d roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
+    Blest pair, and O! yet happiest if ye seek
+    No happier state, and know to know no more.
+
+    MILTON: _Paradise Lost_.
+
+
+In ancient Sanskrit, there is a work dealing minutely with love and
+with the different forms its expression takes in different types of
+people. This has been modified, added to and re-written by many later
+authors, and under various names works based on this are to be found in
+Sanskrit and translated into various Indian dialects.
+
+In these volumes much that is curious, and to Western nations, absurd,
+is to be found, but also several profound observations which appear
+to be based on truths generally ignored by us. One of the interesting
+themes of these very early writers is a recognition and a description
+of the characteristics of the best and most perfect type of woman, the
+“Padmini.” In addition to describing fully her physical appearance and
+characteristics, it is observed that she being a child of light and
+not of darkness, prefers the supreme act of love to take place in the
+daylight rather than the dark.
+
+In this country, owing to our artificial, over-burdened and
+over-strained lives, the physical union of lovers is almost always
+confined to the night time. Crowded as we are in cities and suburban
+districts, solitude in Nature is almost impossible; for most, seclusion
+is only known in a closed room after dark. The Sanskrit writer of the
+sixth century, however, takes love more seriously than we do, and he
+describes how for the sacred union serious preparation of beauty should
+be made--a room or natural arbour decked with flowers; and for the
+supreme expression of love (that is the love between a pair each of
+the highest and most perfect type), this should take place in the light
+of day and not the darkness of the night. Even in our present degraded
+civilization there are some who do realize the sacredness and the value
+of the bodily embrace in the fresh beauty of nature and sunlight. There
+must be many beautiful children who were conceived from unions which
+took place under natural conditions of light and open air radiance. The
+most spontaneous time for conception is the summer when our air is mild
+and sweet enough for true love in Nature’s way.
+
+In an empire where woodland or seaside solitude is not obtainable by
+lovers for this their most sacred function, the distribution of the
+population is gravely wrong. It will, however, probably for some time
+to come be difficult for those who desire such a profound return to
+natural rectitude, to obtain the necessary security of seclusion amid
+beautiful surroundings. Therefore, alas, it will in all probability
+long remain only possible to most lovers to ramble together in nature,
+and then later to follow the usual course of uniting within their room.
+
+We do not know enough about ourselves or the results of our actions,
+under our present conditions, to realize to what extent the hour of
+conception modifies the quality of the offspring. We only know that
+the child of lovers beautiful in mind and body, the child ardently
+desired by them, whose coming is prepared with every beauty which it is
+in their power to obtain, is often well worth all the outlay of love
+and thought. Certainly among those personally known to me who have
+followed the rather exceptional course I indicate, the children are
+remarkable for both physical beauty and exquisite vitality, balanced
+with sweetness and strength of mental and spiritual qualities.
+
+There is an old and in my opinion valuable view (although it has not
+been “scientifically proved”) that the actual hour of conception, the
+condition of the parents at the moment when the germs fuse is one of
+vital consequences to the child-to-be. Scientific proof of this will
+be, of course, extraordinarily difficult to discover, but indirectly
+there do appear to be some actual data in favour of the converse,
+namely that temporary unhealthy states of the parents result in the
+conception of children so inferior as to be markedly and seriously
+anti-social. Forel (_Sexual Question_, 1908) says:--
+
+    The recent researches of Bezzola seem to prove that the old belief
+    in the bad quality of children conceived during drunkenness is
+    not without foundation. Relying on the Swiss census of 1900,
+    in which there figure nine thousand idiots ... this author has
+    proved that there are two acute annual maximum periods for the
+    conception of idiots (calculated from nine months before birth)
+    the periods of carnival and vintage, when the people drink most.
+    In the wine-growing districts, the maximum conception of idiots at
+    the time of vintage is enormous, while it is almost _nil_ at other
+    periods.
+
+It is, of course, not always possible to arrange the hour of the union
+which will lead to conception. And further even when the hour of the
+union is arranged, nature, to some extent, controls and may modify
+conditions before conception. Sometimes the fertilization of the egg
+cell by the sperm cell takes place in the hour of the bodily union of
+the lovers, sometimes this inner process is delayed by hours or days
+(see overleaf). Conception is possible in most women at almost any
+time during the years of potential motherhood, yet there do appear to
+be several factors which lead to the potential fertility of a woman
+varying very much from time to time. Some women, for instance, appear
+to be liable to conceive only for a certain number of days in each
+month, and these are in general the two or three days immediately
+following the monthly period and the day or two immediately before.
+With other women, however, unions on any day of the month may lead to
+conception, but this depends, possibly, not only on the woman herself
+but on the vitality and probable length of life of the sperm cells of
+her husband. This also varies very greatly in individuals. The longest
+time which the individual sperm has been observed to remain vital after
+entry into the woman is seventeen days (see Bossi, _N. Arch. d’Obstetr.
+Gynocol._, April 1891).
+
+Hence it will be realized that a union arranged to take place under
+ideal and perfect conditions, perhaps on a holiday into wild and
+inspiring solitudes, may result as desired in the entry of the sperm
+into the womb of the woman, and yet the actual fusion of the sperm and
+egg cell, and the consequent conception may not come to pass until some
+days later.
+
+Strange it is indeed in this world, in which so much scientific and
+laborious observation has been devoted to all sorts of irrelevant and
+trivial subjects, that knowledge of the actual processes of our own
+fertilization and conception and of the extent of the significance to
+the future generations of the mode and condition of the union of the
+parents are almost totally unknown to scientists or doctors, and are
+disregarded by the majority of the public.
+
+A recent memoir in the French Academy of Science[1] dealing with
+statistical figures (going back in France, at any rate, so far as 1853)
+proves that there does seem to be a definite seasonal influence on
+the power of conception. Taking the births for the whole year, it is
+found they are not equally divided throughout the months, but that a
+notable maximum of births is found in February and March for most of
+the countries in the northern hemisphere, the actual maximum of births
+being from the 15th February to the 15th March, and thus indicating
+that the maximum of conceptions took place between the 5th May and the
+5th June. Richet quotes Bertillon as having established the fact that
+this maximum of conceptions does not depend on the chance that brides
+like to be married in the spring, because an identical maximum is found
+in the illegitimate birthrate. Richet gives many tables of figures,
+and maintains that the maximum corresponds both in the town and in the
+country, among the rich and the poor, and among the married and the
+unmarried, and is, therefore, in his opinion, an actual physiological
+function:--
+
+[1] Charles Richet, “De la Variation mensuelle de la Natalité,” 1916,
+Comptes rendus Acad. Sciences, Paris, pp. 141-149 and 161-166.
+
+    C’est que les conditions physiologiques de la maturation de l’ovule
+    et de sa fécondation ne sont pas également favorables dans toutes
+    les periodes de l’année. Par suite d’une ancestrale prédisposition,
+    au moment du printemps, chez la femme, comme chez la plupart des
+    animaux, mais moins nettement que chez eux, la maturation, la chute
+    et la fécondation de l’ovule se font dans des conditions meilleures
+    et plus assurées.
+
+The corresponding maximum for the southern hemisphere arises between
+August and October. This natural tendency to produce children
+according to the season is, to some extent, altered by the conscious
+and deliberate control of parenthood, which all the more highly
+civilized countries now find that their better citizens are exerting.
+
+This natural time for conception will, however, tend not to be thwarted
+by those who are consciously regulating their lives, because from
+almost every point of view, the summer is the best time in which to
+experience the joys of love. As the verdant spring is the best time for
+a baby to be born, the thoughtful mother-to-be will try, other things
+being equal, to arrange that its birth should take place then, both for
+her own sake and for that of the child. The weeks of recovery after the
+strain of the birth are more easily and happily spent lying in the warm
+sunshine of a spring or summer garden than in the chill of the winter
+months, and even the actual expense of the birth is reduced when it
+takes place in the warmth of the spring or early summer when fires and
+the labour they involve will be saved.
+
+The child too has warm air to surround it on its first introduction to
+the outer world after its long period of warmth and protection within
+its mother, and when in a month or two it is able to kick about on the
+grass, it benefits directly from the rays of the sun and also from the
+sun-warmed earth.
+
+Various notable men and women, and, in particular, the famous Dr. Trall
+of America, have held that the actual hour of conception is the one of
+fate, and that the moods, feelings and conditions of the parents in
+that hour work more vital magic then than they can do in any succeeding
+days or weeks. Instinctively, one would like to feel that this is so.
+Indeed it will take much to _disprove_ it, although it is a theme which
+it is at present impossible to prove, and it must remain always only a
+personal bias, until thousands of people who view marriage aright will
+consciously observe and record many things and contribute them to some
+thinker who will tabulate, correlate and understand them.
+
+Whether the hour of conception affects the child directly or not, the
+memory of an ardent and wonderful experience in which the pair of
+lovers consciously surround themselves with beautiful conditions, and
+deliberately place themselves through their love at the service of
+God and humanity in the creation of the next generation, must give a
+vitalizing and joyous memory to both throughout all their lives. This
+memory being especially connected with the dear child of that union
+must, therefore, have in this indirect way at any rate a positive
+racial value.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Gateway of Pain
+
+    As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and firs
+    The mother looks upon the newborn child,
+    Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
+    When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs’d.
+    Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
+    And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
+    Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
+    Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The price of every beauty in this world is in proportion to its
+quality, even although the payment of the price exacted may be long
+deferred or may be made in such an intricate and remote form that its
+connection with the result is overlooked.
+
+As the greatest thing which lovers can give each other is a child,
+and as none in the world are so great as lovers, the price exacted by
+Nature for the child of loving and sensitive people is correspondingly
+heavy.
+
+This statement may apparently conflict with the idea that the joy of
+bearing a child to the beloved is a woman’s consummation of happiness;
+yet it does not conflict, because of the deeper truth that the
+supremest happiness is mysteriously intermingled with self-sacrifice.
+A young woman whose character is sufficiently beautiful and sensitive
+to know the highest joys of motherhood--the full delights of human
+existence and love--will also be sensitive to the varied pains which
+motherhood will bring. Indeed, in this respect, the poet’s saying that
+“the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to
+be pricked by the thorn” is essentially true.
+
+The radiance of the highest form of motherhood is that of the
+transfigured saint, hallowed by suffering comprehended and endured,
+transmuted into a service beyond and above the lower desires of self.
+
+For long, indeed for the many millions of years during which she has
+shown a motherhood comparable with that of human beings,[2] Nature has
+essentially trapped and tricked the mother into her motherhood. All
+the woodland and jungle creatures, the deer or the tiger, the rabbit
+or the squirrel, grow up through their brief adolescence into a
+partial consciousness of delight in themselves and reach the phase of
+their development in which their own desires urge them to unite with
+each other. One can scarcely believe that they are conscious of the
+resulting parenthood which will become a physical fact at a later date,
+although the training of her cubs by a woodland mother undoubtedly
+does include handing on, through some speechless communication, of
+some actual instruction. A similar blind parenthood, but in addition
+_coerced_, has for many thousands of years been characteristic of a
+large portion of the human race. Even to-day motherhood is too often
+blind: the young girl delighting in herself and the fairness of her own
+body, conscious of the power she wields in social life as a beautiful
+and attractive creature whom older people pet and please and young men
+place upon a pedestal, is urged by this natural self-centred delight
+into accepting through flattery the enjoyment of herself by some chosen
+mate; and the later consequences of motherhood are then faced either in
+amazed astonishment or in open revolt.
+
+[2] By this I mean the motherhood which carries and protects the
+developed young within the mother’s body, unlike that of the lower
+animals, such as fishes, which leave the eggs to their fate.
+
+Earlier civilizations often dealt with the excessive births resulting
+from blind or coerced parenthood by destroying the children as infants
+after birth. This was done directly, and often by her leading citizens,
+in Greece (one of the highest forms of civilization ever attained) and
+_still_ infanticide direct or indirect goes on among all the populous
+races of the world. Where the value placed on the mother’s mental and
+physical suffering is low, one may still see motherhood, not as a fine,
+voluntary and glorious act of self-sacrifice from the highest possible
+motives of love and service directly to the beloved, and indirectly to
+the race, but as the exploitation of a trapped and helpless sacrifice.
+
+Mothers will say that their babies are their greatest joys; one may
+ask, therefore, how I can use the word “sacrifice” in connection with
+motherhood. The use of the word is just, and based on truths too
+generally concealed by those who know them, and far too generally
+unknown by those who ought to know them. Ignorance of their extent has
+made men callous, indifferent or ribald towards the profound sacrifices
+of motherhood.
+
+Few there be, however, who do not know of the agonizing torments of
+actual birth. The Bible is read aloud in churches, and in its wording
+there is some recognition of the existence of this agony, although
+based upon earlier and simpler civilizations in which the women were
+probably better cared for and better fitted for motherhood than the
+majority of women are to-day. Following biblical tradition, the memory
+of the agony of birth is generally portrayed as being wiped out by
+the supreme joy in the child which follows. To-day, however, this
+effacement of the anguish is by no means universal, and the abiding
+horror of the birth is so great that not a few women refuse to bear
+another child. Then men, who cannot even imagine the experience of
+child-bearing, denounce such a mother, rate her and hold her up to
+derision. How little do they realize that in her they may see Nature’s
+working of the laws of evolution (see p. 24).
+
+The torturing agony of birth might so easily have been averted by
+Nature had the construction of our bodies differed but very slightly
+from those which we to-day possess in common with most of the higher
+animals. The human baby when the hour comes for it to sever its
+connection from its mother, and as an independent individual to venture
+into the open air of the world, has to make its way through the arched
+gateway of bone fixed and set by the mother’s own requirements as a
+frame to her own structure. The encircling archway of bone through
+which the infant has to pass is but three or four inches in diameter.
+It would have been possible had our evolution taken a different
+turn for the infant to have made its exit through the soft wall of
+the mother’s body instead of through this fixed and hardened circle
+of her bone. But for some causes too remote for us at present to
+discover this was not so, and the essential fact faces us to-day
+that every infant born naturally must be born through this circle of
+bone. Moreover if the infant is a well-developed and healthy one,
+as the ordinary baby of a healthy and beautiful young couple should
+naturally and rightly be, that infant’s head is larger in diameter than
+the circle of bone through which it has to pass. Its tissues have,
+therefore, to be squeezed and pressed to mould their shape in order to
+allow its exit through the orifice, and this must be a slow process,
+and one which almost always entails great pressure and consequent agony
+to the mother. Dr. Mary Scharlieb says in _The Welfare of the Expectant
+Mother_:--
+
+    It is, however, scarcely possible that either the public or the
+    profession realizes that one woman dies in child birth for every
+    250 children born alive. In addition to this we have to remember
+    that the same accidents and diseases which kill the mothers and the
+    babies inevitably cause a still heavier percentage of crippling and
+    invaliding (p. 43).
+
+Twenty-five per cent. and more of the babies conceived and borne die
+before they reach normal birth. Often they find the journey through
+the bony archway into the outer world so difficult and arduous a task
+that they perish in the process of birth, although probably had they
+been born by Cesarean section, they would have survived and grown into
+healthy children.
+
+We do not consider what the infant itself in birth may be enduring.
+The infant is “unconscious,” that is to say it carries no memory of
+these earlier months in its conscious memory as it grows up, but the
+excessive moulding, particularly of its head, which often has to take
+place and sometimes takes weeks to right itself, must, one thinks,
+greatly disturb the little brain, and in my opinion may have a lifelong
+effect.
+
+I have never heard this aspect of our present problem duly considered.
+The fact that the increasing brain capacity of civilized man tends ever
+to give the new born infant a larger head, and tends proportionately
+to increase the size of the head out of relation to the size of the
+circle of its mother’s bone, has been commented on, and appears to some
+far seeing thinkers as the possible cause of the ultimate extinction
+of the human race. Because if we go on developing in the way we are at
+present doing, ever depending more and more on our brains, and the head
+of the new born infant tends to increase with the natural development
+of the brain, the day will come when the birth of a child is absolutely
+blocked by the relative diameter of its head and of its mother’s pelvic
+bones. If the higher races maintain a dominant place in the world, the
+day may come when with nearly all women such an incompatible relation
+will arise. Of what avail then would be the ratings and peevish fury
+of callous men? What scheme the race may have devised before that date
+to relieve this cruel deadlock we cannot here discuss. The perfecting
+of the method of birth by Cesarean section offers much promise. It may
+become a racial necessity. This possibility, on which to-day we are
+beginning to impinge, indicates one great cause of the torturing agony
+of the actual hours of birth which the young mother and father-to-be
+may have to face before they can see the child of their love.
+
+Fortunate women are even still so constructed that the circle of bone
+has a relatively large orifice which allows the infant comparatively
+easily to pass through it, and the difficulty and danger of birth for
+them is minimized. With them the birth pangs may be so trivial in
+comparison with the result, that they are truly “almost negligible” as
+most men would like to believe of most women.
+
+Such women, when outward circumstances allow it, are those whom every
+impulse should encourage to be the mothers of the large families, which
+are, under proper conditions, still desirable for a portion of our
+people.
+
+Such a woman as the one who wrote me the following letter is indeed the
+standard which all women and would-be mothers would gladly reach were
+it possible in any degree to control the formation of a growing girl’s
+body so that as a woman she might retain such a primitive adaptation to
+motherhood:--
+
+    On the exact right day the babe arrived ... in a quarter of an hour
+    he was there, without nurse, doctor or any one and with no pain to
+    myself. This little party has grown into a splendid specimen, very
+    large (he was 8-1/2 lbs. at birth) and firm and muscular. He is the
+    whole day long laughing and kicking or sleeping.
+
+Such women, however, so far as records go, are few. Much might be done
+by science to discover what are the causes of the reverse condition,
+and if possible to attempt to eliminate them.
+
+In view of the agony which myriads of women throughout the ages of
+civilization have endured, it seems strange indeed that no effort
+should apparently have been made by the learned to understand the
+causes which control the individual formation of the growing structure,
+with a view possibly to securing some such development. In recent
+years, however, a little has been done in the recognition of the
+causes of the converse, that is to say the excessive narrowing of the
+pelvis to the degree where child birth is not only torment but a life
+and death agony. And it is now well known that this condition is
+associated with malnutrition and rickets in infancy and early girlhood.
+
+The little baby girl who has rickety bones (which result from being
+improperly fed as an infant) is, in extreme cases certain, and in
+many cases very likely, to have such contracted pelvic bones that
+when her turn comes for motherhood, the birth of a living child may
+be impossible by the ordinary processes of Nature. Here again, as so
+often is inevitable, in the course of any consideration of the profound
+truths of mated existence, we impinge upon the treatment of the unsound
+and the diseased. This _under_ development of the mother’s pelvic bones
+is a different problem from that evolutionary one touched on in the
+paragraphs above.
+
+Alas, that it should be true that the great majority of city dwellers
+come into the category of the spoilt and the tainted in some respect or
+another. But with the vision of true health and beauty as a standard
+before our eyes, many might escape the incipient weaknesses by
+consciously pursuing a standard of health, beauty and normality. It is
+this standard, this ideal picture, which may yet be reproduced in the
+lives of millions, which I desire to present in this book, so that in
+telling young married people some of the great facts which are ahead of
+them I will present only those difficulties which are inevitable, and
+leave to others the handling of disease. As things are to-day among
+British stock,[3] it is the very exceptional women who find birth an
+entirely easy process of which the pain is trivial, and this is chiefly
+due to the bony structure fixed and limited in size, which stands as
+a gateway of pain between the infant and the outer world, between the
+young wife and her motherhood.
+
+[3] In this, and in most of the generalisations found in this book,
+I am speaking of things as they are in Great Britain. While to a
+considerable extent the same is true of America and the Scandinavian
+countries, it must be remembered all through that I am speaking of the
+British, and primarily of our educated classes.
+
+Before the hour of birth is reached, however, the young mother-to-be,
+if she is neither instructed nor helped by the wisdom of her elders,
+may have already endured much that it will distress and dismay her
+lover and husband to observe, and much more which she, being a woman,
+will endure without allowing him to perceive, although she may be so
+frightened that it may be hard indeed for her not to cry out in her
+bewildered pain. How much of this distress and pain is essentially
+“natural,” how much is the artificial result of our mode of living and
+our ignorance of Nature’s laws? What are the things which a healthy,
+finely-built young woman mated to a healthy young man must endure,
+those experiences which she _cannot_ escape and those which she may
+with proper help avoid altogether or in part? It is the object of
+several chapters in this book to answer these questions more truthfully
+and I hope more helpfully than they have yet been answered. The things
+I deal with specially, because they will face nearly every _healthy_
+girl, are in most books ignored.
+
+My chapters may appear superfluous to those who view the long list
+of books purporting to give advice to the young wife and expectant
+mother on how to treat herself and the coming child. I have read the
+majority of those books, and I write this one because of their failure
+to touch on the profoundest essentials in a way which will truly help
+the healthy and sensitive type of young people. The healthy, normal
+and happy in my mind’s vision are the standard of the race: those who
+to-day to some extent foreshadow the strength and beauty of bodily and
+mental equipment which will become a commonplace when all have risen
+to their standard, and it is for them that I feel it imperative to add
+this one more book to the long list of books advising the young mother.
+With the young mother I also consider and try to help the young father
+who has been so strangely neglected and ignored and who also needs help.
+
+The majority of the writers on cognate subjects, like the majority
+of the minds of those who are concerned at all with the problems of
+the young mother, really though perhaps unconsciously present studies
+in disease, pictures of aberrations from the normal, accounts or
+innuendos dealing with illness and handicaps, with abnormal conditions
+which should never arise, and the knowledge of which should not be
+brought before the sensitive mind as if they were a usual and general
+thing. The acquiescence in a low standard of health, the discussion
+of diseased conditions as though they were normal, or even as though
+they were unavoidable, are intensive in their result and harmful to all
+who come under their influence. The race sickens ever more and more
+profoundly because of such influences.
+
+We have to-day in our community a new conception in the Government
+Department of the Ministry of Health, but alas, that Ministry is
+engrossed in the contemplation of disease. In the present state of
+our civilization this is perhaps unavoidable, because there are not
+enough people in the country of standing and experience in scientific
+research who have concerned themselves with the problems of the
+healthy and beautiful, and with the needs and requirements in the way
+of instruction and outward conditions and environment of those who by
+nature are healthy and normal, and who desire to remain healthy and
+normal. Even these need instruction to compensate for that which Nature
+cannot give to those who toil apart from her bosom in the cities, where
+they cannot hear her voice for the roaring of the traffic. This is the
+piteous plight of the majority of our citizens to-day, for so many live
+in towns.
+
+Alas, that there are physical facts which all must face of a type
+which makes one feel that Nature is cruel in her treatment of us. When
+two young, beautiful and ardently happy beings are embarking upon the
+greatest work for the community which they can do, with a desire to
+create further beautiful and happy lives, it seems indeed an ironic and
+wanton mistake that there should be distressing physical experiences
+for both of them to endure. But “As gold is tried by the fire, so the
+heart is tried by pain,” and if they are given a conscious knowledge of
+what they must face and what they may avoid, there will then be a firm
+foundation and a triumphant consummation to the visions and ideals of
+splendour and perfection which they can secure unimpaired through the
+trials which they conquer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Amazements
+
+    But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand
+    Together tread at last the immortal strand
+      With eyes where burning memory lights love home?
+    Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned
+    And leaped to them and in their faces yearned--
+      “I am your child: O parents, ye have come.”
+
+        ROSSETTI: _The House of Life_.
+
+
+The intermingling of the physical, the mental and the spiritual is so
+subtle, intricate and inexplicable that, in describing the states of
+the bride who is about to be a mother, it is difficult to know with
+which first to deal.
+
+In an Appendix, p. 229, I put in compact form one or two of the obvious
+physical phenomena with which it may be necessary for the bride and
+bridegroom to acquaint themselves. Although generally known to their
+elders, my many correspondents have shown me that even such simple and
+direct facts are often unknown to young people, who are frequently so
+shy that they do not like to consult a medical practitioner or an older
+friend. Assuming then that the simple physical facts are known, there
+still remain innumerable subtleties which may cause heart searching,
+perhaps to both bride and bridegroom.
+
+It is almost as though the bearing of a child were a function so
+primitive in its origin that it tends, to some extent, to dissociate
+the ordinary coherence of the mother’s life, and to result in a
+weakening of the sub-conscious control over her emotions to which she
+had all her life grown accustomed. Thus she enters upon a complex state
+in which primitive instincts and feelings may be at variance with the
+conscious thoughts and aspirations of highly civilized and sensitive
+humanity.
+
+This complexity of her instincts and her conscious feelings may lead
+the young wife to find an apparently inexplicable conflict in her
+attitude towards her husband. Consciously she desires ardently, with
+all that is best in her nature, to bear the child of their love. She
+adores her husband and is full of tender emotions towards him as the
+coming father, and experiences a form of gratitude that he should be
+the means of fulfilling her dreams; but possibly, at the same time,
+she may be amazed to find in herself an intense and active antagonism
+to his personal presence, an antagonism which she has to fight against
+revealing. She may realize that it is utterly at variance with her real
+feelings, and she may know that it would be the acme of cruelty to
+allow him to become aware of it, particularly when he is full of deep
+concern and love for her, and is doing all that a loving consideration
+can do for her happiness and welfare.
+
+Such a complex diversity of mental states existing perhaps
+co-incidently at the same hour in the mind of a girl may, if acute,
+lead to an outwardly recognizable form of hysteria and even to an
+unbalanced mind. Of such, however, I am not speaking, but am now
+describing the outwardly controllable, but nevertheless inwardly felt
+effervescing conflict of instinctive emotions, which is far more
+frequent than is generally recognized, and which the best balanced and
+most loving women are amazed to experience in themselves.
+
+From women whom I know to be exceptionally happy wives and mothers, I
+have evidence on this theme. With, of course, personal variations, they
+tell me that they have never confided this bewildering experience to
+their husbands, their doctors or their relatives, but, in essence, they
+say what is said in the following words by one of my correspondents:--
+
+In the first few months of coming motherhood she had a feeling of
+antagonism so strong “that it amounted to actual dislike of my
+husband’s presence, and a desire to be right away from him. This
+distressed me very much at first as I thought I must be losing my love
+for my husband, and could not understand such a sudden reversal of
+feeling as I loved him very deeply.... At the end of the first three
+months, I found that my feeling of love returned in full strength, and
+with it a feeling of intense devotion and tenderness towards my husband
+as the father of my coming child.”
+
+Some such experience, generally and fortunately limited to
+comparatively short though different periods, is not infrequently felt
+and is often a source of secret distress and anguish to the young
+wife whose sense of loyalty to the man she loves and married bars her
+from the relief of talking of these feelings. As is now beginning
+to be realized, emotions deeply experienced which are deliberately
+suppressed, may have far reaching effects even on the health. It is,
+therefore, well that she should know what is, I am sure, the truth,
+that this physical repugnance, which sometimes even amounts to a
+detestation of sharing the same house with the husband, and a desire to
+escape even from the superficial contact of eating in the same room
+with him, is a temporary phase, possibly phylogenetic[4] in its origin.
+
+[4] That is to say, repeating the history of our very early ancestors,
+where the female probably felt some resentment towards the male who had
+encompassed her maternity, and who most certainly would live apart from
+her and not in the ordinary contact of a united life.
+
+This passing phase, whether it lasts a few days or months, is neither
+necessary nor absolutely universal, but so far as I can ascertain it
+appears to be a common occurrence in the lives of the more sensitive
+and tenderly loving of wives. Where the coming child has not been
+desired by both parents, and where the mother resents her coming
+maternity, there is, of course, a totally different problem for
+which there is a very obvious reason. I am speaking now only of the
+mother-to-be who deeply desires her child, who is physically healthy
+and well formed, living under comfortable, protected and happy
+conditions, and who ardently loves and is loved by her husband; it is
+she who may and most frequently does feel this passing phase of intense
+physical antagonism. That she loves, and consciously loves, gives her
+an outward control so that this under-current of inherent antagonism is
+not allowed to show, and is gallantly concealed from the whole world.
+She would feel it an intense disloyalty to speak of it to any living
+soul, but it is there and it is so often a source of distress and
+strain upon the nervous system that it should be openly faced instead
+of being as it now is a repressed feeling. This repression tends to
+result in one of the greatest difficulties of the _healthy_ woman who
+is carrying a child, namely sleeplessness. The complex balance of her
+nervous control is strained by her surprise at herself, and perhaps by
+her self-reproaches, and thus she has an unnecessary burden in addition
+to the one of the coming child. This phase, therefore, is not a fact
+to be ignored or treated too lightly, and while it lasts it should be
+respected so far as is compatible with the circumstances of the two and
+with due regard for the mother. It is not a thing either to fear or
+to be ashamed of. It is perhaps best openly faced as a fact of rather
+curious interest as an ancient survival in oneself of racial history.
+If possible it should form the object of innocently playful laughter
+between the girl and her husband; this would do much to prevent its
+suppression taking a serious root.
+
+Aware of the existence of this phase and its probable meaning and
+treating it in this simple sensible way, neither the young mother nor
+the father-to-be need fear this brief physical antagonism. Where its
+danger lies, however, is in the possibility that unrecognized, it will,
+with those who live a shade less perfectly, result in the beginning
+of a habit of irritation, and perhaps in the setting up of some form
+of verbal bickering on the part of those who cannot lead as secluded
+and separate lives as would be possible in a spacious country or in a
+large establishment. When once the pair have broken the sweet custom
+of speaking only in love to each other, then, even after the temporary
+phase of antagonism has passed, they may find themselves with a habit
+of verbal bickering which is intensely corrosive, ultimately perhaps
+more than any other thing tending to destroy the outward beauty of a
+mutual life.
+
+There is another and reverse aspect of the mental phases through which
+a young mother-to-be may pass, in which she has an intense and added
+passion for her husband, and, as this leads to a subject of great
+importance, and a subject which has never been adequately handled, I
+will defer its consideration to Chapter XII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Delights
+
+    The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby’s limbs--does anybody
+    know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young
+    girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of
+    love--the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby’s limbs.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+In a happy and desired motherhood, every hour of the day and night may
+bring its intense delight, both in the dreams of contemplation, wherein
+the experience of love sinks deep into the heart, and of the linking up
+of the present with the future. All natural functions rightly performed
+give a deep satisfaction and content, but this, the greatest function
+of all, now so specialized and intimately interwoven with every highest
+racial impulse and every dearest personal desire of the loving pair,
+yields a wealth and profundity of experience surpassing all else.
+
+In my opinion, undoubtedly the ideal way of spending the earlier months
+of coming parenthood is in the form of an extended honeymoon, in which
+the couple travelling slowly should follow the guide of seasonal
+beauty or should visit place after place of historic interest or
+natural charm so that the mother’s mind should be fed and stimulated
+by historic memories, by the exquisite freshness of nature, and the
+grandeur of man’s artistic achievements. This, of course, would not be
+possible in its fullest extent to many, until, in the future, society
+recognizes the supreme importance to the race of the expectant mother.
+Some such course, however, might be possible to a larger number than
+it is at present were they to realize not only their personal good but
+the racial benefit of this procedure. In our country, owing to our
+artificial and unclean attitude, the mother-to-be, particularly during
+the later months, stays at home so far as possible, and does not go
+from place to place. When going about entails battling with crowds on
+public conveyances, this is wise. But the easy effort of walking or of
+riding in the old fashioned horse carriage from place to place on an
+extended journey, is ideal, and sometimes appears to have beneficial
+reactions on the character and quality of the child that is coming.
+But, even if such a mode of life is impossible, yet the mother by
+reading and conversation can, if she has a mind of trained imagination,
+vary and enrich the mental environment of her child while it is
+developing.
+
+Then, too, the mother-to-be can count among her delights all the
+intimate personal enjoyment of the little physical things which
+contribute to the great anticipations of the future. She can, if she
+has the skill herself, sew the little clothes, stitching into them
+sunny thoughts and beautiful hopes, making them links between the
+present delightful _solitude à deux_ and another beautiful time which
+the little one who is coming cannot comprehend till, many years hence,
+he or she will experience its charm in turn.
+
+Little things intensely loved undoubtedly bring a greater reward in
+human happiness than great and numerous possessions, the joy of which
+can be but partly grasped. Within a tiny home, a mother whose heart
+vibrates with love can find a thousand sources wherewith to enrich the
+coming life.
+
+But of all her delights, the greatest must always be the thought of the
+wonderful gift, which, at some ever nearing date, she will be able to
+give to the man whom she adores. Some men are negligent of the charms
+and enravishments of children, but I think in every man who fully loves
+and is fully loved by his wife, the thought of the child of them both
+must always be a stimulant to everything most ardently beautiful and
+profound in their natures.
+
+Pictures of the child in after life filling brightly and beautifully
+some big position in the world may flit past the mother’s mind during
+this time, but, if the mother is wise, she will not too intimately
+visualize the outward form of her child as a maturing girl or boy. By
+so doing she may indirectly wrong it. (See Chapter XIV).
+
+Her delight should be to picture a tiny laughing messenger from God,
+thinly veiled so that its sex is hidden; the figure of a child a few
+years old, still full of divine innocence and radiant possibilities.
+Happy hours of bodily rest may be spent picturing it in a thousand
+beautiful actions dancing in the sunlight, a contagious centre of joy
+in the whole world around them. On such an idea of delight she may
+lavish every day invigorating thoughts and wonderful dreams; none
+will be wasted, of that she may be assured. If, at the same time, she
+is securing the coming child’s bodily well-being through the proper
+material channels, then she can feel that these dreams of higher than
+material beauty are being built into reality. The secret sacred wonder
+of the process of which she is the active centre casts its spell of
+magic and delight around the willing mother. “A Garden enclosed is my
+Beloved,” and she feels within her own existence the mystic sense of
+divine beauty, which one feels in another form in a walled garden in
+the summer twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Distresses
+
+    The amount of suffering that has been and is borne by women is
+    utterly beyond imagination.
+
+    HERBERT SPENCER: _Principles of Ethics_, II.
+
+
+The bodily changes which at first almost imperceptibly steal upon the
+mother, if she be a girl who has enjoyed her own physical beauty,
+and has taken that care of herself which so delightful a thing as a
+young woman’s body merits, will be at first a series of amazements and
+perhaps of delights as her body rounds itself and becomes more perfect.
+At this time the husband should fill his memory with her exquisiteness,
+for though she will, in the end, return perhaps to her normal strength
+and a re-awakened and different beauty, she will never again in her
+life reach such a point of bodily perfection as she does during the
+first three months or so of her coming motherhood, culminating at about
+the close of the third month.
+
+As the years pass, hallowed and sanctified by love which is understood,
+even when grey with age, her face may gain an ever increasing beauty
+and power, but the perfection of her body is reached in the early days
+when she is first about to become a mother.
+
+To one who cares for the outward form of her body, changes will occur
+inevitably as the months pass, which may give rise to deep distresses,
+principally because they feel at the time so permanent and it is
+difficult to believe that the disfigurements will ever pass. For a
+time she must inevitably become less and less beautiful; she may
+indeed become, even to herself, repugnant. Perhaps to her as to so
+many thousands of women the sight of themselves then is a torment, and
+the conquest of this feeling is a great and increasingly difficult
+mental exercise. As this time approaches and is upon her, the young
+mother-to-be must concentrate all her conscious thought on the beauty
+of the future. She must forget the present and its cruel distortions
+and live in the months and years that are to come when she will have
+with her another life and lovely form to which she has given origin.
+
+Nothing is at present gained for our civilization by the obstinate
+blindness on the part of some, and the wilful deception on the part of
+others, which together encourage the concealment from the bride of
+what she has to face.
+
+On the one hand stand these prudes, but on the other the too eager
+and explicit, even lewd and profane and soiled minds who delight in
+lugubrious warnings.
+
+The result has been that many a woman enters upon her motherhood gaily
+and eagerly, totally unprepared for what is to follow, totally unaware
+that, by the first act of motherhood, she gives up something essential
+to herself and something which is irreplacable in all the after years.
+So great a gift should be made not only voluntarily, but consciously,
+and with full knowledge of what it entails.
+
+Cruel indeed is the callous hardness of the older mind that can see
+without desiring to help the proud and sensitive young spirit embarking
+upon a course which cannot but entail subtle difficulties at the best
+and extreme physical anguish at the worst, yet help of the kind the
+modern sensitive girl needs is almost unobtainable. Rare indeed is the
+mother of the last generation who has the power and the knowledge to
+meet the unvoiced demands of this.
+
+Acquainted as I am with all sorts and conditions of men and women, I
+am nevertheless frequently amazed and filled with burning indignation
+at the well-nigh inhuman cruelty, stupidity and hypocrisy of the older
+generation towards young potential parents. It is not an uncommon
+thing to hear a man who is unfaithful to his wife because she has lost
+her physical beauty, at the same time haranguing the public on the
+compulsory duties of parenthood on the part of all young married women,
+and coupling his denunciations with sneers at the young girl who fears
+to embark on motherhood, reviling her as selfish. Yet the cause of her
+shrinking may be that from all the weltering confusion of contradictory
+and scrappy information which may have been allowed to reach her, the
+one which has fixed itself in her mind most vividly, is that which
+promised her loss of her bodily charm and that of all she possesses
+which is most valuable to her as a bond which binds her husband’s
+affection to her. The woman who is perfectly sure of the continuance of
+her husband’s spiritual and romantic love does not fear the risks of
+motherhood. All who truly and deeply love, desire parenthood. But can a
+woman who was married by a shallow man only for her beauty dare to risk
+the thing which holds him to her?
+
+There is indeed a diabolical malignity in the older man who is himself
+unfaithful because of the very things in his wife which he denounces
+the younger girl for fearing.
+
+This must not be misunderstood by my readers as indicating that I think
+a woman should shrink in any way or that her husband should grudge the
+sacrifice of all the fragrance and beauty which they possess towards
+making the child of their love the citizen of the future. But with
+fervent intensity, I feel that to keep the young woman ignorant of
+facts, and, at the same time, on the one hand to upbraid and bully her
+and on the other to terrorize her with evil minded tales and tragic
+sights, is conduct which would be laughable in its absurdity did it not
+touch the spring of tears.
+
+As the months of expectant motherhood succeed one another the girl
+will find her power to walk and run, to keep up with her husband in
+his pleasure, his out-door exertions, or even to do the usual standing
+involved in the course of her house work, increasingly curtailed. This
+is perhaps the inevitable consequence of the burden of actual weight
+which results from the later growth of the child within her as it
+increases and approaches the size of a living baby.
+
+Sometimes the fortunate mother finds that she is still capable of the
+same amount of exertion to which she is generally accustomed, but,
+under modern conditions, this is but seldom. The stories of Kaffir
+women on the trek who bear their children and follow on with the
+rest, and savages whose activity is in no way curtailed, are neither
+applicable to modern conditions, nor are they fair standards to set,
+because such women do not live as the modern woman is forced to, nor
+is their bodily organization really comparable with that of our highly
+sensitive brain-evolved race.
+
+Nevertheless, with the exception of heavy exertion, the girl who is
+carrying her child should be able to indulge in a much greater amount
+of healthful exercise, without undue fatigue, than she is generally
+able to enjoy. (See also Chapter X).
+
+Most women have heard rumours of others who have been able to follow
+out almost all their usual occupations, and have felt little or
+no handicap from child bearing. Such an exceptional woman is my
+correspondent who wrote:--
+
+    I lived exactly as usual; I played golf up to the middle of the
+    seventh month and bicycled up to my very last. On the afternoon
+    of the day my second child was born (weighing 8-3/4 lb.) I was
+    shopping with a woman acquaintance, who had no idea there was
+    anything on the way.
+
+Such women, although not very many, do exist among us. Their existence
+is perhaps the source of the hope which always animates every girl
+first embarking on her parenthood that she, by the sheer force of the
+longing for health which is within her, will prove also to be such
+an exception. Sometimes this desire may be apparently fulfilled,
+but generally, unless it is coupled with much greater knowledge
+than most girls possess, as the months pass one by one, her proud
+spirit will bend, she will give up and give up and give up. Humbled,
+weakened, humiliated before herself, through the fact that she is not
+strong enough to fight what she now is inclined acquiescently to call
+“Nature,” she too goes down the stream with all the myriads of other
+happy hearted girls, whose gallant endeavours have equally failed. Then
+she creeps, wearily resting by the way, where she had hoped to tread
+with a firm and lightsome step.
+
+There grows in her mind, and this is stronger the more she loves her
+husband, the added distress that she feels that she is failing him.
+He married a mate, an equal, who lighter of step could yet cover the
+ground as well as he, and who could share his amusements, his work to
+some extent perhaps, and his pleasures. She feels that she must, so
+far as she possibly can, maintain this position. This hope impels her
+particularly if they have been married but a short time, and hence
+their days of delightful untramelled companionship have been so few.
+
+In this unselfish distress, which is primarily for him, she is tempted
+to conceal her effort and tends to overstrain herself in an endeavour
+to act as completely as she can the part, as reported, of the early
+Greek or Roman matron or of the proud and savage mother who could
+bear her children as lightly as a woodland creature. Finding sooner or
+later that she _cannot_ do so, she suddenly gives in. Her strength,
+undermined by the series of distresses, the subtle shocks and blows to
+which she is secretly subjected, she yields and takes on that air of
+semi-invalidism, demanding constant care and consideration from her
+husband and those about her, which in a way represents the hauling down
+of her gallant flag. Her dreams of an easy motherhood are vanquished.
+
+She will at times be dimly conscious that she is no longer able to feel
+so acutely. This, in a way perhaps, is Nature’s provision against the
+too intense experiencing of emotion, which would otherwise come with
+sensitive motherhood. The sensation can be described, as one woman put
+it, as though each one of her powers of feeling were wrapped round in
+cotton wool, deadened and clogged so that they no longer gave contact.
+This may be well, but it adds in a dim way to the various distresses,
+a sense of unreality and apartness, which, if it coincides with that
+temporary antipathy to her husband, which was noted on page 33, may
+make the mother-to-be, for the time at any rate, indeed a wanderer in
+the valley of the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Amazements
+
+    Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
+    He woke, and wondered more; for there she lay.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The young father-to-be, though a real and very important person, has
+been curiously neglected by all and sundry who concern themselves with
+the affairs of the “expectant mother,” “child welfare,” and the other
+social and semi-eugenic matters about which well-meaning people have so
+voluminously written and so sedulously talked.
+
+Sometimes jesting reference is made to the rather strange fact that,
+in some savage races, it is the father and not the mother who lies in
+bed for weeks after the birth of the child, but of the material and
+very real psychological experiences and physical difficulties which
+the young father is encountering and living through during the months
+before the advent of his first-born, few have any knowledge. Fewer
+still have offered the father-to-be any sympathy or help. Nevertheless
+with the increasingly perceptive and specialized individuals comprising
+our civilization, there arises an increasing number of young men
+capable of feeling and suffering in some degree corresponding to the
+great realities of which, for each, his home is the centre. And,
+moreover, it must not be forgotten that among our thoughtful classes
+are now growing up the young men whose mothers were among the pioneers
+of women’s emancipation, whose mothers, therefore, were _voluntary_
+mothers who have trained their sons consciously and unconsciously,
+directly and indirectly, to be more in harmony with the true and
+natural attitude of a sensitive human being to its mate than are the
+average gross and over-bearing males, sons of enslaved and involuntary
+mothers. The sensitiveness of the modern young man towards his duties
+as a father, towards his wife as the mother of his child is, in my
+experience, very remarkable in its extent and its beauty. I have direct
+and indirect evidence from thousands that among the young Army men in
+various messes on the continent in recent years, an unexpected racial
+seriousness of attitude was shown when the necessary key that unlocked
+the secret chamber was available. Although it is a most deplorable
+truth, that there has been an increase in the racial diseases and an
+outward levity towards women, this is less an inherent baseness on
+the part of the young men than the result of the existence of the
+false conditions in which they have been placed, due to the criminal
+mishandling the whole racial problem has received from those older and
+in a position of authority.
+
+In the nature of things, at first the young man can scarcely avoid
+taking fatherhood much more lightly than the girl takes motherhood.
+In normal, sweet, and healthy men, a desire for children of their own
+is very strong. Yet, however sympathetic their dispositions, however
+observant they may be of others, the unmarried young men cannot, under
+present conditions, have a full comprehension of what the attainment
+of motherhood involves in sacrifice for the mother. Hence the ideally
+mated young couple embarking upon parenthood set about it gaily, but
+before many months have passed, the young father-to-be must also be
+filled with amazements. For, control her impulse to be alone as she may
+(see Chapter III), curb her induced fretfulness as she may, the general
+psychological attraction between the man and the woman must be affected
+by the physiological state of the mother. The young man should find
+himself, if not actually repelled as the months progress, at least
+much more able to give his wife an impersonal tenderness in place of an
+active desire for physical union than he would have imagined possible.
+However sweet their love, if they are average human beings and not
+exceptional, he will perhaps, from time to time, be amazed and pained
+by unexpected peevishness and fretfulness, perhaps by what appear to
+be quite irrational and unjustifiable complaints from his wife. He
+should be made acquainted with the facts on page 33, and should apply
+them to himself and his wife. Knowing of the liability of such a
+temporary development, he can guard against any permanent injuries to
+love arising from the experience, such as often do result when it is
+unexpected and misunderstood.
+
+I remember once being told by a nurse who had been at a large maternity
+home that of those who came there for the birth of their child she had
+only seen one couple between whom there was no bickering, not even
+infinitesimal criticisms and gusts of temper to ruffle the surface
+of their intense and romantic devotion. “Generally the women at this
+time,” she said, “lead their husbands an awful dance, and are always
+snapping at them, but they do not really mean it, of course.”
+
+Men, on the whole, I think (although it is difficult and dangerous to
+generalize) are less tolerant of “superficial snappiness” than women,
+and the ruffling of the surface which comes with a few angry words
+enters probably deeper into the life of a sensitive man than it does in
+the life of a girl of corresponding type, although, on the other hand,
+a man may very quickly acclimatize himself to ignoring such comparative
+trivialities. Yet at first, at any rate, they not only amaze but
+distress, and when they appear irrational and swiftly pass, they may,
+although a trifle in themselves, be the cause of much misunderstanding
+and may be the foundation of more serious later disharmonies.
+
+To the man who has any biological knowledge, all the wonderful
+processes of the growth of the unseen embryo, leading up to birth, are
+full of amazed wonder. If a man knows, as all should in these days
+(see my book, _Married Love_, for information about the fundamental
+processes of mating) how minute is the single sperm cell from which
+his growing child takes its rise, the immensity of the results of the
+activity of that tiny cell appear indeed stupendous. His flower-like
+bride is changed, her whole body is permeated, altered and impressed by
+the activities of this particle of himself united with its counterpart
+within her.
+
+Only for the utterly callous can the experience of the months of
+waiting be anything but full of continual reminders of the amazing
+complexity of life. Long ago Tennyson felt:--
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+    I pluck you out of the crannies,
+        I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
+        Little flower--but _if_ I could understand
+    What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+    I should know what God and man is.
+
+Even more filled with humble and profound amazement must be the future
+father, who feels that his wife is now the very centre of the greatest
+mystery and wonder of the universe. Looking at her, brooding in her
+dreams, his mind must be continually filled with the consciousness of
+the eager active growth that is in progress, and the intense desire to
+take part in the mystical processes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Delights
+
+    A Garden enclosed is my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
+
+        _Song of Solomon._
+
+
+It is said that men naturally have a more casual interest in fatherhood
+than women have in motherhood. It is sometimes even definitely said
+that men do not have a passion for fatherhood or care profoundly for
+young children. This is not my experience. A much larger number of
+men than are credited with it feel an intense desire for fatherhood,
+and take a great delight in young children. Though they should share
+the joy equally, yet the father often has a larger proportion of the
+pleasure of the little child, while to the mother comes a larger
+proportion of the burden and the difficulties. To the child itself,
+too, the father is often more precious than the mother. An accidental
+testimony to this effect was given by the little daughter of one of
+those “devoted wives and mothers” who thought woman’s place was only
+the home, and a mother’s duty only to care for her children. The child
+and I were chatting and the little one misunderstood something I said,
+and thought that I asked which of its parents it loved most. The child
+quickly answered, “Oh, I like father best, _of course_--mother is
+there every day and she washes us.” The privilege of being a child’s
+favourite is no small one, and, as this child shows us, a father may
+win it with unfair facility.
+
+The conscious dream of parenthood, a parenthood which shall give the
+children the best possible chance in life undoubtedly lies behind the
+majority of marriages. Hence when the young man who has married with
+the desire, perhaps not for immediate, but for ultimate fatherhood,
+first learns the definite fact that he has already inaugurated the
+beginnings of his child’s development he must experience an intense
+and unique wave of feeling, which, as in the early days of marriage,
+with all its freshness, and with the actual physical difficulties yet
+unfaced, must be one primarily of buoyant delight.
+
+There is also in the earlier months, for the man of artistic
+perceptions, an unique experience in the appreciation of his wife’s
+enhanced beauty. It is perhaps known that the most critical artistic
+view of woman claims the highest point of perfection in her form
+about the third month of her first period of motherhood. To a pair of
+lovers who have delighted in their bodily beauty, as all natural and
+healthy and well formed young people should do, this period, when the
+loveliness of the woman is at its very height, and when the man can
+feel that he has contributed to its perfection, must be a time of very
+special entrancement. That it is something from within his most sacred
+being that has added this glow and radiance in perfecting the rounded
+form of the body that he adored in its virginal grace, must give a man
+with artistic and poetic potentialities an all too brief but never
+to be forgotten experience. The young father-to-be should not lose a
+day of these swiftly passing weeks, for this phase, like all human
+developments, but even more intensely so than most, is passing and
+transient, only to be immortalized in the permanence of a perceptive
+memory.
+
+When, as is inevitable, it has passed, and is followed within another
+month or two by a phase so acutely, perhaps agonizingly its reverse,
+the crucifixion of the mother’s sensitive feelings which is entailed
+should be hallowed and elevated in both their minds by that deeper,
+less personal, and more profoundly racial delight, the picturing with
+each other of the radiance, the strength, the power, the purpose and
+passion of the life which they are creating. So tragically soon after
+the days when he has feasted his eyes and filled his memory with her
+beauty, she will, she must withdraw her body from him and for months
+to come he will be shut out entirely from all sight of her. The reward
+will be an inner experience of the mind.
+
+A day will come when, for the first time, the father-to-be may lay his
+hand upon his wife below her waist and feel the sturdy little kicks of
+his future son or daughter, and can know that, though hidden from him,
+still there is beside him a vital and independent being whom he has
+wakened to life. The presence of this little creature whom he has not
+seen colours and permeates every hour of their joint existence, and
+links the family in an extraordinary unity, the full significance of
+which I will consider in Chapter XII.
+
+When the later months pass, the father-to-be will have lost one of his
+most exquisite memories if he has not already talked and laughed with
+his future child, and if he and his wife and child together have not
+united in that most mystical union possible to human flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Distresses
+
+    When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is
+    shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the
+    touch of the one in the play of the many.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+With all the passion for children, with the protective chivalrous
+feeling towards his wife which a well born and well knit man
+instinctively feels, through all the joy of fatherhood that is coming
+and the delight in its accomplishment, there must run a thread
+of intense distress at his own helplessness to help. With every
+consideration that the most resourceful man can think of towards his
+wife, with every helpful, tender, encouraging, supporting thing that he
+can do, how little is his share during all these months in the burden
+of the coming parenthood. If, through sympathy, he feels each pang his
+wife may feel; if, through sympathy, he curtails his activity to rest
+with her, nevertheless it is a voluntary abnegation, and if it became
+intolerable at any moment he could escape; he could run over the hills;
+he could go for a day’s fierce solitude and activity wherever his feet
+desired to lead him; but he knows that his wife _cannot_, that she is
+chained, that not for a moment of the day or night for nine months can
+she lay down the burden for a brief rest--that there is no exit for her
+from this imprisonment of so many of her potentialities but through the
+gateway of agonizing pain.
+
+The instinct behind marriage is often a feeling of chivalrous devotion
+towards a tender and confiding girl, and the desire to give her every
+protection. The man finds, however, that his act has placed the one
+whom he desired to _protect_ in such a position that she must bear the
+greatest burden possible for a human being to bear, and must bear it
+alone. This must be a deep distress to an imaginative man of integrity,
+although the distress be mingled with other and joyous feelings. To
+pretend that it is not so, to say that the joy of coming parenthood
+should and does wipe out all such under-currents of thought is merely
+to be callous or silly. To repress an intense feeling, to pretend that
+it is not there, may give an apparent surface bravery or brightness.
+But such repression is ultimately destructive to the consciousness and
+whole physique of the one who, thus gallantly to himself, endeavours
+to deny the truth, and is often apt to lead to deeper disorders. The
+modern school of psycho-analysts who endeavour to set right the effects
+of mental strain often discover that throughout life, perhaps dating
+from childhood, a personality has been handicapped and weakened by some
+deep suppression of an intensely experienced emotion.
+
+In my opinion, the pretence that a sensitive man does not feel, and
+does not endeavour to conceal his feeling about his relation to his
+wife, particularly at the time of their first coming parenthood is to
+dishonour man’s capacity and his imagination. Why imply that a rational
+man does not experience what surely all but a brute must feel. It
+impoverishes our life of emotional expression, and it tends to injure
+the man himself, to increase the strain by the pretence that the strain
+is not there. I know, for instance, one man who fainted at the time his
+wife gave birth to their child, and who, under no consideration, would
+allow her to have a second child, although he had intensely desired
+and looked forward to the fatherhood of a large family before he knew
+the actual physical experiences which it entailed. Such a man, in my
+opinion, was a good father wasted by an excess of emotion made all the
+more intensely destructive to himself by the endeavour to maintain
+the totally artificial and indeed the crude attitude which is supposed
+to be “correct” for a man, namely a sort of dissociation of himself
+from his wife’s experiences and a hardened lack of recognition of all
+that is involved. It is surely better to recognize that there is that
+intense and poignant sense of helplessness, that the sensitive and
+developed young man should and does feel it, but that it should be
+recognized as the compensating price which he pays for fatherhood.
+
+If we are ever to raise our race to the point when every child is
+so precious that no child can be hungry, neglected or unwanted, the
+conscious price which the _father_ pays for his children will be one
+of the assets in valuing the children of the nation. It is, therefore,
+better to acknowledge and encourage such sensitiveness in the father by
+allowing the open and honourable expression of such feeling, and thus
+to avoid that almost neurotic and destructive effect of the suppression
+of such intense feeling as warped the father mentioned above. Because,
+if the wife avails herself of the advice I give in this book, and if
+the time for parenthood is chosen rightly and wisely in relation to her
+general health, and it is ascertained before she embarks upon potential
+motherhood that her bodily and bony structure is fit for motherhood,
+then though the experiences of both will be difficult and profound
+in their testing of the quality of each other, motherhood should
+not result in any excessive strain, and should indeed be a time of
+wonderful life activity.
+
+With all needless ill-health, and wanton ugliness and wasteful distress
+which at present are artificially involved in it, once swept away,
+potential motherhood should not be an unendurable burden. Though the
+father’s feelings should be intense and poignant on behalf of his wife
+and though she may go through searching experiences, yet the gladness
+should so preponderatingly weigh in the balance in excess of the
+troubles and difficulties that no normally healthy and well endowed
+young couple should ever suffer so much that they dare not face a
+second maternity, as happens alas only too often to-day.
+
+On quite a lower plane, but nevertheless on the one so essential that
+it greatly affects all the rest of life, is the too frequent distress
+of the young father-to-be about the more material provision of all
+that is necessary for his wife. In counting the cost of the coming
+parenthood, too often quite heavy expenses are unforeseen, and, with
+a fixed income, the young man may have the intense distress of being
+unable to provide all that his wife not only wishes but really ought
+to have. Recent years, for instance, were times of extraordinary
+difficulty for all women who bore children, and who had a naturally
+healthy and proper desire to eat fruit. With oranges at a shilling
+each, as they were in the winter of 1918-19, how could an ordinary
+young couple afford a glassful of orange juice a day, which I recommend
+as profoundly valuable (see p. 80). It was obviously impossible. Such
+a time, of course, one hopes will never be repeated. It was a period
+of undue strain, when none, considering the future of the race, should
+have borne a child unless private reasons made it specially advisable.
+
+But apart from such excessive and unprecedented difficulties, there
+are, and probably always will be, difficulties for the young man who
+desires to provide everything that can benefit his wife. Not long ago
+in the newspapers, a budget of the cost of the baby in an ordinary
+lower middle class home was given, and there was an item: “Dentist’s
+bill for the mother, twenty pounds.” A wise comment was made on
+this that, alas, it is by no means an unusual, indeed it is a usual
+experience that the coming child adversely affects the mother’s teeth,
+and both for the health of the baby and the mother they should be
+attended to. Possibly, even her very life may depend on her teeth being
+thoroughly free from decay after the birth. A heavy dentist’s bill is
+too often an unexpected anxiety to the young husband, so that the
+teeth are neglected. Neglected teeth either weaken, or may actually
+result in the death of the mother from their decay, causing internal
+poisoning, to which she is peculiarly liable after bearing a child.
+
+Then too, there are unexpected and heavy expenses which are unforeseen
+through a variety of circumstances, such, for instance, as the
+uncertainty of the date of the birth. Those who go to nursing homes,
+as many are now doing owing to housing and service difficulties,
+experience this trial more acutely than others. They expect and plan,
+perhaps, for the birth within a given week, and the baby may delay two
+or three or even more weeks beyond the calculated time. Young couples,
+scarcely able to afford the heavy expenses of a good nursing home,
+who yet had saved sufficient to allow the wife three weeks there, may
+have their plans quite dislocated by a delay of three weeks in the
+infant’s appearance, resulting in the mother unexpectedly having to
+remain double the length of time for which they had saved the money
+for the nursing home. The young father is then faced by the sordid
+difficulty of finding the necessary money, and unless he is gifted in
+such a way as to make extra earning a possibility, is under a condition
+of strain. Just when all his free energy and time should be devoted
+to companionship with his wife and infant, he has to spend extra hours
+working at high pressure in order to meet unexpected expenses. The
+young father-to-be who wishes to maintain the right and beautiful
+atmosphere around his coming child should inform himself of all certain
+and likely contingencies of expense, and should make due provision for
+these before the great act of calling into being one for whom he is
+primarily responsible.
+
+To a healthy man, also, there may be a period of chastening experience
+in sharing daily life with one who is out of health. Though the
+prospective mother _ought_ not to be in any way invalided, yet, alas,
+as things are, too often she is, and only an unselfish man will fail to
+resent the personal sacrifice which he endures as a result.
+
+There is a certain self-centred type of man who may, with the most
+model intentions and in order to lead a self-respecting life, marry,
+and who may find the resulting pregnancy of his wife very disconcerting
+to himself and very thwarting to his own requirements. With a certain
+bitter selfishness, this attitude was unconsciously expressed by one
+of my correspondents in the following words: “Something must be done
+to prevent any more children; imagine what a wretched time I have
+with my wife sick every day for nine months.” Perhaps the reader can
+scarcely restrain a smile at so callously self-centred an attitude on
+the part of a husband, but, nevertheless, that man does have a real and
+difficult physical problem before him. One way, of course, in which to
+help such a man would be to place such help and knowledge before his
+wife that her motherhood should be more normal, and not so terrible an
+experience for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Mother
+
+    We cannot reason with our cells, for they know so much more than we
+    do that they cannot understand us; but though we cannot reason with
+    them, we can find out what they have been most accustomed to, and
+    what therefore they are most likely to expect; and we can see that
+    they get this, as far as it is in our power to give it them, and
+    may then generally leave the rest to them.
+
+        SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+To far too many women the time when they are carrying a child is a
+period of strain and semi-invalidism, a time filled not only with
+surprises and difficulties, but too often coloured with actual
+distress and ill-health. _This should not be._ The time of prospective
+motherhood should be one of buoyancy, health, physical activity and
+mental vitality. The low standard of health which the modern woman
+tolerates is deplorable.
+
+But to whom can the young mother-to-be turn for advice and assistance?
+Such healthy, happy, prospective motherhood does not come by instinct
+in our city life. Those around her, older than she, who have had
+children of their own may perhaps be able to give her a hint here and
+a little piece of advice there, which to some extent may alleviate
+her difficulty or pierce with a faint shadow of light the gloom of
+perplexity in the ever deepening unknown into which she is entering
+for the first time; but nearly all such women have themselves gone
+blindly and individually through this period of immense significance
+and mystery without having had any rational help from one devoted to
+the maintenance of _health_.
+
+Almost every book written to advise the coming mother is written by a
+doctor of disease, with very few exceptions by doctors who tolerate
+what is, in my opinion, a disgracefully low standard of general health
+in women. A distinguished gynecologist who, in cross-examination
+before a commission persisted in maintaining that the “daily morning
+sickness” which is so prevalent in women who are carrying a child is
+“physiologically right and natural” (indeed, he implied almost that it
+was necessary) represents an attitude of mind very general and capable
+of far-reaching hypnotic injury to the community as a whole.
+
+By far the best and sanest book available for healthy women is one
+to which I have already referred, namely _Tokology_, by Dr. Alice
+Stockham, but this book has its inaccuracies and its drawbacks, and
+even its pages are too much occupied with the wretched and handicapping
+troubles which women do experience in large numbers, but _which should
+not be_.
+
+Nevertheless, to allow a young girl or woman to enter upon these months
+of trial without making clear to her what she has to face, is cruel
+indeed. For a sensitive woman the experience, even at its best, and
+when most free from incapacities, is yet incredibly and penetratingly
+more terrible than she anticipated. The more sensitive and more
+conscious she is, the deeper and profounder may be her joy in her
+coming motherhood, but, at the same time, the more intense the physical
+experiences through which she must pass.
+
+The modern sensitive young woman does not take things blindly and
+patiently and with resignation, with a pious belief in her own
+inferiority, which may have helped to dull and moderate the sensations
+of her grandmothers. The more evolved she is, the more she may be
+willing to bow to natural law, but the less is she content to suffer
+wanton cruelties imposed upon her by ignorance, stupidity or coercion.
+
+Many are the midwives, maternity nurses and medical practitioners with
+whom I have discussed such matters, and from whom, often incognito,
+I have asked advice. I may say that _none_ gave _all the necessary_
+advice, not one gave one-tenth of what is in this book, only one or two
+gave any necessary simple advice in the sympathetic and understanding
+fashion desirable, and only one or two appeared to have any clear
+_generalizations_ or scientific understanding of the facts about which
+I asked. The resignation, the shrugging of the shoulders in the face
+of things which would otherwise make one weep, or the cheerful braving
+out or pretending that things are not as bad as they are, which is the
+general attitude of mind of the maternity nurse is little more helpful
+than that of the practitioner. Concerning many of the practical facts
+of the later months of pregnancy and actual birth, and the succeeding
+weeks of recovery, the properly trained midwife seems on the whole
+wiser than the average general practitioner, wiser even than the
+specialist who may come at a crisis, but who does not watch his patient
+through the succeeding weeks.
+
+Many young women who have recently been mothers have told me of the
+mental and physical horror which they then experienced, and of the
+added horror that they should feel horror. They have asked me to
+generalize, if it is possible, from their cases in such a way as to
+help others who enter upon maternity’s difficulties for the first
+time, so that they may at least be spared that terrible sense of
+isolation and of exceptional failure when they experience one by one
+the things which are inevitable, or the things which are, by our
+artificial lives, so frequently imposed.
+
+The bearing of a child very often may be complicated by actual disease,
+and then requires, of course, expert medical attention. With those who
+are in any sense actually ill, and who should be in the hands of a
+doctor, I am not here dealing, for, in this respect, as throughout my
+other books, I desire only to write of health for the healthy so that
+they may have sufficient knowledge to maintain their health and raise
+the vitality of the race.
+
+I may say here that, even for the healthiest, it is very advisable, not
+only for her first, but for every succeeding pregnancy, that a woman
+should be examined and measured by some wise and healthy-minded medical
+practitioner or midwife at least once during the first three months
+and twice again during the last three months, but that, for the first
+baby, it would be better to go at least every month for examination. In
+that way, the various insidious disturbances of the excretory system,
+and other fundamental things which _may_ go a little wrong, even in an
+otherwise healthy woman, can be detected immediately and dealt with.
+Many however, find a great difficulty in bringing themselves to do
+this.
+
+Undoubtedly it is much better for the prospective mother to go to a
+specialist, old enough to be wise and experienced and mellow, and
+yet young and virile and active enough to be acquainted with modern
+knowledge, and healthy and clean enough to look for and to desire
+health and normality in those who come for advice.
+
+This should pre-eminently be the special field for women doctors,
+but there is not nearly a sufficient body of them with the necessary
+qualifications to meet the requirements of the community, and I should
+like to see a new profession created for women who, to the experience
+and the training of first-class midwives, have added a sufficient
+training in general medicine to be specialized to advise the _healthy_
+prospective mother, and to be able to detect at once anything which
+should necessitate handing her on to the doctor of disease. Such
+practitioners should rank in status somewhere between the cultivated
+midwife of gentle birth (such as a Queen Charlotte’s Hospital nurse)
+and the medical woman. Thus the prospective mother would be spared
+that hard and bitter contact with one who has become myopic in the
+observation of disease, and would be able to go to someone specially
+trained to encourage health. Meanwhile, as this is but a bright picture
+of what may come in the future (and that _will_ come if women make a
+sufficient demand for it) it may spare many women distress if I set out
+the physical difficulties and peculiarities which are most liable to
+occur with a _healthy_ woman.
+
+From the welter of accounts of the effects of pregnancy, I have
+disentangled into three groups those which normal women may have to
+face. The difficulties are:--
+
+(1) Those nature-imposed; these are essential; they cannot be avoided
+by the healthiest woman. They can be perhaps, to some extent,
+mitigated. They are things which the coming mother must be helped
+through and over; she cannot be saved from them.
+
+(2) Those entirely artificial; these are quite needless and are the
+results of either ignorance or our gross disregard of known facts, and
+can be entirely eradicated.
+
+(3) Those which are to-day very usual, but which knowledge and a better
+mode of life may entirely conquer.
+
+Now to consider first the third group: those which are general, but
+which a knowledge could or should conquer.
+
+One of the first signs that she is to become a mother, and one of the
+most usual experiences of a young woman when this time begins, is the
+daily recurrence of that penetrating nausea and sickness usually after
+she has risen in the morning, called “Morning Sickness.” This is so
+usual that medical practitioners rely on it to some extent as a sign
+of pregnancy. It is described in almost every book for the prospective
+mother, and, as I have mentioned (p. 72), it is sometimes even
+maintained by distinguished gynecologists as a physiological function,
+_i.e._, a normal function.
+
+Now this is a very nauseating and wretched experience to the majority
+of women, and it is one which, I maintain, is entirely imposed by
+ignorance, wrong living and the general hypnotic effect of others’
+perverted views on the woman’s system. In those women whose internal
+organs are improperly placed or somewhat malformed, it occurs as a
+physiological result of pressure or other disturbance. _In true health
+there is no physiological reason whatever for the morning sickness_,
+and a woman who lives as she should live during the time of her coming
+motherhood need not experience it. This should, in the next generation,
+be entirely conquered, because it is to a very large extent caused
+by allowing, even forcing to wear corsets, girls when they are still
+unformed and developing. Those women who have never worn corsets in
+the whole of their lives, and who dress as they should dress, and do
+as they should do during the months when they are becoming mothers,
+seldom experience morning sickness. Though there are some who, when
+they know the child is coming, discard their corsets too late, and
+these may still experience this unpleasant feature. The extraordinary
+adaptability and vitality in a woman’s system, however, is a remarkable
+thing, and even those who begin later in life than they should to train
+for motherhood may yet accomplish much.
+
+Granted a healthy, well-formed body, a previous life of normal
+activity, sensible attention to the following points will insure
+complete freedom from morning sickness in all but the exceptional and
+pre-disposed:--
+
+    (_a_) Discard every scrap of heavy or constricting clothing,
+    wearing only the lightest garments hung from the shoulders entirely.
+
+As I said in _Married Love_ the standard of dressing for the
+prospective mother, whose garments should be of the lightest wool and
+silk if possible, and should be so lightly hung that a butterfly can
+walk the length of her body without tearing its wings.
+
+    (_b_) Discard all rich, heavy and over-cooked foods, such as
+    pastries and hot cakes, dried peas and beans, rich game or highly
+    seasoned dishes, and live as much as possible on uncooked foods and
+    simple milk puddings, stewed fruit, lightly cooked meat and fish,
+    with the largest obtainable quantity of very fresh ripe fruit.
+
+    (_c_) Start the day not with tea, but with the juice of two or
+    three oranges squeezed into a tumbler.
+
+If she does these things a normal woman may go through the whole nine
+months without experiencing one single moment of nausea, as many a
+woman has done.
+
+A retardation of the action of the bowels or constipation is very
+frequent, and is a cause of many other ill-effects. A right diet such
+as I advise, adding for this purpose honey and brown bread, does much
+to prevent it; if it exists in spite of this, take suitable bending
+exercises (see also page 72), even a warm hydrostatic douche (using a
+douche-can with a little common salt in the water), but do _not_ take
+regular drugs or “aperients.”
+
+Another of the very frequent experiences of the mother who is carrying
+a child, particularly towards the later months, is the enlargement of
+the veins of the legs and ankles and the formation of varicose veins.
+These may become very serious if neglected, and even if the woman is
+being doctored, unless, at the same time, she regularly follows the
+proper healthy method of dieting and living. In addition to the dieting
+and clothing described above, which will make her almost certain to be
+immune from varicose veins, she should take warm comfortable sitz baths
+every evening, and she should lie down for at least half an hour or an
+hour in the middle of the day or early evening with her feet raised a
+few inches above the level of her head.
+
+One of the most serious difficulties, felt even by those who avoid all
+other drawbacks, is sleeplessness, particularly in the last month or
+two when the activities of the child may be very disturbing. In this,
+much depends on the position in which the child is lying, and sometimes
+the position of the child can be improved by massage and manipulation
+by a trained midwife or doctor. Something also can be done by the
+mother herself through her mental attitude and hand touch on the child,
+and also by taking hot sitz baths nightly before going to bed. Still
+more, however, is accomplished by right diet, clothes, exercise and
+happiness (see also Chapter XII).
+
+The habit of taking aspirin regularly or in large quantities, which too
+many women indulge in if sleepless during this time, is extremely bad
+both for the child and for the mother. Drugs of any sort should not be
+appealed to. If it is possible during these later months, sleep will be
+much more refreshing, and the advantage will be very great both to the
+coming child and the mother, if her bed can be arranged on a verandah
+or out of doors, but it must not be forgotten that towards the end of
+the period the expectant mother ought not to be out of ear-shot of
+someone.
+
+Now to consider the second group of disabilities; those entirely
+the result of artificial outlook and condition. Among these must be
+classed the inability to walk any distance or to take part in active
+work of any sort. This is partly imposed by the hesitation of a woman
+to be seen at this time, and particularly to face the vulgar and
+leering attitude of the general public, and it is partly also due to
+the general heaviness or strain on the muscles or to the presence of
+varicose veins. If these have, by the methods just described, been
+almost or entirely avoided, she will find that her natural activity is
+much less reduced than it would otherwise be. To walk a mile or two,
+or even three miles the day before or even the day of the birth is not
+at all beyond what can be expected from an ordinary healthy woman who
+lives as she should.
+
+The necessity perpetually to be fussing, to be taking tonics or
+drugs or medicines, to be thinking only of herself and never of any
+general or greater theme, is also eliminated when the general health
+is improved, and any mental or bodily activity which the mother can
+indulge in without a sense of strain is advantageous to the child as
+well as to herself.
+
+The highly nervous condition and overstrained state of so many modern
+women during this time is due entirely to the artificial social lives,
+involving late hours, which they try to lead. The mother-to-be should
+give up almost all social engagements which keep her out of bed after
+9 o’clock. Sleep, fresh air, exercise under the healthiest natural
+conditions she can command, coupled with the right diet, will secure
+her health and strength throughout the time.
+
+The difficulties, however, about which help is most needed are the
+first group, those nature-imposed and inevitable difficulties which
+the woman _has_ to face, and which, without instruction in the things
+she might do to mitigate them, often lead her to suffer intensely,
+though needlessly, and tend to have life-long effects on her health and
+appearance. Simple and sometimes obvious precautions are required, and
+yet these are almost unknown to the generality of advisers to whom the
+prospective mother can turn.
+
+The first and most obvious inmost change that affects her is that
+felt in the muscles below the waist, particularly those which run
+vertically, and which support, by their elasticity and strength, the
+whole front of the body. As the months pass and the child and its
+attendant tissues grow, there is a slowly increasing strain on these
+muscles. As the enlargement proceeds the skin will also stretch, and
+the under-skin and tissues beneath it are finally stretched almost to
+breaking-point, stretched sometimes so that they do break apart and
+leave ultimate permanent little scars under the skin of the mother.
+Few apparently know, but all _should_ know, that this can be almost
+entirely avoided (by fortunate women entirely avoided), if the skin
+and tissues immediately below it are kept supple by daily rubbing with
+olive oil from the fifth month. Perhaps from the fourth month once a
+week, and certainly from the fifth month daily, the mother should rub
+the lower part of her body and her breasts with a little olive oil.
+This will not only have a soothing effect upon the skin, but will
+assist its elasticity in such a way that she may return to her virgin
+condition without leaving those tell-tale scars which so often mark
+a woman, and which many, even highly trained maternity nurses and
+doctors, seem to think are inevitable. Such scars _are not inevitable_,
+and this very simple precaution, coupled with exercise, will frequently
+be sufficient safeguard for the woman who desires to avoid them
+altogether.
+
+The same internal growth which enlarges the muscles and strains the
+skin will also sometimes press apart the two main vertical muscles in
+such a way that there is a tendency for inner tissues to project, and
+for the last month or two this may be very uncomfortable without in
+any way being dangerous. It is then advisable to wear a small stiff
+pad over this and fasten it in place with a narrow, soft elastic band.
+The use of a localized plaster very often strains the skin and leaves
+scars or makes it sore. It is wise to have the small hard central
+bandage wherever there is a tendency to localized projection as will be
+self-evident to anyone who experiences it.
+
+The natural darkening of the colour of the skin when it is strained
+and stretched as it must be is very displeasing to the eye and,
+particularly to a young girl whose beautiful body has been her delight,
+may be a cause of great distress and self-repugnance. It is well that
+she should be helped over this most anxious time of self-detestation
+by the reliable assurance that it is only a temporary phase, and that
+if she keeps in good health, and rubs herself with pure oil for two or
+three months after birth as well as before, the skin will be entirely
+freed from any stained or discoloured appearance, and will return to
+its normal condition.
+
+As the months pass, the actual physical weight of the body will
+increase, gradually becoming a greater burden, so that long distance
+walking and any acute activity such as running or tennis-playing
+must become impossible. Nevertheless if the diet and mode of living
+suggested above is followed out this will be very much less
+embarrassing than is usually experienced.
+
+Many forms of support or maternity corsets are advertised or medically
+recommended to assist supporting the weight at such times, but, unless
+the woman has any actual slipping of the position of the organs or
+any deformity, she is very much better not to take such proffered
+assistance for they will form a broken reed, and, as one knows, “the
+broken reed pierces the hand.” It is much better for her to strengthen
+her own muscles by slow and careful exercise, bending forward until she
+touches the ground or as nearly touches the ground as possible; also
+lying on her back on the ground and rising without touching the floor
+with her hands and arms; also slowly raising the feet forward above the
+head while lying on the back, and then allowing them to drop slowly to
+the ground, this last exercise being very strengthening to the central
+muscles of the body wall (detailed accounts of other useful exercises
+will be found in Dr. Alice Stockham’s _Tokology_). So long as there is
+no strain upon her, she should exercise throughout the whole of the
+time. She would then not need any artificial support, and would be much
+better without it.
+
+I have never seen it elsewhere clearly stated, but I have discovered
+that one very important reason against corsets is that, however well
+shaped and loose they may be, they tend to touch and exert some slight
+pressure on the soft tissues at the back of the waist; they must do so,
+merely to remain upon the body without dropping off, and this amount
+of pressure is sufficient to induce morning sickness (see p. 88) for
+the following among other reasons. As the womb grows in the centre of
+the body it pushes aside and to the back the many yards of soft tubular
+alimentary canal which normally lie coiled in the front of the body,
+and, if there is no constriction or pressure, these tend to find room
+for themselves round the waist line and to the back, so that there
+appears what seems almost like a coil or roll of fat round the waist.
+This disposition is very advantageous, however, and should not be
+interfered with in the way any corset must interfere, and it greatly
+reduces the ungainly frontal size and helps to keep the body better
+balanced (see p. 91).
+
+At first the breasts will become firmer and larger and will support
+themselves more readily than at any time, but later on their shape
+somewhat changes and they tend to fall. They should then have carefully
+slung and properly arranged supports looped over the shoulder. Neglect
+of this often results in the final and lifelong loss of the beauty of
+the bosom, and it is indeed a cruel thing that the average doctor or
+nurse appears not to be capable of giving any useful advice on this
+point, so that hundreds of thousands of women have not only lost their
+beauty, but have been told that it is an inevitable and natural result
+of having borne a child. That it is well-nigh inevitable under modern
+unaided conditions, may be true. With proper support, proper massage
+and treatment afterwards, the ugly breasts need not have been, and need
+not be.
+
+A thing which often distresses girls, but which however unsightly it
+is while present is a temporary and passing phenomenon, is the sudden
+appearance of freckles, even large patches of brown colouring matter,
+on the skin during the time the baby is forming. So far as I am aware
+nothing can be done to prevent it, and if as sometimes happens these
+brown patches even appear on the face, it is a misfortune which must be
+endured as stoically as possible, encouraged with the knowledge that it
+will entirely pass.
+
+Another curious thing I know one woman experienced, and about which
+I am awaiting further evidence, was the apparent transplantation by
+the child in the mother of the strong black body hairs of the father.
+The result was that during the later months of carrying and for a few
+months after birth, the mother’s lower limbs and forearms had a thick
+growth of masculine-like hair, which nearly all fell off within six
+months after the birth.
+
+The tendency that the coming child has to extract nutriment from the
+mother’s tissues often results in the loss or temporary spoiling of two
+of her beauties, the beauty of her nails and the beauty of her hair.
+These are apt to suffer unless she is warned in time and protects them.
+The injury to them probably depends on the withdrawal of the proper
+quantity of fat from the tissues. It is, therefore, advisable for the
+mother-to-be to rub her nails and hair with some suitable natural oil.
+Refined paraffin, almond oil or castor oil for the hair are by far
+the best, and for the nails some animal grease such as lanoline, or
+perhaps simple vaseline. Expensive concoctions, very much advertised
+and claiming wonderful properties, generally owe anything which they
+may contain to these ingredients, but more frequently contain little or
+nothing of any value, and are often harmful.
+
+The more fundamental, and, alas, almost inevitable result of bearing
+a child is that it extracts not only the fat from the system, but the
+hardening matter from the teeth. This indeed is, so far as I am aware,
+a theft from the mother by the next generation which no knowledge of
+its liability can prevent, and which can only be met by a careful
+supervision of the mother’s teeth both before and after birth. Women
+differ in the amount they lose, but it is, alas, one of the almost
+inevitable things that there shall be a certain weakening of the teeth.
+Sometimes this will right itself and teeth which shook in their sockets
+immediately after the birth may apparently harden again and refix
+themselves firmly, but if the weakening takes the form of actual decay,
+they must be attended to.
+
+In this respect the diet recommended by Dr. Stockham in _Tokology_,
+which advocates the elimination of all calcareous food is perhaps
+inadvisable if strictly followed out, because the growing child insists
+on mineral matter, and it simply takes it from the mother’s structure
+if it does not get it in other ways. I have, therefore, thought it
+advisable not entirely to eliminate the wheat and other bone making
+materials from the usual diet as Dr. Stockham recommends, but to
+maintain a certain proportion of wheat, especially whole wheat, in the
+food. Her advice to replace rich dishes by simple rice, stewed fruits,
+etc., is certainly wise, and still more important is it to follow her
+warm recommendation to eat large quantities of fresh fruit.
+
+One of the perfectly natural, but to the young mother rather
+unexpected, results of the changes of the later months is the
+alteration which gradually comes in the position of the centre of
+gravity of her whole body. She is of course scarcely conscious of
+this, and yet it is a point of some importance, because it results
+in a certain liability to slip and to fall, particularly coming
+downstairs. The danger of such a fall is less to the child, which is
+safely surrounded by a buffer of fluid and by the mother’s protective
+muscles, but more to the mother herself, who, in falling, may strain or
+injure herself. The growth which results in this change in the centre
+of gravity comes too rapidly for the system quite perfectly to adjust
+itself to it. It will be remembered how long it takes a baby to learn
+to balance itself upright upon its feet; the adult mother-to-be has
+had a whole lifetime knowing just how to balance, and every muscle
+has become adjusted to the centre of gravity in its accustomed place.
+The change in the distribution of weight changes the position of the
+centre of gravity to some extent, sufficiently at any rate to throw
+the co-ordination of many years somewhat out of gear, and it is,
+therefore, wise for the expectant mother to take particular care not
+to slip or stumble unexpectedly. The sudden and active movement of the
+child which may kick or turn with no warning may cause her quite to
+lose her balance, particularly if she is on a steep staircase. It is
+well, therefore, to make a special point of keeping guard against this
+possibility by always having a firm grip on the handrail when going up
+or down stairs during the later months of carrying a child.
+
+However well and full of a sense of power and creative vitality she
+may be, a woman should take long hours of rest: to bed at nine each
+evening and not up till eight o’clock in the morning and taking at
+least one hour lying down during the day. During the nine months of
+bearing the unborn child, she should remember she is providing it with
+_vitality_ every second of the twenty-four hours of each day, and she
+should neither have forced upon her, nor should she desire to do, work
+which ever tires her, though she should live an active, full, healthy,
+happy existence and should be capable of nearly all her normal work and
+enjoyments. If she is wise she will work in direct contact with sun-lit
+earth. Gardening ensures the truest sense of physical well-being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Father
+
+    I was a child beneath her touch,--a man
+      When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,--
+      A spirit when her spirit looked through me,--
+    A god when all our life-breath met to fan
+    Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,
+      Fire within fire, desire in deity.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The higher the evolution of the creatures, the more is the parental
+responsibility shared by both parents. Among human beings the
+institution of monogamy, which is universally accepted as a higher
+form of human relation than polygamy, involves in the dual partnership
+a certain sharing of the actual physical difficulties of parenthood
+by the father which is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous
+establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy strictly maintained, does
+really affect the physical aspects of expectant fatherhood _more_ than
+it does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.
+
+The modern pair, being intensely and deeply united, the effects of the
+experiences and physical states of one have actual reverberations and
+physical effects on the other. In this respect the change in the girl’s
+attitude of mind towards the man, which is sometimes a result of the
+physical effect of motherhood (see Chapter III), may have a very far
+reaching influence upon the man’s health and happiness if he does not
+comprehend the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension,
+know how to endure or overcome it. Undoubtedly a home which is
+disturbed by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed irritations has a
+physical effect on the general mental balance, and consequently on the
+whole health of the pair involved.
+
+The way in which these difficulties can be overcome is by a mutual
+comprehension, so far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and
+sometimes perhaps by the attitude of “bowing before the storm” until it
+has passed, recognizing that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.
+
+Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate reverberations from
+his wife’s state. The actual physical fact has to be faced by the
+father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on the period when all
+his natural desires for a completed sex union with his wife were met
+and consummated by equal desires in her, there comes a time when such
+impulses on his part are not only not responded to by his wife, but are
+perhaps antagonized and may be entirely thwarted by either her mental
+or her physical condition.
+
+In Chapter XII, I will show how, to some extent, and at probably rather
+long intervals, his impulses may be not only satisfied but may be
+harmoniously responded to and may be profoundly valuable. Nevertheless,
+in almost every period of coming fatherhood, there will be at least
+some months when bodily union is actively repugnant and consequently
+actively harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive feeling
+of the mother against any act should be sufficient to bar it, because,
+even if the act itself should not be harmful, to force her will at such
+a time or to lure her into coercing herself against her own will is in
+itself harmful. A young husband, therefore, will be faced by periods in
+which it will be impossible for him to have any of the unions to which
+he may have become accustomed and which his natural virility may at
+first continue to demand.
+
+This difficulty is of very varying intensity for different types of
+men. Some feel it so acutely that, although they may do so with deep
+shame, they yield to the impulses and are unfaithful to their wives
+in a bodily sense just at the time when of all others they may be
+mentally and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such shameful
+conflict of will with deed must have blackened many a father’s memory,
+and, with due understanding of all the circumstances, it should be
+eliminated from our race: it should not take place. Nature has created
+a way out for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic rapport
+with his wife. While the wife on whom he centres all his desires
+and love is in a bodily condition which deprives her from such an
+experience as a complete union with him, this fact has a mental and
+consequently a physical reaction on the better type of man, and he
+finds, sometimes even to his surprise, that the instinctive impulses to
+which he has been accustomed die down. At first perhaps becoming only
+sufficiently dormant to be conquered by a deliberate exertion of the
+will, but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from his wife increases,
+its reaction stills his desire also, and his need for unions may
+temporarily cease.
+
+This is partly to be explained as a nervous reaction due to his anxiety
+and his concentration of nervous force on his wife, which tend to
+inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which would otherwise
+demand an outlet.
+
+The vitality, the physical state, the needs, however, of different men
+vary very greatly, and there are those who really do require some
+physical assistance in addition to will power and even a religious
+determination to help them through this time of difficulty. For such
+I recommend daily thorough washing in cold water of the organs of
+generation, and when an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking of
+the whole body in as hot a full length bath as can be borne.
+
+It may perhaps sound fantastic because one has not yet scientific
+proof (neither had Leonardo da Vinci when he casually made the first
+announcement that our earth is a planet of the Sun), but I think,
+in addition to the physical presence of the secretions potentially
+demanding exit, that a very important factor in the desire for sex
+union is an electrical accumulation within the system, and undoubtedly
+the soaking in hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to allay
+the urgency for a desire for a sex union.
+
+These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to
+maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration
+of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute
+everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child,
+should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which
+his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by
+incorrigible physical requirements, may have a hard time; if it is
+insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some
+slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical
+treatment.
+
+After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of
+the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the
+wife’s pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this
+is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some
+months or a year after the wedding. (_Cf._ _Married Love_, Chapter IX).
+
+Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse
+of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the
+mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this
+with tact and intelligence may be surmounted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Union of Three
+
+    “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
+
+
+In the early days of our modern civilization, that is to say within the
+last couple of hundred years, the treatment of women in Western Europe
+sank to a terribly low ebb. Although the last few years have done much
+to restore woman to some of her ancient rights and privileges, there
+are still among us a distressing proportion of ignorant, coarse and
+consequently ruthless men who are not debarred from becoming husbands.
+Such men have been in the past in the habit of “using their wives”
+regardless of the desires or even the actual health requirements of
+the unfortunate women who are tied to them, and such men have made a
+practice of continuing to indulge in sex union even through the later
+stages of pregnancy. I have heard from midwives, to my amazed horror,
+that some such depraved men (not bestial, for no beast behaves in such
+a way) have even used their wives while they are still in bed after
+child birth. With such I have in this volume no concern beyond the
+mention that they are loathsome.
+
+Their existence, however, has had an effect on a better type and has
+given rise to reaction on the part of men infinitely their superiors.
+Women who have seen their sister women thus outraged have had the
+support of men of sensitive conscience and consideration when they
+have claimed that the mother who is carrying and nursing her child is
+sacred, and must not be approached by her husband at all during the
+whole of the child’s coming and nursing period. It has, therefore,
+come about that a large number of our best and most high-minded women
+(supported by correspondingly high-minded men, anxious to do the best
+that is within their power for their wives and children) hold the view
+that no sex union after the third month, or perhaps that no sex union
+at all is allowable during pregnancy.
+
+Now this is one more matter which has not begun to receive the
+consideration which it deserves. When I wrote _Married Love_ I felt
+that I was not entitled to decide on this subject, and I tried to hold
+the balance between the various opinions, and drew attention to the
+fact that the prospective mother of the lower creatures is always set
+apart. This was apparently misinterpreted by some of my readers as
+being a personal expression of opinion, and women wrote or spoke to
+me about the subject saying they were sure I was right _because their
+husbands held the same opinion as I did_, BUT _the women themselves
+were ashamed, almost humiliated, to confess that during the carrying of
+their child they most ardently desired unions_.
+
+To these, as individuals, I pointed out that I was very far from
+expressing a definite opinion in my book on this point, and that my
+actual opinion indeed inclined towards thinking that restricted unions
+should be advantageous. In a later edition (the 7th) of my book, I
+enlarged on what I had to say on this subject, concluding: “There is
+little doubt that in this particular, even more than in so many others,
+the health, needs, and mental condition of women who are bearing
+children vary profoundly.”
+
+Through evidences from very various types of women in the last year or
+two, I have now accumulated facts in sufficient numbers to begin to see
+something approaching a possible generalization on this subject.
+
+One of the most striking things I noticed concerning the evidences I
+received was that the women who confessed to a desire for sex union
+while they were carrying a child were, almost without exception, the
+_best_ type. A hasty generalization would have predicted that those
+very women with their pure attitude, their high degree of culture,
+their intellectual attainments, and their gracious self-restraint in
+outer life were just exactly those women who would maintain a fierce
+chastity during the nine months. These quite remarkable corresponding
+experiences of similarly superior women forced the matter vividly upon
+my attention, and I am now prepared to make a tentative generalization,
+coupled with the generalization to be found in Chapter XV.
+
+The attitude of one of the women who confessed her intimate feelings
+to me is typical of those of this type, and is illuminating. She is
+a woman of unusually gifted brain, well endowed physically and a
+normally healthy mother in every respect; she is noted for a peculiar
+beauty and sweetness of disposition, and an unusually high degree of
+sensitive appreciation of beauty and goodness. In conversation she
+said to me: “You know I feel so ashamed and degraded by myself, but
+just at the time when I felt I ought to be sacred from these things,
+I more ardently desired my husband than I had done throughout all my
+married life of fifteen years.” She then told me that her husband who
+had been truly devoted to her all his life was particularly considerate
+and thoughtful for her during her time of expectant motherhood, and
+that when she tentatively hinted at her wish for union with him he
+refused tenderly on the grounds that the higher standard for men was
+to share, however difficult it was, in the nine months of complete
+abstinence. He said that, for the sake of the child and herself, he
+must refuse. Her desire, however, again recurred, much to her own shame
+and mortification, because she felt that what her husband said really
+represented the highest accepted standard of pre-natal conduct. Quite
+a number of rather similar and also exceptionally endowed women have
+confessed to me in almost the same terms the same feeling.
+
+Before I indicate my conclusions, let us briefly consider some of the
+surrounding circumstances of this problem. As I said in the opening
+paragraphs of this chapter, the nobler and better men have been carried
+away by a certain type of woman into thinking that it is man’s share
+of the difficulties and self-sacrifice of parenthood that he should
+entirely sacrifice what is spoken of as “his desires.” In my opinion,
+this attitude involves two profound fallacies. The first fallacy is
+that the act of sex union is to meet only “his desires”; it is not.
+Completed union is something infinitely greater: it is a consummation
+jointly achieved by both the man and his wife. This attitude I make
+clear in my book, _Married Love_ and in my new _Gospel_ addressed to
+the Bishops at Lambeth. And I must postulate in this, my present book,
+the far reaching effects on the bodily, spiritual and mental health
+of a man and woman concerned in this complex sex union. The truth is
+that the husband who mutually and considerately unites with his wife
+when she can accept him is not merely gratifying his own desire, he
+is enriching her whole system as well as his own through this mutual
+alchemy.
+
+Before following up the logic of this paragraph, let us turn to the
+woman and her needs. The drain on her system of providing for another
+life out of her own tissues, and the substances which pass through her
+own body, must be very severe unless she is amply provided with all the
+subtle chemical compounds which are demanded of her. Now there is much
+evidence that in unmarried women, and in young wives who are debarred
+from sex union altogether, something approaching a subtle form of
+starvation occurs; conversely that women absorb from the seminal fluid
+of the man some substance, “hormone,” “vitamine” or stimulant which
+affects their internal economy in such a way as to benefit and nourish
+their whole systems. That semen is a stimulant to a woman was long
+ago recognized as probable, and is now the opinion of several leading
+doctors. Reference to this will be found in Havelock Ellis, vol. 5,
+1912. See also the paper by Toff in the _Centralblatt Gynakologie_,
+April, 1903. Incidentally the converse is true, and the man who
+conducts himself properly during the sex union, and remains for long in
+contact with his wife after the ejaculation is completed, also benefits
+through actual absorption from his wife. For this I have the testimony
+of a number of men.
+
+If, therefore, the woman who is becoming a mother, and who is
+supporting a second life, feels the need of union with her husband
+it is, I maintain, an indication that her nature is calling out for
+something not only legitimate but positively beneficial and required,
+and that it should be not only a man’s privilege, but his delight, to
+unite with his wife at such a time and under such circumstances.
+
+The maintenance of the right balance of the internal secretions of the
+various glands which re-act on sex activity is important to women at
+all times, and particularly during the time when a woman is becoming a
+mother. One of the results of the growth of the child is the increased
+activity of the thyroid gland in the neck, which considerably increases
+in size.
+
+A general account of the relation of such glands to a woman’s mental
+and physical balance is found in Blair Bell’s book (_The Sex Complex_,
+1916), but he does not deal with the special aspect of a woman’s
+requirements which forms the subject of this chapter.
+
+There is, even with the type of woman who does feel the need of, and
+ardently desires some sex unions with her husband during the long
+months, almost always a space of time, perhaps as much as two or three
+months consecutively, when she will have no such desires at all and
+there are also times of special liability to lose the child through
+premature birth, when unions should be avoided. Unexpected abortions
+most usually take place at the dates around the time which would have
+been a monthly period.
+
+When I consider the evidence which I have before me, which is almost
+exclusively from the very best type of women, and when I observe that
+the most generally perfected, and finest women of my acquaintance,
+and they in particular, desire occasional moderate intercourse during
+pregnancy, I feel that one has a guide to what is best for the race.
+In these women and the conduct which their needs inspire, we have an
+indication of the truest and highest standard of all. The deviations
+of conduct may at last return from both the grossness of abuse and the
+reaction from it, and settle in the right and middle path. After the
+excessively virtuous, and perhaps undersexed type of woman, in contrast
+to the totally base attitude of the earlier and coarser type of man,
+has made the thoughtful speed from baseness to an ascetic absence
+of unions, we should be led back by these well developed and well
+balanced and noble minded women to the right and middle way. In this
+the spontaneous impulse of the responsible mother will be the guide for
+her husband and will benefit all three concerned.
+
+For, let us realize what a profound mystical symbol is enacted when
+the union is not that of a single man and woman, but of that holy
+trinity the father, the mother and the unborn child. _Only_ during
+these brief sacred months can the three be united in such exquisite
+intimacy, and during all these months when the child is forming, it
+is only in the few infrequent embraces of subdued passion that the
+husband and father-to-be can come truly close to his child, that he
+can, through additions to her system from his own, assist the mother in
+her otherwise solitary task of endowing it with everything its growth
+demands.
+
+Every woman who is bearing a child by a man whom she loves deeply,
+longs intensely that its father should influence it as much as it is
+possible for him to do: in this way _and in this way alone_ can he give
+it of the actual substance of his body.
+
+This view of mine, in the present crude state of scientific knowledge
+must, of course, be stated as an hypothesis, but it will be proved
+later on when science is sufficiently subtle to detect the actual
+microscopic exchange of particles which takes place during proper and
+prolonged physical contact in the sex union.
+
+Light on my thesis is also shown by the converse: For instance, an
+interesting suggestion was made by a distinguished medical specialist
+as a result of his observation of two or three of his own patients,
+where the prospective mother had desired unions and the husband had
+denied them thinking it in her interest: the doctor observed that
+the children seemed to grow up restless and uncontrollable, with a
+marked tendency to self-abuse. To these two or three instances I have
+added some which have come under my own observation and, although as
+yet the evidence is insufficient to support a dogmatic attitude, I
+incline to think that not only the deprivation of the mother of proper
+union during pregnancy, but also the after effects of some years of
+the use of _coitus interruptus_ tends to have a similar effect upon
+later children. That is to say that mothers whose natural desire for
+union has been denied, and mothers who are congenitally frigid rather
+tend to produce children with unbalanced sex-feeling liable to yield
+to self-abuse. Immoderate and excessive desire for sex union during
+pregnancy so far as I am aware is rare, and where it occurs it should
+of course be treated as an abnormality.
+
+The mother of the higher type, such as I have indicated in the
+paragraphs above who does desire unions, will probably only require
+them infrequently during these months.
+
+It should be obvious, but as the general public often lacks a
+visualizing imagination, I ought to add, that for the proper
+consummation of the act of union, particularly during the later months
+of coming parenthood, the ordinary position with the man above the
+woman is not suitable and may be harmful. The pair should either lie
+side by side, or should lie so that they are almost at right angles
+to each other, so that there is no pressure upon the woman. Or the
+man should lie on his side behind the woman, which makes penetration
+easy and safe and free from pressure. I might point out here a fact
+which is of general importance in all true consummations of the sex
+union, and that is that all the preliminaries and even the final act of
+ejaculation itself do not constitute the whole of the truest union. A
+truth on which I lay great stress, although I have not yet dealt with
+it fully in any publications, is the fact that an _extremely_ important
+phase of each union is the close and prolonged contact after the
+culmination takes place. The benefit to both of the pair of remaining
+in the closest possible physical contact for as long a time as is
+possible after the crisis is almost incalculable.
+
+A whole chapter could be written upon this theme, and indeed it should
+be written. In the union during pregnancy, a woman is by nature
+debarred from the complete and intense muscular orgasm and for her,
+indeed, the union must essentially consist almost solely of the close
+contact of skin with skin and of the absorption of molecular particles
+as well as the resolution of nervous tension as the result of so close
+and prolonged a contact.
+
+Among the children known to me personally, several of the most
+beautiful were the children of mothers and fathers who had unions
+during the months of their development. The following quotation from a
+young husband may be of interest in this connection:--
+
+    The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile walk
+    over country ground, and I slept with my wife the very night before
+    he was born.... We had unions, but not in the ordinary position;
+    she would be on her side with her back to me, and after union
+    would quietly go off to sleep in my arms, and in the morning would
+    wake with a joyful and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the
+    finest of babies from all points of view.
+
+As I have seen photographs of the child, I can endorse the parent’s
+opinions.
+
+Tolstoy’s condemnation of any sex contact while the wife was pregnant
+or nursing may have influenced some serious men, but, as in many other
+respects, Tolstoy’s teaching is so widely contradictory, and depends so
+much upon his own age and state at the time, one cannot but regret the
+unbalanced influence his literary power has given him.
+
+While this chapter may be taken as an indication that sex union is, in
+my opinion, not only allowable but advisable for certain types during
+the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless I do not wish it to
+be misinterpreted in such a way that a single act of union which is
+repugnant to the prospective mother should be urged upon her “for her
+good.”
+
+There is undoubtedly a large body of most excellent women who are as
+individuals distinctly rather undersexed, but who are on the whole good
+mothers, profoundly well meaning and right minded and virtuous women
+to whom the time of prospective motherhood is an intensely individual
+period, during which they feel an active repugnance to any sex union.
+
+Women of this type are not able to give the _completest_ dower to
+their children, but are immensely superior to the average and baser
+type which forms the majority. If such women do not spontaneously
+desire unions they should be left unharried by any suggestion that they
+would benefit by them, and the husbands of such women should, in their
+own interests, curb any natural impulses which may conflict with the
+intense feeling of the wife. Husbands, however, should also be aware
+that such women generally feel as they do because they have never been
+_wooed_ with sufficient grace and tenderness.
+
+To sum up, I am convinced that unless there is any indication of a
+disease or abnormal appetite in any respect, that the natural wishes
+and desires of the mother-to-be who is bearing a child should be the
+absolute law to herself and her husband, for during these months
+she is on a different plane of existence from the usual one. She is
+swayed by impulses which science is as yet incapable of analysing or
+comprehending, and experience has again and again proved that she is
+wise to satisfy any reasonable desire, whether for the spiritual,
+bodily or mental contributions to her growing child’s requirements or
+those which would strengthen her own power of supporting that child.
+
+Fortunate indeed is the husband of the best, well-balanced and
+developed mother-to-be, who with intense emotion shares with him in the
+closest and most exquisite intimacy, the creating of a life which has
+every prospect of adding beauty and strength to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Procession of the Months
+
+    “The mother is the child’s supreme parent.”
+
+        HAVELOCK ELLIS.
+
+
+At first invisible, with no outer changes to indicate the vital
+internal processes, from the moment of conception an intense activity
+has begun within the mother. Sometimes women are aware of the actual
+moment of conception, and faintly perceive for the first two or three
+days sensations too delicate to be called pain and yet intense and
+penetrating as though of the lightest touch upon the inward and most
+sensitive consciousness. I have read reports of women, and know one
+personally, who felt the process of conception, although this will
+probably be generally received with incredulity. The majority of people
+are less completely cognisant of the voices of their own organism,
+and perhaps for two or three months are almost unaware that anything
+different from the usual course of their life is taking place.
+
+If, as seems to me unquestionably the best and happiest relation, the
+man and woman who are creating a child are doing so deliberately,
+consciously and with acute interest, a mutual knowledge of the
+principal stages through which their child passes should add greatly to
+their interest and the intensity of their feeling.
+
+From the first moment of its conception, indeed often for months before
+this has been possible, their child is to the loving pair a living
+entity of whom they may speak.
+
+The active egg cell, which is ready for fertilization, is produced
+in one or other of the two ovaries, which lie internally and cannot
+be touched or reached in any way without operating upon the mother;
+they have no direct contact with the outer world. These two ovaries
+each communicate with the central chamber, which is called the womb or
+uterus and this is a strong muscular organ, into the walls of which the
+attachment of the minute embryo fastens, and within this chamber the
+growing embryo gradually fills the space reserved for it. The womb or
+uterus has a connection with the outer world through the lower mouth
+called the os, which opens into the vaginal channel. This os or mouth
+with its rounded lip can just be felt at the end of the vaginal channel.
+
+Fertilization consists in the actual penetration of the egg cell by the
+male sperm, the nuclei of which unite. As I have elsewhere described
+(_Married Love_, Chap. V) the numbers of male sperm provided in any act
+of union outnumber by millions those actually required, because for
+each single fertilization one egg cell combines with one sperm cell.
+The egg cell or ovum is very large in comparison with a single sperm;
+nevertheless it is itself a minute, almost invisible protoplasmic
+speck, measuring rather less than 1/120th of an inch in diameter,
+and roughly spherical in its shape--a minute pellet of jelly-like
+protoplasm with a concentrated centre or nucleus. The single sperm
+which unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is little more
+than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm round it, and a long cilium
+or hair-like continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus propels
+itself or swims towards the egg cell. Judging by analogy, it leaves
+this tail outside the egg cell on the mutual fusion. The nucleus of
+the sperm and of the egg unite in a very complex and precise manner.
+In other organisms, and probably also in human beings, the entry of a
+single sperm to the egg cell shuts out the possibility of other sperms
+fusing with them, because directly it has been fertilized, the egg cell
+exudes a film of substance which antagonizes the other sperms, and
+which ultimately forms a filmy skin around itself.
+
+From the moment of the fusion of the nuclei of the male and female
+cells, active changes and nuclear divisions are in progress. The egg
+cell, which is free, travels slowly to the allotted place in the womb
+or uterus of the mother, and there it settles down in the tissue of the
+wall and attaches itself. Until it has attached itself firmly to the
+wall of the uterus, conception proper has not finally taken place, and
+a fertilized egg cell may be lost through want of a capacity to attach
+itself to the womb, or through some nervous or other disturbance of the
+walls of the womb, which throw it off after it has been attached. The
+distinction between the actual moment of fertilization (or union of the
+male and female nuclei) and of the final attachment which secures true
+conception is an important one, though frequently overlooked. Sometimes
+the failure to conceive a child may not at all be due to lack of
+fertility and readiness to unite on the part of the egg cell and sperm
+cell, but may be due to some nervous or other influence on the wall of
+the uterus, which consequently throws off the ovum before it has firmly
+settled into its place there.
+
+A few days after conception, and when the ovum has attached itself
+to the proper place, a definite zone of tissue begins to form which,
+growing and altering with the growth of the tiny developing child
+(which is now called the embryo), forms a medium of transmission
+between it and the mother through which pass the substances used and
+excreted by the embryo in its growth.
+
+After fertilization, intense and rapid activity takes place in
+the nuclei of the cells, first in the united nucleus of egg and
+sperm cell, and later in the nuclei of all the resulting division
+cells. The nucleus of the sperm cell is supposed to contain twelve
+chromosomes which go through a formal rearrangement and mingling with
+the corresponding chromosomes in the egg cell. As a result of the
+complete fusion and intermingling of the male and the female factors
+on fertilization, all the resulting divisions of cells which follow
+derive their nuclei partly from the male and partly from the female
+nucleus of the parents. Thus, if it were possible to trace the history
+of every tissue cell in the body of your child, we should see that each
+nucleus of all the myriads that compose its structure would ancestrally
+consist of part of the many sub-divisions of the nuclei of both father
+and mother. Thus to speak of one side of the body as being male in its
+inheritance and the other female, is the most unmitigated nonsense,
+though this idea formed the basis of a recent book.
+
+The rapidity with which the first cells grow to form tissues, once they
+have been stimulated by union is very great, and from the ovum, which
+on the day of fertilization is only 1/120th of an inch in size, the
+growth is so rapid that it is ten times as big at the end of fourteen
+days. By that time the length is one-twelfth of an inch, and it weighs
+one grain. By the thirtieth day the tiny embryo is already one-third
+of an inch big, and were it practicable, which, of course, it is not,
+to remove it living from its bed of tissue in the mother’s womb and
+examine it, even with the naked eye, and still more with a magnifying
+glass, it would be possible to see the rudiments of the legs, head and
+arms which are to be.
+
+By the fortieth day the embryo is about one inch in length, and the
+shape of the child, which it is to be, is quite clearly visible. Dark
+points are to be seen where later it will have eyes, nose and mouth,
+and there is already a hint of its backbone.
+
+Meanwhile, as may be realized, although to have grown in forty days to
+the size of an inch from a minute speck 1/120th part of an inch is a
+great and rapid achievement, nevertheless the existence of a thing one
+inch big within her makes little outer difference to the mother, and
+all the earlier weeks and months of the growth of this tiny organism do
+not yet take more visible effect on the mother’s body than to enhance
+its contour. After the first child this effect is less noticeable, and
+a woman may be unaware that she is about to become a mother. The first
+sign in a really healthy woman generally is in the form of her breasts,
+which sometimes begin to enlarge by the second or third week. It is
+said that the more healthy and perfectly fitted for motherhood a woman
+is, the sooner her breasts show signs of the effect of the developing
+embryo but, particularly with a woman who has already borne a child,
+there may be no external sign until at least three months have passed.
+
+By the sixth week, the limbs and most essential parts of the child are
+apparent, and there are the minute indications of the beginning of
+its future sex organs. It is evident, therefore, that if there is any
+desire to control the sex of the coming child, it is already too late
+by the sixth week to do anything, were it ever possible reliably to
+control sex at any time. It is, therefore, apparent that any passionate
+desire for a child of one or the other sex which the mother may indulge
+in when she knows she is about to be a mother, say by the third or
+fourth month, is futile. It may also be injurious (see Chapter XIV).
+
+By the second month, nearly all the parts are fully apparent, even the
+eyelids are visible in the embryo and a tiny nose begins to project;
+fingers and toes can be seen, and some centres of bone begin to
+harden, as for instance, in the ribs.
+
+By the third month the embryo reaches an average length of three or
+more inches, and weighs on an average about 2-1/2 ounces. In this month
+the sex organs of the future baby are rapidly developing, and indeed
+are rather unduly prominent in proportion to the other parts which
+enlarge relatively later.
+
+Between the third and the fourth month, or often not till a little
+after the fourth month, the active muscular movements of the embryo’s
+limbs can be felt by the mother. The experience of this, like the
+consciousness of the moment of conception, depends very much upon the
+sensitiveness and delicate balance of the mother’s conscious control of
+herself.
+
+Some are insensitively, though perhaps comfortably, unaware of what
+is going on in their systems; others are conscious, not of what is
+properly going on, but of what is going wrong in their systems owing to
+disease or maladjustment; but there are others who, in perfect health,
+are yet so acutely sensitive and conscious that they can at will
+detect, as it were, the condition of their whole organs. Such women as
+these will sooner feel the active movements of the embryo than those
+who are less perceptive. As a rule, medical practitioners estimate that
+about half-way between the date of conception and the date of birth,
+which should be a full nine calendar months, that is to say about 4-1/2
+months from the date of conception, muscular movements of the child are
+detectable and distinct.
+
+In the third month, however, some women are conscious of the most
+delicate fluttering sensation.
+
+By the end of the third month, a definite enlargement of the mother’s
+body becomes visible, because not only the actual child within her
+has to be accounted for in the space among her organs, but all the
+accessory growth of the chamber which accommodates the child in the
+womb has to find its place, the womb growing rapidly and containing
+not only the child, but the large amount of fluid by which the child
+is surrounded, and in which it partly floats. The visible changes in
+the mother to some extent depend on the proportion of this fluid which
+develops, some having much more than others, and it is to this rather
+than to the actual size of the child for the first four or five months
+that any outward change is due.
+
+About the end of the third month the soft and cartilaginous beginnings
+of the vertebral column begin to harden in various centres, and
+afterwards the hardening of the bones (or ossification) slowly spreads
+throughout the whole skeletal system. For some other bones in the
+body, however, the hardening is not fully completed by the time of
+birth.
+
+By the fifth month, the child weighs six to eight ounces, and is from
+seven to nine inches long. By this time its movements are very active
+and almost continuous except when it sleeps. It should be trained
+to sleep at the same time as its mother, and thus give her rest. My
+phrase “it should be trained to sleep” may arouse incredulous smiles
+from medical men, even from mothers who have borne children, but it
+is not impossible to train a child even so young as an unborn embryo,
+strange as it may sound. From about this month (the fifth) to the time
+of birth, the child appears to have a strong and definite personality,
+and sometimes, in some strange and subtle way, it seems possible to
+communicate with it. If there is that sweet and intense intimacy
+between mother and father which there should be if the full beauty of
+parenthood is to be realized, the child is apparently to some extent
+conscious of the nearness of its father, and I know at least of one or
+two couples who spoke to their coming child as though it were present,
+and who, by a touch of the hand could to some extent control and soothe
+it so that it would sleep during the night when the mother desired to
+sleep.
+
+About the fifth month the actual nails begin to grow, although the
+local preparations for their growth took place much earlier.
+
+After the fifth month, the child grows rapidly in weight, in the sixth
+month weighing nearly two pounds and during the seventh nearly three.
+
+If it is placed in the best possible position, its head would be
+directed downwards, and it should be lying so that its arms and legs
+are tucked in much as a kitten curls up when it is asleep. It will
+move, however, sometimes completely round, entirely altering its
+position.
+
+By the eighth month it weighs about four pounds and averages perhaps
+sixteen inches or so long. It should by this time be very active, so
+that its movements are not only strongly felt by the mother, but are
+externally quite perceptible.
+
+By the ninth month, at birth, the child weighs between six and eight
+or more pounds. It is better for the mother that it should not be too
+heavy, as, unless she is a large and strongly built woman, the actual
+weight of the child becomes a great strain upon her, however strong she
+may be.
+
+A child may be born during the seventh month, and children born
+during the seventh month live and have sometimes even grown up
+learned and important men. Sir Isaac Newton is an illustration of a
+premature child. Usually, however, a seventh month infant is terribly
+handicapped; its skin is not yet fully developed, and in many respects
+it is quite unfitted to face the world.
+
+Many claims are made that a child is seven months at birth which are
+based on the mis-counting of the date of conception or a desire to
+conceal a pre-marital conception. When one is shown, as one sometimes
+is, a bouncing, healthy, ordinary baby, and told that it was “a very
+forward seven months child,” those who know can only smile or sigh,
+according to the circumstances, for an ordinary, healthy, bouncing baby
+with nails and well formed skin has never yet been generated in seven
+months.
+
+The seventh month is the time of greatest danger for a late
+miscarriage, and many have been the disappointments of parents who
+ardently desired a child, but who lost it through premature birth at
+the seventh month. I have often wished to know why this should be so,
+and have found no satisfactory answer or indication of any scientific
+reason for this, but when revolving all the possibilities of ancestral
+reminiscence, it occurred to me that possibly our earlier ancestors,
+ancestors in fact so early as to be scarcely human, were born at the
+seventh month. I was, therefore, interested to find that for some of
+the monkeys seven months is the date of normal birth. Possibly some
+such ancestral characteristic may make the seventh month a critical
+time in the development of the human embryo, a time when it inherits
+the reminiscence of the possibility of separating itself from its
+mother and coming into the outer world.
+
+The times, moreover, when birth is most liable are those few days in
+each month which correspond to the regular menstrual flow in the woman,
+the periods which would have taken place at each twenty-eight days
+had not the child been developing. It is, therefore, often desirable,
+particularly for the later months, for the woman to take one or two
+days of complete rest, or even to remain in bed during that dangerous
+day or two, so as to minimize the possibility of a miscarriage.
+
+The same applies of course to some extent to the eighth month, but
+curiously enough, miscarriages in the eighth month appear to be less
+frequent. It is also popularly said that it is more difficult to rear
+a child born in the eighth month than one born in the seventh, though
+this does not appear to be true.
+
+The last week or two of the child’s antenatal existence are used by
+it in finishing itself off; growing its tiny shell-like nails, losing
+the downy hair which covered its body earlier in its existence, and in
+a sense preparing itself, and particularly its skin, for contact with
+the outer world which is to come. Its movements are very active, and if
+it is in the most perfect position, the head tends to sink deep down
+towards the canal approaching the circle of bone through which it will
+have to pass (see Chapter II).
+
+The question is often asked as to which is the time when the embryo
+is most sensitive to outward impressions, but as yet there is no
+sufficient body of evidence to show that at any particular time more
+than another (unless it be on the actual day of conception, see Chapter
+II) is the power of influence greater than any other.
+
+Is it possible to pre-arrange, to determine the sex of the child which
+is voluntarily conceived? Since earliest human experiences have been
+recorded, this has formed the theme of some writers and thinkers, and
+a variety of opinions have been expressed, theories propounded, and
+rules for the production of a girl or boy at will have been given. Each
+of the views, however, still remains far from being established, and
+damaging exceptions may be found to every theoretic rule. The impartial
+observer must feel that we are still unable to control the sex of the
+child.
+
+There are three main theories on this subject: (_a_) one is that the
+nature of the child which will be produced is already pre-determined
+in the ovum and sperm cell before they have united; (_b_) the second
+theory is that the critical moment which settles the sex of the
+future offspring is the moment of fertilization and the changes in
+the nucleus immediately resulting from it; (_c_) and the third theory
+is based on the view that the differentiation of the organs, which
+makes the difference in sex, take place at some stage in the embryo’s
+development after it is already a many-celled organism.
+
+The first named theory lies behind the advice which varies around the
+theme that according to whether the conception takes place from the
+egg cell grown in the right or the left ovary and testicle so will the
+child be a boy or a girl. Instances of the desired child proving to be
+of the sex “arranged for” by following out some such methods are of
+comparatively frequent occurrence, but to the scientist are completely
+counter-balanced by other and negative results.
+
+The second and third theories do not offer the same explicit
+application in practical advice. But all the practical advice, on
+whatever basis it is builded, appears to me to be laid on insecure
+foundations. In my opinion, the complexities of the factors which
+determine sex are such that it depends much less on the outward
+and visible nutrition of the mother, than on the inner and almost
+inscrutable quality of the nutrition of the ovum and spermatozoon
+before and immediately after fertilization has taken place.
+
+That sex, even in some vertebrate creatures is actually controllable
+through nutrition can be easily demonstrated with a batch of frogs’
+eggs. These can be divided into two portions and by simple differences
+in the feeding of the young tadpoles male or female frogs can be
+obtained; the richly nourished ones produce the female frogs, those
+on sparser diet the male. The human embryo, however, developing in
+and through its mother, will depend to some extent on her diet, but
+in a much less direct way, for, as all know, the actual nutrition of
+the system does not depend merely on the quantity and valuable nature
+of the food taken into the mouth; it depends equally or even more on
+the digestive power, on the circulatory system, even on the mentality
+of the person who eats, and to add still further to the complexity,
+the tissues and organs of one part of the body may be receiving fully
+sufficient nutriment, while owing to some hindrance or difficulty some
+other tissues may be wasting and under-nourished. It is consequently
+necessary before we can theorize, to determine, even in the healthiest
+woman, whether or no a very rich and abundant nutriment is reaching the
+developing embryo in its earliest and most critical days, for, on the
+other hand, just in this critical time, a woman relatively ill-fed and
+in relatively poorer health may be digesting her simple diet well and
+may be so stimulated as to provide for the minute developing embryo
+a richer and more nutritious environment than her better fed sister.
+Consequently, even if, as I incline to believe, the pre-determination
+of sex depends on the nutriment procurable by the early dividing cells
+of the embryo, it is still almost beyond the realm of scientific
+investigation or of human control to determine whether or not the
+embryo is surrounded with such stimulating food as will produce a girl,
+or the rather sparser diet which will produce a boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Prenatal Influence
+
+    “To leave in the world a creature better than its parent: this is
+    the purpose of right motherhood.”
+
+        CHARLOTTE GILMAN: _Women and Economics_.
+
+
+On the power of the mother directly to influence her child while it
+is still unborn, diametrically opposite opinions have been expressed,
+and without exaggeration I think one may safely say that the tendency
+of biological science has been to scout the idea as “old wives’ tales”
+and incredible superstition. Fortunate indeed it is that though our
+immature and often blundering science has in many ways permeated and
+influenced our lives, yet this denial of profound truth by those
+incapable of handling it in the true terms of science, has not entirely
+barred this avenue of power to the mother. Fortunately there are
+innumerable children who owe their physical and spiritual well-being to
+the profound racial knowledge still dormant in the true woman. As I
+said when I touched upon this question in _Married Love_:--
+
+    Yet all the wisest mothers whom I know vary only in the degree
+    of their belief in this power of the mother. All are agreed in
+    believing that the spiritual and mental condition and environment
+    of the mother does profoundly affect the character and spiritual
+    powers of the child.
+
+Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist and co-discoverer with
+Darwin of the principle of Evolution, was in many respects a pioneer
+of unusual foresight and penetrating observation, who thought that
+the transmission of mental influence from the mother to the child was
+neither impossible nor even very improbable. In 1893 he published a
+long letter detailing cases, which he prefaced by saying:--
+
+    The popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother affect
+    the offspring physically, producing moles and other birth-marks,
+    and even malformations of a more or less serious character, is
+    said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy facts, and it
+    is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical grounds. But I
+    am not aware that the question of purely mental effects arising
+    from prenatal mental influences on the mother has been separately
+    studied. Our ignorance of the causes, or at least of the whole
+    series of causes, that determine individual character is so great,
+    that such transmission of mental influences will hardly be held to
+    be impossible or even very improbable. It is one of those questions
+    on which our minds should remain open, and on which we should be
+    ready to receive and discuss whatever evidence is available; and
+    should a _primâ facie_ case be made out, seek for confirmation
+    by some form of experiment or observation, which is perhaps less
+    difficult than at first sight it may appear to be.
+
+    In one of the works of George or Andrew Combe, I remember a
+    reference to a case in which the character of a child appeared to
+    have been modified by the prenatal reading of its mother, and the
+    author, if I mistake not, accepted the result as probable, if not
+    demonstrated. I think, therefore, that it will be advisable to make
+    public some interesting cases of such modification of character
+    which have been sent me by an Australian lady in consequence
+    of reading my recent articles on the question whether acquired
+    characters are inherited. The value of these cases depends on their
+    differential character. Two mothers state that in each of their
+    children (three in one case and four in the other) the character
+    of the child very distinctly indicated the prenatal occupations
+    and mental interests of the mother, though at the time they were
+    manifested in the child they had ceased to occupy the parent, so
+    that the result cannot be explained by imitation. The second mother
+    referred to by my correspondent only gives cases observed in other
+    families which do not go beyond ordinary heredity.
+
+    ... Changes in mode of life and in intellectual occupation are
+    so frequent among all classes that materials must exist for
+    determining whether such changes during the prenatal period have
+    any influence on the character of the offspring. The present
+    communication may perhaps induce ladies who have undergone such
+    changes, and who have large families, to state whether they
+    can trace any corresponding effect on the character of their
+    children.--_Nature_, August 24 1893, pp. 389, 390.
+
+Yet this suggestive pronouncement of the world-famous naturalist has
+never been seriously followed up by scientists.
+
+I think the time is now ripe for a definite statement that: _The view
+that the pregnant woman can and does influence the mental states of the
+future child is to-day a scientific hypothesis which may be shortly
+proved_. I make this definite statement, in conjunction with the
+cognate and illuminating facts from other fields of research, a few of
+which are discussed in the following pages.
+
+That our mental states can affect, not only our spirits and our
+points of view, but actually the physical structure of our bodies, is
+demonstrable in a hundred different ways, and appears either to be
+proved or merely suggested according to the bias and temperament of the
+one to whom the demonstration is made. But there is one at least of
+these physical correlations which can be demonstrated with scientific
+thoroughness, and which proves beyond doubt that the mental state of
+the mother _has_ a reaction upon her infant even after it has severed
+its physical connection with her, and is a baby of a few months old.
+This fact is that a nursing mother who is subjected to a violent shock
+which results in a paroxysm of temper or of terror in her own mind,
+conveys the physical result of this to her infant when next she nurses
+it, so that the child has either an attack of indigestion or a fit.
+The effect of the mother’s mental state is transmitted by the influence
+on the milk, the chemical composition of which is subtly altered by her
+nervous paroxysm, and which thus acts as a poison to the infant.
+
+A much more subtle and closer correlation must exist between the
+mother’s mental states and the child when it is still not yet free and
+independent in the outer environment of the world but while it finds
+in her body its entire environment, its protection and the resources
+out of which it is building its own structure, while the blood and
+the tissues of her body form its whole world, while through them and
+through them alone can it obtain all its nourishment.
+
+True, the result of the mental state of the mother which we can see
+is, apparently, merely the physical result on the child’s digestion of
+the milk which has become poisoned: but to stop at this point like a
+jibbing mule, and to refuse to take the further step in the argument
+because the child is yet too young for us to understand its resulting
+mental states, which reason indicates must be correlated with its
+poisoned digestive system, is to defraud the mind of the logical
+conclusion of a sequence of ideas.
+
+The argument is as follows:--
+
+(_a_) The mother’s intense _mental_ experience and consequent nervous
+paroxysm has a physical result upon the composition of her milk
+(presumably, therefore, upon other portions of her body, though this is
+irrelevant for the moment);
+
+(_b_) This physically altered milk has a physical effect upon the
+infant who shows other and more extreme forms of physical distress;
+
+(_c_) This physical distress must obviously to some greater or lesser
+degree, affect the child’s nervous system; and (which is the point
+where the old-fashioned will break off);
+
+(_d_) Consequently the child’s mental state will be affected--although
+it is too young to translate this into conscious forms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Were I to make this the main thesis of my book, examples of the effect
+of mental states on bodily functions could be readily multiplied, and
+illustrations drawn from facts quoted in other connections could be
+found in a great number of medical works. I here bring together a few
+which when placed in juxtaposition offer if not proof, yet such strong
+support of my theme as to place it in the realm of the scientifically
+ascertainable. For instance, Blair Bell in _The Sex Complex_, 1916,
+says:--
+
+    Religious manias may lead to ideas which fill the patient with
+    abhorrence of sexual intercourse, and in this way directly
+    interfere with the genital functions. There is indeed no doubt
+    whatsoever that the mind influences function just as function
+    influences the mind; for example, it has been shown that fright
+    leads to an immediate increase in the output of suprarenin, and we
+    know well from constant clinical observations that hypothyroidism
+    leads to mental depression (pp. 209 and 210).
+
+and Havelock Ellis in _The Psychology of Sex_, vol. 5, 1912, says:--
+
+    We can, again, as suggested by Féré, very well believe that the
+    maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and
+    degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently
+    active movements of the _fœtus_ may be really consecutive on
+    unconscious maternal excitations. We may also believe that, as
+    suggested by John Thomson, there are slight incoördinations _in
+    utero_, a kind of developmental neurosis, produced by some slight
+    lack of harmony of whatever origin and leading to the production
+    of malformations. We know, finally, that, as Féré and others have
+    repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by experiments on
+    chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly
+    affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the
+    mother’s psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect
+    specifically the physical conformation or even the psychic
+    disposition of the child within her womb must remain for the
+    present an insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude
+    that in some cases such action seems to be indicated.
+
+Direct evidence of the physical aspect of my thesis is found in the
+fact quoted by Marshall in _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, p.
+566:--
+
+    So also it has been found that immunity from disease may be
+    acquired by young animals being suckled by a female which had
+    previously become immune, the antibody to the disease being
+    absorbed in the ingested milk.
+
+Further argument upon these lines might well be brought forward in
+favour of the view that the potential mother, during the months whilst
+she is acting as the child’s total environment in all physical ways,
+is also through her mental states and conditions affecting the child’s
+ultimate mentality and artistic and spiritual powers.
+
+This subtle control exerted over the formation of the child may be
+visualized as more like some effect parallel to the remote influences
+of the internal secretions in controlling the other organs of the body
+than the more mechanical picture of things visualized by the Mendelians
+and those who concentrate on the purely physical and material aspects
+of heredity as related to chromosome structure.
+
+The tendency in recent years in biological work has been far too
+much to lay stress upon the curiously mathematical laws Mendel
+discovered, and consequently to concentrate attention upon the physical
+chromosomes as containing the factors which carry hereditary qualities.
+Physiologists are now making an attempt to bring back into the
+treatment of life a more rational outlook, and nothing has contributed
+more to the scientific basis of this than the recent following up
+of the suggestions made so long ago as 1869 by Brown-Séquard. Since
+Starling named the internal secretions Hormones (see the Croonian
+Lecture, 1905) they have been much discussed by physiologists and some
+medical men (see for instance the recent work of Blair Bell, _The Sex
+Complex_, 1916 already quoted).
+
+To form a rough mental picture of what is happening one must combine
+the physiological and the mechanical outlooks. One then obtains the
+idea that the mother is, through her mental states, affecting and
+to some extent controlling the production of the various internal
+secretions, and other more subtle and still undetected influences
+from various organs upon other organs, and that, in so doing she is
+making the environment for the various hereditary factors, in which
+their potentialities find it possible to develop or to be suppressed
+according to the circumstances which she thus creates. As is now
+beginning to be realized, we all have an immense number of latent
+potentialities, which may lie dormant and develop only under suitable
+circumstances.
+
+Thus in my view the mother may actually and in every sense
+fundamentally influence and control the character of her child, working
+through the remote effects of internal secretions which play on the
+complex material factors of hereditary qualities which form the
+material basis of the child’s potentialities.
+
+Thus both heredity and environment have a vital part to play in
+building character, _but greater than either is the subtler environment
+within the prospective mother created by her during the nine antenatal
+months_.
+
+Sometimes people who would otherwise like to believe that a mother has
+this power, are deterred by their own experience or that of others, who
+have, under conditions of distress and unfavourable circumstances, had
+children whose dispositions seem not to have suffered, but appear as
+sunny and happy as a child apparently conceived under more favourable
+circumstances. Here, however, one is immediately faced by the
+difficulties of accurate observation entailing a large number of data
+which tend to cancel out; for the mother who may personally have been
+below her usual standard of health and spirits while bearing the child
+may, nevertheless, actually be in such a good physical condition, or be
+a member of such a sound, healthy stock that the child’s heredity was
+better than that of the average human being, and consequently that the
+child itself was provided with a healthy well-run body.
+
+While to contrast with it and apparently to refute my thesis, there
+may be a mother full of the most ardent hopes and buoyant spirit,
+looking forward with supreme joy to the advent of her baby, doing all
+she can to give it every beautiful mental impression and physical
+health, whose work may yet be undone by some cruel chance, such as
+venereal infection, or some local malformation which has resulted in
+weakness in, let us say, the child’s digestion. We all know how peevish
+mere indigestion will make anybody. Or she, the well-intentioned and
+outwardly well-circumstanced mother may, unknown to herself, have been
+battling against the cruel handicap in some racial, heritable defect
+in her husband; the child, therefore, may, with all her efforts, yet
+fail to be joyous owing to the too strong physical bias which chance or
+heritable disease has given it.
+
+The existence of such apparently conflicting and contradictory
+individual instances in no way refutes my main thesis, which is that
+granted equal conditions of clean and wholesome ancestry, granted
+equally favourable conditions of health and nutrition for the mother
+during her period of carrying the child, that that child benefits and
+is superior to the other who has had the advantage of a happy mother’s
+conscious effort to transmit to it a wide and generally intellectual
+and spiritual interest in the great and beautiful things of the world.
+
+This fact is often illustrated in the different children of the same
+parents. Of children born under as nearly identical circumstances
+as may be possible within a year or two of time, the one may have a
+totally different disposition with totally different qualities from the
+other. The chance of birth, the inheritance of the innumerable possible
+characteristics latent in both parents might be sufficient to account
+for this were chance alone at work, but very often information may be
+obtained from the observant mother which correlates her own state while
+carrying the child with the after condition of the child itself.
+
+One rather striking instance of such a correlation is by a curious
+chance known to me, and should be of general interest. Oscar Wilde,
+whose genius was sullied by terrible sex crimes, which he expiated
+in prison, is known to all the world as a type whose distressing
+perversion is a racial loss. His mother once confided to an old friend
+that all the time she was carrying her son Oscar, she was intensely and
+passionately desiring a daughter, visualizing a girl, and, so far as
+was possible, using all the intensity of purpose which she possessed to
+have a girl, and that she often in after years blamed herself bitterly,
+because she felt that possibly his perverted proclivities were due to
+some influence she might have had upon him while his tiny body was
+being moulded.
+
+Evidence upon this subject of the power or otherwise of the mother
+to influence her coming child is wanted, and it is very difficult to
+obtain, partly because of the reticence of those who have been through
+the dim and secret mysteries of motherhood, and partly because their
+accuracy cannot well be tested until after the child has reached
+maturity. In these after years the mother is likely to be swayed by the
+course the child’s life has taken, into unconsciously laying stress
+upon one or other point which may seem correlated with its after
+achievements.
+
+Evidence, however, in the form of notes kept during the time the
+mother is carrying the child which may be compared with the child’s
+life in later years are very valuable, and, if any readers have such
+with which they would entrust me, a sufficient body of such evidence
+might possibly be accumulated to assist materially in the formation of
+a strong spiritual asset in the creation of the best possible human
+beings.
+
+The father who desires to influence his child must do so through the
+mother: had clever men more generally realized this we should have
+heard less of the lament that clever men so often have stupid sons.
+
+Of the more physical aspects of the mother’s power to influence
+the form of the development of her growing child we have abundant
+evidence. If the mother is starved, and by starved I mean less the
+actual starvation from want of food than the subtler starvation of
+improper food or food lacking in the truly vital elements, then the
+child visibly suffers. For instance, rickets, a disease of grave racial
+significance to which reference has already been made (see Chapter II),
+is due to the lack of certain necessary elements in the food.
+
+A simple diet, the simpler the better, is sufficient adequately to
+provide all the essentials of nourishment for the mother and her coming
+child, and much indeed may be done for the general health and beauty of
+the child by providing the mother with the best form of material from
+which the embryo may build itself. The use of foods containing large
+quantities of vitamine (real butter and oranges, for instance, are
+specially good) is very advisable. They are not only enriching in their
+action in assisting true assimilation of other foods, but they probably
+tend to make good the general drain on the mother’s vitality which
+would naturally take place were she not amply provided with these most
+subtle ingredients, which, though present in such minute quantities in
+fresh food, are yet of incalculable value. The effect of proper and
+specially adapted dieting, not only on the health of the mother, but
+also on the beauty and general vigour of the child, is a thing which
+is particularly expressed by various writers who have followed up the
+early experiments on diet made by Dr. Trall.[5]
+
+[5] This book has been reprinted in a modern expurgated and mutilated
+edition, which deprives the reader of the most valuable portions of the
+author’s work. I should advise readers to see one of the original early
+editions if they desire to read the book intended by the author for the
+public.
+
+There is also Dr. Alice Stockham’s book, _Tokology_, to which I have
+previously drawn attention. Although, as I then said, it contains
+errors of a comparatively trivial nature such as calling carbonaceous
+material “carbonates,” which may have been sufficient to prejudice
+the scientific mind against the rest of her work, it contains the
+profound and valuable message Mr. Rowbotham published in England in
+1841, amplified, and to some extent enriched by this woman doctor’s
+experience.
+
+Those lovers who ardently desire their child and have a mental picture
+of it long before its birth may delight in speaking of it to each other
+as though it were, as indeed it is, alive. For this a name is required,
+but in order to avoid the danger suggested on page 141, it is wiser
+perhaps to choose the name of both a girl and a boy, the name which the
+child would be called by according to its sex after birth, and, while
+it is still unseen, to link the two together in speaking of the coming
+child.
+
+Sometimes for private reasons a girl in particular or a boy in
+particular may be desired, but the well-balanced mind of a parent,
+particularly of the first child, should welcome either a son or a
+daughter, each of whom has its peculiar charms, and neither of whom
+can be described as more valuable than the other. Our false estimate
+of boys as superior is largely due to economic conditions and the
+custom of male entail. This should, and of course will, be altered. It
+is the first _child_, whether boy or girl is no matter, who is “the
+first-born” with all that that connotes in rapture and wonder to its
+parents.
+
+Owing to the fact that more boys are born than girls, there is always
+the greater chance of the birth of a boy than a girl. From this point
+of view it would appear that girls are more precious, but boys are
+oftener ailing and feeble and difficult to rear, so that it is perhaps
+well that more of them should be born than of their stronger sisters.
+
+Throughout its coming, the little one should be thought of in such a
+way that it will be equally welcome whichever its sex, and thus be
+given the best chance of developing fully and naturally in its own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Evolving Types of Women
+
+    Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of
+    freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
+
+    Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
+    colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.
+
+    No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight
+    and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.
+
+    Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination or joy, and all
+    my desires ripen into fruits of love.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+One of the great sources of disharmony in our social life is the extent
+of the extraordinary ignorance about ourselves which still persists.
+From this spring our conflicting opinions and diametrically opposed
+views, and also the apparently self-contradictory evidence on almost
+any point of fundamental importance which is brought before the public.
+
+In no respect is there more conflict of opinion than concerning the age
+at which a woman should marry and become a mother. On the one hand,
+we have advocates of very early motherhood, and they point to the fact
+that a girl of seventeen is often already a woman and strongly sexed;
+they point to the hackneyed statement “that a girl matures sooner than
+a boy”; they point to the fine and healthy babies which very young
+mothers may bear and to the greater pliability and ease of birth,
+and these facts and their arguments may appear conclusive. On the
+other hand, the actual experience of many people conflicts with these
+apparently justified conclusions.
+
+All the highly evolved races tend to prolong childhood and youth. All
+tend to replace early marriage by later marriage and parenthood to the
+obvious advantage of the race.
+
+Marriage and parenthood at fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, which once
+were common in almost every country, are being replaced by later
+marriage and parenthood. As Finot 1913 says:--
+
+    A mystic chain appears to attach the age for love to the
+    consideration enjoyed by women. In the Far East, woman is offered
+    very young to the passion of man, and disappears from existence at
+    the time her contemporaries are just beginning to live. Love, for
+    this very reason, has a purely sensual stamp, degrading to man and
+    to woman. The lengthening of the age of love elevates the dignity,
+    and at the same time increases the longevity, of woman. Beyond
+    the age of thirty or forty the woman, dead to love, was fit only
+    for religion or witchcraft. Her life was shattered. Prematurely
+    aged she went out of the living world. The prolonged summer of
+    Saint-Martin in women will doubtless have consequences which
+    we should be wrong to fear. There is a solidarity of ages. The
+    cares bestowed on the child benefit the old man. The enlargement
+    of the age of maturity allows the child longer to enjoy the
+    years of life that are intended to form bodies and souls.... The
+    sentimental life of the country has undergone similar results.
+    Balzac, in proclaiming the right to love on the part of the woman
+    of thirty, aroused in his contemporaries astonishment bordering on
+    indignation. In his day, was not a man of forty-four considered
+    an old man?[6] Let us not forget that forty or fifty years before
+    Balzac, a philosopher like Charles Fourier, despairing of the
+    sentimental fate of young girls who had not found a husband before
+    the age of ... eighteen years, claimed for them the right to throw
+    propriety to the winds. According to the author of the _Théorie des
+    Quatre-Mouvements_,[7] this was almost the critical age (_Problems
+    of the Sexes_, transl. Jean Finot 1913).
+
+[6] Balzac: _Physiologie du Mariage_.
+
+[7] Charles Fourier, Leipzig, 1808.
+
+The relative ages of husband and wife also have their influence, but
+should, to some extent, depend more on their _physiological_ age than
+on their actual years. They should, however, not be widely different.
+As Saleeby says:--
+
+    The greater the seniority of the husband, the more widowhood will
+    there be in a society. Every economic tendency, every demand for
+    a higher standard of life, every aggravation for the struggle for
+    existence, every increment of the burden of the defective-minded,
+    tending to increase the man’s age at marriage, which, on the
+    whole, involves also increasing his seniority--contributes to the
+    amount of widowhood in a nation.
+
+    We, therefore, see that, as might have been expected, this question
+    of the age ratio in marriage, though first to be considered from
+    the average point of view of the girl, has a far wider social
+    significance. First, for herself, the greater her husband’s
+    seniority, the greater are her chances of widowhood, which is
+    in any case the destiny of an enormous preponderance of married
+    women. But further, the existence of widowhood is a fact of great
+    social importance because it so often means unaided motherhood, and
+    because, even when it does not, the abominable economic position of
+    women in modern society bears hardly upon her. It is not necessary
+    to pursue this subject further at the present time. But it is
+    well to insist that this seniority of the husband has remoter
+    consequences far too important to be so commonly overlooked (_Woman
+    and Womanhood_, 1912).
+
+I have observed many girls, who were in every true sense of the word
+girls (that is unconscious of personal sex feeling, still growing in
+bodily stature and still developing in internal organization) until
+they were nearly thirty years of age. In my opinion, the girl who
+is thoroughly well-balanced, with an active brain, a well-developed
+normally sexed body, natural artistic and social instincts is not
+more than a child at seventeen, and to marry her at that age or
+anything like it is to force her artificially, and to wither off her
+potentialities.
+
+The type of woman who really counts in our modern civilization is,
+as a rule, not of age until she is nearly thirty. Not only does she
+_not_ mature sooner than a boy; she matures actually later than a
+large number of men. I have now accumulated a wide and varied amount
+of evidence in favour of the view which I here propound, namely, that
+there is a most highly evolved type of woman in our midst. This type,
+which it will be agreed is the most valuable we possess, encompasses
+women of a wide range of potentialities; they have beautiful entirely
+feminine bodies, with all feminine and womanly instincts well
+developed, with a normal, indeed a rather strong, sex instinct and
+acute personal desires which tend to be concentrated on one man and one
+man alone. I will provisionally call this the late maturing type, for
+such a woman is generally incapable of real sex experience till she
+is about twenty-seven or thirty. I think that she is in line with the
+highest branch of our evolution, that she represents the present flower
+of human development, and that through her and her children the human
+race has the best hope of evolving on to still higher planes--but, and
+this is very important, she is not fitted for marriage until she is at
+least twenty-seven, probably later, her best child-bearing years may be
+after she is thirty-five, and her most brilliant and gifted children
+are likely to be born when she is about forty.
+
+Personal evidence, and also facts in the interesting letters sent
+me by my readers have brought to my knowledge the existence of
+an important proportion of women who are absolutely unconscious
+of personal localized sex feeling until they are nearly or over
+thirty--one woman was nearly fifty before she felt and knew the real
+meaning of sex union though many years married.
+
+From outward observation of the general physique of such of these women
+as I have seen face to face, I may say that, as a rule, they retain
+their youth long; they retain also a buoyancy and vitality which, if
+they are properly treated, and have the good fortune to be married at
+the right time to the right man, may remain with them almost throughout
+their lives. Such women not only prolong their girlhood, they defer
+their age. Such women have, of course, throughout the centuries
+appeared from time to time, and I fancy have generally in the past,
+and still often in the present, suffered acutely through marrying too
+young. When they marry too young they tend, by the forcing of their
+feelings, by the deadening through habit of their potentialities, by
+the trampling on the unfolded possibilities within them, to be turned
+artificially into a “cold type of woman.”
+
+Women now older tell me of the fact that for the first years of
+their married life they could give no response, but when they were
+respectively twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one or more, they began first
+to feel they were truly women. Young husbands have written to me of
+their distress that their wives (aged about twenty to twenty-three),
+delightful girls in every respect, seemed utterly incapable of
+any response in the marital orgasm. Sometimes this depends on her
+conformation, but such an incapacity I often attribute to the girl’s
+marriage being premature. When she is twenty-seven or twenty-eight
+perhaps her internal development will be complete, and she will then
+be ripe for the full enjoyment of marriage: but if instead of a
+considerate husband she marries one who merely uses her, she stands
+little chance ever of knowing the proper relation of wifehood and
+motherhood.
+
+These facts which I could vary with details from individual
+experiences, in my opinion, indicate a profound truth in the
+development of the human race. It is this: not only do the higher races
+of human beings have a prolonged childhood and youth, but the most
+highly evolved, mentally, physically and racially, of our girls have
+not finished their potential growth into maturity until they are in the
+neighbourhood of thirty years of age.
+
+Does this then mean that all marriage should be deferred till so late?
+By no means, nor is the above conclusion any reflection on the type of
+girl who ripens much more quickly. I fully recognize that from the
+point of view of their sex potentialities some girls are complete women
+at seventeen or eighteen, and that they may then be very strongly sexed
+indeed. Such women should marry young.
+
+The marked differentiation of type of these very notably different
+women can be traced through many other aspects of their lives. I
+consider, for instance, the type of whom I spoke in Chapter XII (who
+has a natural desire for union, representing the highest and most
+complex human union, the union of three) belongs very frequently to the
+late maturing and the most highly evolved form of femininity.
+
+It should be recognized that there are among us not only different
+races, but that in the same stock, sometimes in the same family of
+apparently no specially mixed ancestry, we may find one or more members
+of the late maturing, others of the early maturing type. Sometimes of
+two sisters, the elder may perhaps be still in mind a girl while her
+younger sister is a woman, as can be observed by any one with a large
+circle of acquaintances. It would be well, I think, if humanity, whose
+proper study is mankind, were at least to know themselves sufficiently
+well to realize the existence of such different types, and their
+possible potential value as well as their differing needs. The energy
+at present wasted in the acrid statement of conflicting views would
+be so much better spent on the careful recording and recognizing of
+varying types.
+
+The advice to marry young, which is in every respect socially wise and
+physiologically correct for some, should not be hurled indiscriminately
+at all women, because for the late maturing such advice is socially
+disadvantageous and physiologically wrong.
+
+I am now ready to consider the question of the proper age for
+motherhood about which an immense variety of opinion is expressed. The
+general tendency has been, even in the last few years, to raise the
+age at which a girl may marry, and to raise the age which the medical
+profession advises as the earliest suitable for motherhood. But still
+one often hears of elders, whom one would in other respects like to
+follow, advising the early bearing of children.
+
+Now I should like every potential parent to consider what type of child
+they want. Do they want to secure healthy, jolly little animals with no
+more brains than are sufficient to see them creditably through life? If
+so, let them have their children very early. Such healthy sound people
+with no special gifts are valuable, and there is much work in the world
+for them to do. On the other hand, do they want to take the risk for
+their child of a possibly less robust body, but with the possibility,
+indeed, in healthy families, almost the certainty, of an immensely
+greater brain power, and a more strongly developed temperament? Then
+let them have their children late. And if a man desires to have a child
+who may become one of the _master_ minds whose discoveries, whose
+artistic creations, whose ruling power stamps itself upon the memory
+of our race, whose name is handed down the ages, then let the father
+who desires such a child mate himself with the long-young late-maturing
+type of woman I have just described, and let her bear that child some
+time between the age of thirty-five and forty-five.
+
+How often one hears some version of the phrase: “Yes, it is so sad,
+poor, dear Lord So-and-So, a charming man, but no brains at all; his
+younger brother such a brilliant man; but that is always the way, the
+eldest sons in the aristocracy do seem to get the gift of property
+balanced by the lack of brains.” Now I enquire, and I should like my
+readers to enquire, into the secret of this phenomenon, which is by
+no means universal, but is sufficiently common to be endorsed. In my
+opinion, the interpretation of this fact is that the earlier children
+were born when the mother was still too young to endow them with
+brains, particularly if the mother was one of the gifted and cultivated
+women of the late-maturing type.
+
+This also leads me to consider another generality which is frequently
+used as an argument by those who oppose conscious and deliberate
+parenthood. Some people say that by the direct control of the size
+of the family to a small limited number which the parents definitely
+desire, we would be eliminating genius from our midst, and their
+argument runs: Look at Nelson, he was a fifth son; look at Sir Walter
+Scott, he was a third son; and so on. This to the uncritical seems
+conclusive, and many people of great capacity, ideals and heart, who
+otherwise would be wholly on my side in my claim that every child born
+shall be deliberately desired, and that all other conceptions shall
+be consciously prevented, are swayed by this argument and say: “Yes,
+your position would be obviously the right one for the race if it were
+not that later children are so often the better.” I turn, therefore,
+to a consideration of the life histories of these men’s mothers. Why
+was Nelson the genius of his family? Because his mother was too young
+to bear geniuses at the time she was bearing her elder children. But
+this is not yet a sufficiently accurate consideration of the subject;
+I want to know also of which type the mother was, for, in my opinion,
+the right age for the parenthood of a woman depends also on the type
+to which she belongs, whether the early maturing or the late maturing.
+If she knows herself to be the latter, after it is patent, as it must
+become patent to every one once the idea is placed before them, that
+such women are in our midst, then that woman and her husband should
+usually defer parenthood until she has reached at least thirty years of
+age. If this were done, then not the fourth, fifth or seventh but the
+first child would stand a very great chance of being a world leader,
+a powerful mind, perhaps even a genius. First children have been
+geniuses (Sir Isaac Newton was an only child); all depends on the age,
+the conscious desire, the general type and the surrounding conditions
+during prenatal state of her infant, of the mother who bears him and
+the father from whom he also inherits potentialities.
+
+A few investigations bearing on the effect of the parent’s age have
+been published by the Eugenics Society and some individuals, but none
+of these appear to me to be of any value, for none take into account
+the necessary data concerning the type of the mother which I here point
+out, and in all the calculations crude errors occur.
+
+The best woman, with comparatively few exceptions, is already and will
+still more in the future be the woman who, out of a long, healthy and
+vitally active life, is called upon to spend but a comparatively small
+proportion of her years in an _exclusive_ subservience to motherhood.
+A woman should have eighty to ninety active years of life; if she bears
+three or perhaps four children, she will, even if she gives up all her
+normal activities during the later months of pregnancy and the earlier
+of nursing, still have cut out of her life but a very small proportion
+of its total. She should, indeed, after she once is a mother, always
+devote a proportion of her energies to the necessary supervision of
+her children’s growth and education, but with the increasing number of
+schools and specialists, nurses, teachers and instructors of all sorts,
+the individual mother has much less of the purely physical labour of
+her children than formerly. That this is not only so, but is _approved_
+by the State can be seen at once by imagining a working class mother
+insisting on keeping her child at home all day under her personal
+supervision--the School Inspector would step in and take the child from
+her for a certain number of hours every day. But this book is primarily
+for middle and upper class women, and for them motherhood increasingly
+should mean a _widening_ of their interests and occupations.
+
+The counter-idea still expressed, even by leading doctors and others,
+is that the whole capability of the individual mother should be devoted
+solely to contributing to her children. This is exemplified in the
+recent statement of Blair Bell: “A normal woman, therefore, would not
+exploit her capabilities for individual gain, but for the benefit of
+her descendants.” This view is a false one and is based on a narrow
+vision.
+
+This pictures an endless chain of fruitless lives all looking ever
+to some supreme future consummation which never materializes. By
+means of this perpetual sinking of woman’s personality in a mistaken
+interpretation of her duty to the race, every generation is sacrificed
+in turn. The result has not been productive of good, happiness or
+beauty for the majority. No; the individual woman, normal or better
+than the average, _should_ use her intellect for her individual
+gain in creative work; not only because of its value to the age and
+community in which she lives, but also for the inheritance she may
+thus give her children and so that when her children are grown up they
+may find in their mother not only the kind attendant of their youth,
+but their equal in achievement. With a woman of capacities perhaps
+still exceptional, but by no means so rare as some men writers would
+like to pretend, the pursuit of her work or profession and honourable
+achievement in it is not at all incompatible with but is highly
+beneficial to her motherhood. As Charlotte Gilman says:--
+
+    No, the maternal sacrifice theory will not bear examination. As a
+    sex specialized to reproduction, giving up all personal activity,
+    all honest independence, all useful and progressive economic
+    service for her glorious consecration to the uses of maternity,
+    the human female has little to show in the way of results which
+    can justify her position. Neither by the enormous percentage of
+    children lost by death nor the low average health of those who
+    survive, neither physical nor mental progress, give any proof to
+    race advantage from the maternal sacrifice.--_Women and Economics._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Birth and Beauty
+
+    “Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou
+    knowest how to wait.
+
+    Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.”
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+When all goes well and there is no accidental hastening of the birth
+by shock or jar which dislodges the child too soon, the birthday finds
+its place in the ordinary rhythm of the woman’s existence. We speak
+generally of the “nine months” during which the child is borne by its
+mother, but this nine months is a fictitious number depending on our
+calendar months, and the developing child is actually ten lunar months
+within its mother. Just as the average almost universal period of
+the woman’s rhythm has twenty-eight days cycle, so on this number of
+days does the circle of months leading to birth depend. Ten months of
+twenty-eight days each is the full period of development, at the close
+of which the child seeks its exit through birth. As a rule the day
+of birth corresponds to some extent, if not quite accurately, to the
+former rhythm of her menstrual waves.
+
+An interesting paper containing various scientific data (not all of
+which are universally accepted) is to be found in the _Anat Anzeiger_
+of 1897 by Beard. What is actually the spring behind this rhythm is as
+yet largely unknown, but recent work on the internal secretions from
+the ovary such as was described by Starling in the _Croonian Lecture_,
+1905 (who quotes Marshall and Jolly and other workers), appears to
+indicate that this function like so many others in our system is due
+to the activities of certain glands yielding internal secretions.
+These, penetrating the whole system, have a controlling influence upon
+activities remote from their source.
+
+For the birth itself, the mother should be in experienced hands,
+preferably those of a highly trained and certified midwife or maternity
+nurse such as Queen Charlotte’s or the London Hospital supplies, one
+who is experienced in all that has to be done in normal, healthy
+circumstances, and who can detect at once any necessity for specialized
+help. If the mother has lived rightly and wisely, dieted as I suggest
+and is properly formed (as, of course, should be assured through
+examination some time before the birth is expected), the birth should
+be, however terrible an experience, yet one which is safely passed.
+
+In the days which follow she will have much to endure, and instead of
+the peace and quietness which she expected, she will find that she
+has constant disturbances incidental to the nursing of one who is, in
+essentials, a surgical case.
+
+Possibly due to the inconveniences involved in staying in bed, there
+is a tendency at present to encourage the mother to get up and at
+least walk about the room and be up for an hour or two within ten days
+or less of the date of the birth. Almost every one with whom I have
+come in contact, advises this, and in a certain school, particularly
+those who go in for what is called “Twilight Sleep,” there is not only
+an effort to get the mother up early, but a pride on the part of the
+mother and her advisers when she gets up perhaps within two or three
+days of the birth.
+
+Some women who have had a good many children boast of how they are up
+and about in ten days. I glance critically at all who tell me that,
+examining both their figures and their general appearance. _Only one
+woman of all who have ever discussed this matter with me urged the
+entirely old-fashioned month in bed following the birth. But_, and
+this is _very_ important, _she was the only one who, having had many
+children, at the same time had done most notable and arduous brain
+work, and also retained her youthful figure and general appearance_.
+
+This quite exceptional and old-fashioned advice is what I would hand on
+to women to-day. The modern craze for getting up quickly is absolutely
+wrong, and has a fundamentally deleterious effect on the general health
+of our women. I should go so far as to say that not only should a woman
+stay in bed the entire month, but that she should for two weeks longer
+scarcely put her foot to the ground. She may lie out of doors or on
+sofas, but, after a birth, _she should lie about for the whole of six
+weeks_.
+
+This may startle my readers. I, who look so keenly into the future, who
+am so progressive, so modern and so desirous of the great and rapid
+evolution of women, to return to the old custom of our grandmothers,
+and demand, not only the month in bed, to ask even more, that there
+should be six weeks spent practically lying about all the time! Is
+this not an anachronism? No. It will be observed that throughout this
+and my other books, my advice always has a biological basis, depending
+on the actual structure or the history of our bodies, and there is
+a very profound and physiological basis for the advice I now give.
+It is this--that not only during the birth is the whole system of
+the mother to some extent jarred and shaken; she suffers in all her
+nerves the sudden relief from the strain upon her muscles and in the
+whole readjustment of her system an extremely profound shock, and the
+treatment for shock entails rest. More than that, the womb which lies
+centrally and is so important an organ in her body, so enormously
+enlarged during the last months through which the child inhabited
+it, returns to its permanent size slowly; its strong, muscular walls
+tensely contract, but this contraction which reduces its size very
+much in the first day or two does not complete itself, does not bring
+the tissues back to the size which they will afterwards permanently
+maintain, _until six weeks have elapsed_. For the whole of six weeks,
+therefore, the womb will be larger and heavier than normal and with a
+tendency to get out of place, while all the muscles of the body wall
+are weakened and out of condition by being so long stretched. A woman,
+therefore, should not put any strain on her muscles like standing
+or walking or taking any active exercise before the six weeks has
+elapsed, though she should, lying both on her back and on her face,
+do exercises calculated to restore the strength of these muscles and
+fit them to take on their work directly she rises. One exercise,
+particularly valuable and but little known, is to raise the diaphragm
+without breathing. This can be done during the six weeks in bed, but
+is particularly valuable on first rising and standing or walking.
+This internal pull upwards of all the organs strengthens both the
+internal and the outer body wall muscles. Such control deliberately
+and frequently exerted throughout the day does more perhaps than any
+one other thing to retain a slender well-formed trunk. It has also a
+curiously bracing and exhilarating mental effect, and as the action can
+be done at any time unobserved, its effect can be utilized at will.
+The ancient Greeks laid great stress on the value of control of the
+diaphragm.
+
+It may be argued that during the time the child was within it the womb
+was very much larger than it is after birth, and nevertheless then
+active walking exercise was recommended. Yes: but during that time the
+womb was supported by the increased tension on the front muscles of the
+body wall against which it pressed and was thus assisted in maintaining
+its position; but after birth, while it is so very much smaller than
+quite recently it has been, and, at the same time, while still much
+larger than normal, and more than the weakened internal muscles are
+prepared to support, it is no longer held firm by the tense body
+wall, for the body wall is now limp, crumpled and almost incapable of
+supporting any strain. If, therefore, the woman stands too soon, the
+inner organs which are again beginning to find their natural place--the
+long digestive tract and other organs--tend to flop downwards, to
+bulge out the still loose and strained abdominal muscles, and press the
+still too heavy womb out of its normal position, the position to which
+it must return, and must permanently take up if the woman is to have
+her general health maintained throughout the rest of her life. Hence,
+before she sets foot to the ground she must lie the nature-decreed six
+weeks, and meanwhile _exercise_ the abdominal muscles so as to prepare
+them to act properly.
+
+When I see and hear of women either forced or lured or eagerly getting
+out of bed in ten days or a week after child birth, I wonder what will
+happen to all those women ten or fifteen years hence. They will be
+fortunate if they do not have what is now so increasingly prevalent,
+namely some form of displacement of the womb with all its attendant
+miseries of handicapped motherhood and wifehood. I maintain that it is
+nothing short of cruelty and criminality to allow the modern woman to
+get up quickly in the way she does. It may possibly be claimed by some
+of the foolish and hardy pioneers of getting up rapidly, that when she
+is a middle-aged or elderly woman she will not be suffering from the
+slow relaxations and displacements which result from putting pressure
+too soon on abdominal muscles unprepared to bear the strain. This
+will not make things safe for the average woman however. It is not
+realized how appalling is the prevalence of womb displacements among
+the lower working-class women, those who are forced by circumstances to
+get up in a week or ten days and go back to work. I think the modern
+increase in displacements in middle and upper class women is partly to
+be traced to the tendency to get up too soon, and also to the impatient
+practitioner’s use of instruments to hasten a birth which would come
+naturally in good time. When once the perineal and inner supporting
+muscles have been torn, they are too often mended superficially, but
+inner tears are left which make the perineum an insufficient support
+for the womb, of which the result is its slow and gradual dropping
+out of place, which some years afterwards may acutely handicap the
+unfortunate woman.
+
+In the name of all the fond and happy mothers that I hope the future
+may contain, I would urge every one who possibly can to _insist_ on
+having six weeks of “lying in.” This is not only in the interests of
+general health but of beauty. Too long have we become tolerant of the
+hideous formation of the body which is common in older women. We have
+domesticated some animals[8] solely for our own purposes, and they are
+hideous indeed. Why should we women permit a comparable standard for
+ourselves? Why not insist on at least as much care as is devoted to the
+race-horse? Why not take a period of rest after the great effort of
+maternity proportionately as long as a she-wolf or tigress takes in her
+cave, fed by her mate while she lies about and plays with her cubs?[9]
+The standard of beauty of the racing mare, of the wild tigress or
+she-wolf is slender and not markedly different from that of its virgin
+state. Such a standard, and not that of the over-taxed, man-used,
+domesticated animals should be that on which we women should insist.
+
+[8] The sow normally breeding once a year, artificially forced to breed
+two or three times a year. Its appearance is proverbial.
+
+[9] This has been reported to me by travellers and others, but I cannot
+get an authoritative scientific record for the fact.
+
+In this connection should be mentioned one other way in which the
+following of Nature and obedience to her law works for good. In the
+next chapter I mention the baby’s right to be fed by nature’s food, and
+while the infant is nursing from its mother it stimulates contractions
+in the womb which very much assist in bringing it to its right size and
+position, and so the act of nursing benefits not only the infant but
+its mother.
+
+A number of researches by various experts have been made, which proves
+that the womb reacts to the stimulus of suckling by the child. Pfister
+(_Beit. z. Geb. u. Gyn._, 1901, vol. v, p. 421), for instance, found
+that very definite contractions took place during the baby’s suckling,
+particularly for the first eight days after its birth; also Temesváry
+(_Journ. Obstet. and Gyn. Brit. Emp._, 1903, vol. iii, p. 511) found
+that the natural involution of the womb after birth was distinctly more
+rapid in those who nursed their babies than in those who did not.
+
+Prolonging the nursing period does undoubtedly not tend to increase
+the beauty of the woman’s bosom but to deteriorate it, but, for at any
+rate the first few months, it is _very_ advantageous both to the mother
+and to the child that she should feed it naturally. If throughout the
+nursing period she slings her breast properly from above, and if when
+the nursing period ceases she massages and treats the breast properly,
+it should not lose its beauty in the way which is alas, to-day, too
+general.
+
+Mothers, in the self-sacrifice involved in their motherhood, too
+often forget their duty to remain beautiful. All youth is revolted by
+ugliness, consciously or unconsciously. A girl should not be indirectly
+taught to dread motherhood herself by seeing the wreckage her own
+mother has allowed it to make of her. A high demand for beauty of form
+by mothers is not selfishness but a racial duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Baby’s Rights
+
+    “The nation that first finds a practical reconciliation between
+    science and idealism is likely to take the front place among the
+    peoples of the world.”
+
+        DEAN INGE: _Outspoken Essays_.
+
+
+Baby’s rights are fundamental. They are:
+
+To be wanted.
+
+To be loved before birth as well as after birth.
+
+To be given a body untainted by any heritable disease, uncontaminated
+by any of the racial poisons.
+
+To be fed on the food that nature supplies, or, if that fails, the very
+nearest substitute that can be discovered.
+
+To have fresh air to breathe; to play in the sunshine with his limbs
+free in the air; to crawl about on sweet clean grass.
+
+When he is good, to do what baby wants to do and not what his parents
+want; for instance, to sleep most of his time, not to sit up and crow
+in response to having his cheeks pinched or his sides tickled.
+
+When he is naughty, to do what his parents want and not what he wants:
+to be made to understand the “law of the jungle.” From his earliest
+days he must be disciplined in relation to the great physical facts of
+existence, to which he will always hereafter have to bow. The sooner he
+comprehends this, the better for his future.
+
+Most young mothers, even those who have had the advantage of highly
+trained maternity nurses to assist them at first, later require
+authoritative advice about how to treat the baby for whom they have
+given so much, and to whom they wish to give every possible advantage.
+Many books give advice to the young mother and to these she may turn.
+I do not wish to duplicate what they say, but advise every one who has
+an infant, even if they think they know all about the best method of
+bringing it up, to possess a copy of Dr. Truby King’s _Baby and How to
+Rear It_ for reference. It is the most practical, sensible and best
+illustrated book of its kind.
+
+There is, therefore, on the subject of baby’s material rights not very
+much more that I need to say, but there is one elementary right very
+generally overlooked, and that is the right to love in anticipation.
+
+Baby’s right to be _wanted_ is an individual right which is of racial
+importance. No human being should be brought into the world unless his
+parents desire to take on the responsibility of that new life which
+must, for so long, be dependent upon them.
+
+Far too many of the present inhabitants of this earth who are _not_
+wanted because of their inferiority, were children who came to
+reluctant, perhaps horror-stricken, mothers. To this fact, I trace
+very largely the mental and physical aberrations which are to-day so
+prevalent; to this also I trace the bitterness, the unrest, the spirit
+of strife and malignity which seem to be without precedent in the world
+at present [see also _The Control of Parenthood_, final section, and,
+for the remedy, my book, _Wise Parenthood_, both published by Putnam].
+
+The warped and destructive impulse of revolution which is sweeping over
+so many people at present must have its roots in some deep wrong.
+
+Revolution is not a natural activity for human beings. Though the
+revolutionary impulse has swept through sections of humanity many times
+in its history, it is essentially unnatural, an indication of warping
+and poisoning, and a cause of further and perhaps irreparable damage.
+
+Happy people do not indulge in revolution. Happy people with a
+deep sense of underlying contentment and satisfaction in life
+may yet strive ardently to improve and beautify everything round
+them. They strive in the same direction as the main current of
+life--that is the growth and unfolding of ever increasing beauty. The
+revolutionaries--bitter, soured and profoundly unhappy--pit their
+strength against the normal stream of life and destroy, break down and
+rob. Too long humanity has had to endure such outbreaks owing to its
+general blindness and lack of understanding of their causes.
+
+Until the scientific spirit of profound inquiry into fundamental causes
+becomes general even in a small section of the community, superficial
+and apparently obvious explanations are accepted to account for results
+which really arise from profound and secret springs.
+
+The “divine discontent” which has impelled humanity forward along the
+path of constructive progress is a very different thing from the bitter
+discontent which leads to revolutionary and destructive outbursts. The
+village blacksmith of the well-known song, using his healthy muscles
+on hard, useful work which gives him a deep physical satisfaction, may
+feel the former and help forward the stream of progress in his village.
+
+The aim of reformers to-day should be to provide for every one neither
+ease nor comfort, nor high wages nor short hours, but the deeper
+necessities of a full and contented life, bodies able to respond with
+satisfaction to the strain of hard work performed under conditions
+which satisfy the mind in the most fundamental way of all--the deep,
+sub-conscious satisfaction which is given by the sweet smell of earth,
+by fresh air and sunshine, and green things around one.
+
+We draw from all these things some subtle ingredient without which
+our natures are weakened so that a further strain sends them awry.
+To-day we are so deeply involved with the hydra-headed monster of the
+revolutionary spirit that there does not seem time to deal with it
+radically, to attempt to understand it, and consequently to conquer
+it for ever. Even now, when for the first time humanity is on a
+large scale beginning to tackle fundamental problems, I have seen no
+indication that the source of revolution is being sought for in the
+right place.
+
+What is the source of revolution?
+
+The revolutionaries through the ages, feeling themselves jar with their
+surroundings, have been ensnared by the nearest obvious things, the
+happier surrounding of others. These they have endeavoured to snatch at
+and destroy, thinking thereby to improve their own and their comrades’
+lot. Their deductions, though profoundly false, have appeared even
+obviously right to many.
+
+External grievances are what the revolutionary is out to avenge:
+external benefits are what he is out to gain. Generally this is
+expressed in terms of higher wages, a share, or all, of the capital of
+those supposed to be better off, or the material possessions of others.
+These are the things that nearly all strikers and revolutionaries
+are upsetting the world to get, thinking--perhaps sincerely--that
+these things will give them the happiness for which, consciously or
+unconsciously, they yearn. The truth is, however, that it is a much
+more intimate thing than money or possessions which they need. They
+need new bodies and new hearts.
+
+Most of the revolutionaries I have met are people who have been warped
+or stunted in their own personal growth. One sees upon their minds or
+bodies the marks and scars of dwarfing, stunting or lack of balance.
+They have known wretchedness both in themselves and in their families
+far more intimate and penetrating than that of mere poverty.
+
+That, they may answer, is an external grievance which has been imposed
+upon them by society. In effect they say: “Society has starved us,
+given us bad conditions.” Thus they foster a grievance against
+“society” in their minds. One bitter leader said to me:--
+
+    I was one of fourteen children, and my mother had only a little
+    three-roomed cottage near Glasgow. We nearly starved when I was
+    young. I know what the poor suffer at the hands of society.
+
+But it was not society that put fourteen children into that cottage; it
+was the mother herself. Her own ignorance, helpless ignorance perhaps,
+was the source of her children’s misery. The most for which society can
+be blamed concerning that family is in tolerating such a plague-spot of
+ignorance in its midst. Nor is this pestilential ignorance by any means
+only confined to the financially poor.
+
+This country, and nearly all the world, has innumerable homes in which
+the seed of revolution is sown in myriads of minds from the moment they
+are conceived. Revolted, horror-stricken mothers bear children whose
+coming birth they fear.
+
+A starved, stunted outlook is stamped upon their brains and bodies
+in the most intimate manner before they come into the world, so
+oriented towards it that they _must_ run counter to the healthy, happy
+constructive stream of human life.
+
+What wonder at the rotten conditions of our population when these are
+common experiences of the mothers of our race:--
+
+    For fifteen years I was in a very poor state of health owing to
+    continual pregnancy. As soon as I was over one trouble it was
+    started all over again.[10]
+
+[10] I refer the reader to that poignant book, _Maternity, Letters from
+Working Women_, collected by the Women’s Co-operative Guild. Bell, 1915.
+
+Again:--
+
+    During pregnancy I suffered much. When at the end of ten years I
+    determined that this state of things should not go on any longer.
+
+Again:--
+
+    My grandmother had twenty children. Only eight lived to about
+    fourteen years; only two to a good old age.
+
+Again:--
+
+    I cannot tell you all my sufferings during the time of motherhood.
+    I thought, like hundreds of women to-day, that it was only
+    natural, and that you had to bear it. I had three children and one
+    miscarriage in three years.
+
+Need I go on?
+
+There lies the real root of revolution.
+
+The secret revolt and bitterness which permeates every fibre of the
+unwillingly pregnant and suffering mothers has been finding its
+expression in the lives and deeds of their children. We have been
+breeding revolutionaries through the ages and at an increasing rate
+since the crowding into cities began, and women were forced to bear
+children beyond their strength and desires in increasingly unnatural
+conditions.
+
+Also since women have heard rumours that such enslaved motherhood is
+not necessary, that the wise know a way of keeping their motherhood
+voluntary, the revolt in the mother has become conscious with
+consequent injury to the child.
+
+Increasingly, the first of baby’s rights is to be _wanted_.
+
+Concerning baby’s right to be fed on the food that nature supplies, or
+if that fails on the very nearest substitute that can be discovered,
+there are to-day so many who urge that an infant shall be fed by
+its own mother, that it is perhaps needless to repeat arguments so
+impressive. Nevertheless, perhaps it is as well to remind young
+mothers of two or three of the most vital facts. The first is that
+no artificial substitute, however perfectly prepared and chemically
+analysed, can possibly give those very subtle constituents which are
+found in the mother’s own milk and which vary from individual to
+individual. These probably are in the nature of the vitamines now so
+well known in fresh food, but they are something more specifically
+individual than can be scientifically detected. The fresh milk of its
+own mother has a peculiar value to the child which is greater than that
+of any foster mother.
+
+For this reason alone, were it the only one, every young mother should
+nurse her own baby if possible; but, on the other hand, to-day it
+not infrequently happens that the mother may have an apparent flow
+of milk, quite sufficient for the infant in quantity, but that milk
+may be devoid of the necessary supply of fat or sugars or some other
+ingredient for complete nutriment. When this is so, it is often wisest
+to allow the mother to nurse the child partly and to supplement its
+diet by other milk.
+
+Various schools of doctors and maternity nurses have differed even on
+this matter, but it is quite obvious that if the actual food value of
+the mother’s milk is below a certain point then the added value of its
+individual vitamine-like qualities will not wholly compensate for the
+loss of actual nourishment.
+
+Among baby’s rights, I should perhaps also make it clear that there is
+his right that he should not be used as a bulwark between his mother
+and another baby in a way which is sometimes recommended so that a
+mother may go on nursing her infant for a very long time, sometimes
+even into its second year, in the hope that this nursing may prevent
+her conceiving again. Such a course of action is very harmful both to
+the child and to her and should never be followed. Such a practice is,
+of course, much less common in this country (except among aliens) than
+it is abroad where I have seen healthy children of even three or four
+years of age nursing upon their mother’s knees.
+
+In these days, perhaps it is hardly necessary to accentuate baby’s
+other rights since the century of the child dawned a generation ago.
+To-day it is perhaps almost more important to accentuate the rights
+of others who exist in the neighbourhood of a baby. But on the other
+hand if one looks penetratingly at the whole problem of character
+development, one sees that among baby’s rights is its right to be
+trained from the very first so that its life shall be as little
+hindered by friction as may be possible: that it should be taught the
+elementary rules of conduct and necessary conformity with the hard
+material facts of existence from the very first. A wise nurse’s or
+mother’s training from the earliest weeks of infancy may make or mar a
+future man’s or woman’s chance of getting on in the world and making
+a success of their lives, by making or marring the character, the
+capacity to obey, the formation of regular and hygienic habits and the
+realization of the physical facts of the world.
+
+The ancient Greeks taught their youth to reverence that which was
+beneath them, that which was around them, and that which was above
+them. In my opinion this right of youth to be placed in its proper
+orientation in relation to the world has been neglected of late. We are
+suffering from the wayward revolt from an earlier and perhaps harsher
+type of mistake, that of too greatly controlling and thwarting the
+child’s impulses. We must maintain a just balance and return to the due
+mean in which the right of a child, not only to be well born but well
+trained, is universally recognized.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Weakest Link in the Human Chain
+
+    “This shall be thy reward--that the ideal shall be real to thee.”
+
+        OLIVE SCHREINER: _Dreams_.
+
+
+Proverbs innumerable and daily experience have familiarized every one
+with the idea that the citizen is moulded and his or her essential
+characteristics determined in childhood, and as a result of childhood’s
+training. The most profoundly operative of all his qualities is his
+potential sex attitude, because it is that which determines his
+experience of sex and marriage, which colours his thoughts towards
+women throughout his life, which inclines his mind nobly towards his
+own racial actions or which leaves him weak and frivolous in his
+attitude towards the greatest profundities of life.
+
+Children, otherwise brought up with every care and forethought,
+surrounded by all that love and money can give them, are too generally
+left, without their mother’s guidance or their father’s wisdom, to
+discover the great facts of life partly by instinct and partly from
+the vulgar talk of servants or soiled children a little older than
+themselves. Worse even than this takes place, because most generally in
+this connection they not only do not hear the truth from their mother’s
+lips, but they learn from her their most influential and earliest
+lesson in lying.
+
+The curious thing about the particularly pernicious form of lying which
+deals with racial things in the presence of childhood is that we have
+the habit of thinking it quite innocent. Indeed we have even acquired
+the habit of thinking it one of the charming form of lies; hence when
+we are in a reforming mood, seeking for the origins of the wrongs we
+are trying to put right, we pass these “charming” lies by, thinking
+them harmless.
+
+Where did each one of us first learn to lie?
+
+_Nearly every one who is now grown up got his (or her) first lesson in
+lying at his mother’s knee._ To the little child, in his narrow but
+ever widening world, the mother is the supreme ruler, the all-wise
+provider of food, clothes, pleasures and pains. The mother (the child
+instinctively feels) must be also the source of wisdom.
+
+Question after question about himself and his surroundings springs
+up in the baby mind. Mother is asked them all, and for every one
+she has some sort of an answer. Then inevitably, at three or four,
+or five years old comes the question:--“Mother, where did you find
+me?”--“Mother, how was I born?”
+
+Then comes the lie.
+
+The child is told about the doctor bringing him in a bag--or a stork
+flying in through the window--or the accidental finding under the
+gooseberry bush.
+
+All children delight in fairy tales, but instinctively they know very
+well the difference between a fairy tale which is recounted to them as
+a story in answer to their mood of “make-believe” and a fiction which
+is putting them off when they are seeking the truth.
+
+If the mother who feels herself too ignorant or too self-conscious to
+answer the truth to the child’s questions takes him on her knee and
+deliberately tells him in a “make-believe” mood a fairy tale, the child
+will then not feel that the mother has lied. _He will feel, however,
+that he must ask some one else for the truth._
+
+But most mothers give the answer containing the fiction of the
+gooseberry bush, or whatever it may be, in a manner indicating that
+that is what the child must believe, and the child receives the
+information as a serious answer to his serious question. It is then a
+lie, and a pernicious lie.
+
+Racial knowledge, instinct, whatever you like to call it, is subtler
+and stronger in baby minds than we dulled grown-ups are inclined to
+think. The youngest child has a half-consciousness that what its mother
+said in answer to this question was not true.
+
+Nurse, or auntie, a friend’s governess, or any one else who seems wise
+and powerful, is asked the same question when mother is not there,
+and the chances are that if mother had given the stork version auntie
+gives the gooseberry bush or some other fiction which she particularly
+favours.
+
+The baby ponders intermittently, inconsequently, perhaps at long
+intervals, perhaps after years, but ultimately it realizes that its
+mother lied to it.
+
+In this way infinite injury has been done to the whole human stock,
+and more particularly women have suffered from the dishonesty and the
+inherent incapacity of our society to be frank and truthful about
+the most profound and the most terrible aspects of sex, namely, its
+diseases. A wife or a mother has the right to be told the truth.
+
+Women, and particularly mothers, have been outrageously wronged by the
+deliberate lies and untruthful atmosphere about the greater problems
+of sex in which the learned have enshrouded them: but mothers have
+themselves given the first bent to the little sprouting twig of that
+tree of knowledge, and they have bent it _away_ from the sunlight of
+truth and clean and happy understanding.
+
+The mother’s excuse is, or would be if she felt herself in any way to
+blame (which, by the way, deplorably, she very seldom does) that these
+terrible mysteries of origin are not suitable for the little innocent
+child to ponder over. She thinks they would shock him. But here the
+mother is profoundly mistaken.
+
+_The age of innocence is the age when all knowledge is pure._ At three,
+four, or five years old, everything is taken for granted--everything in
+the universe is equally a surprise, and is at the same time accepted
+without question as being in the natural course of events. If true
+answers were given to the tiny child’s questions, they would seem quite
+rational--not in the least more surprising than the fact that oak trees
+grow from acorns, or that the cook gets a jam tart out of a hot oven.
+
+All the world’s events seem magic at that age, and if no exceptional
+mystery were made of the magic of his own advent, the child would
+feel it as natural as all the rest, and having asked the question and
+obtained satisfactory, simple unaccentuated answers, would let his
+little mind run on to the thousand other questions he wants to ask. The
+essential racial knowledge would slip naturally and sweetly into his
+mind mingled with a myriad other new impressions.
+
+There is no self-consciousness, no personal shamefacedness, about a
+tiny child. It accepts the great truths of the universe in the grand
+manner.
+
+If the mother has never failed her child, has always given it what she
+could of wisdom, she will retain his trust and his confidence. When he
+gets a little older she can teach him to go to no one else for talk
+about the intimacies of life, which the child is quick to realize are
+not discussed openly amongst strangers.
+
+Then, later on, when personal consciousness and shyness begin, there
+need not be the acute constraint and tension of the shame-faced
+elder speaking to a mind awakening to itself. Deep in the child’s
+consciousness, deeper even than its conscious memory goes, the true big
+facts are planted.
+
+To tell a child of twelve or fourteen the truth is, for most parents,
+an impossibly difficult matter. The reason for this is that it is then
+too late for essentials; only details are then suitable or necessary.
+
+Little children spend much of their early time in exploring themselves
+and their immediate surroundings--all is mysterious, all at first
+unknown. Their own feet and hands, their powers of locomotion and of
+throwing some object to a distance, the curls of their own hair, the
+pain they encounter in their bodies when explorations bring them in
+contact with sharp angles: all are equally mysterious, together forming
+a wonder-world. And babies are very young indeed when they explore with
+all the rest of their bodies, the rudiments of those of their racial
+organs with which they can acquaint themselves. _In my opinion, the
+attitude of a man or woman through life is largely determined by the
+attitude adopted by the mother towards the racial organs_ BEFORE _the
+child was old enough consciously to remember any instruction that was
+imparted_.
+
+Advice is often given in these more enlightened days to instruct your
+boy or girl in his racial power or duties when he or she is ten or
+twelve years old. This to many seems very young, and they hesitate
+and defer it till they are older and “can understand better.” In my
+opinion, this is already eight or ten years too late.
+
+_The child’s first instruction in its attitude towards its sex organs,
+its first account of the generation of human beings, should be given
+when it is two or three years old_; given with other instruction, of
+which it is still too young to comprehend more than part, but which
+it is nevertheless old enough to comprehend in part. Very simple
+instruction given reverently at suitable opportunities at that early
+age will impress itself upon the very _texture_ of the child’s mind,
+before the time of actual memories, so that from the very first
+possible beginnings its tendencies are in the direction of truth and
+reverent understanding.
+
+_A child so tiny will usually not remember one word of what was said
+to it, but the effects on his outlook will be deep._ For at that early
+age, children are meditatively absorbing and being impressed by the
+psychological states and feelings of their instructors and companions,
+and if, in these very earliest months, the mother or guardian makes the
+mistake of treating ribaldly the tiny organs or of speaking lightly in
+the child’s presence, or of directly lying to the child about these
+facts, that child receives a mental warp and injury which nothing can
+ever eradicate entirely, which may in later years through bitter and
+befouling experiences be lived down as an old scar that has healed, but
+which will have permanently injured it.
+
+I hold this to be a profound truth, and one which it is urgent that
+humanity should realize. I trust that my view will establish itself on
+every hand. If that were my way, I could easily write a whole volume
+on this theme, and coin a polysyllabic terminology in which to mould
+and harden thought on the subject. But I prefer that a few simple words
+should slip like vital seed into the hearts of mothers, and that they
+may mould the race.
+
+It is ignorance of this truth which has led to the dishonouring and
+befouling of pure and beautiful youth, which is the original source of
+the greater part of all the social troubles and the sex difficulties of
+adolescence.
+
+_The tiny child of two or three years old, just beginning to perceive
+and piece together the psychological impressions stamped upon it by
+its environment and the mind-states of those around it, is the weakest
+link in the chain of our social consciousness._ Physically, the new
+born babe for the first few days of its life is the weakest link in
+the chain, the most liable physically to extinction, but spiritually,
+socially the link most liable to warping, even destruction, is the
+awakening mind, the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child
+between two and three years old.
+
+The mother or guardian then who desires her son or daughter to face
+the great facts of life beautifully and profoundly should begin from
+the first to mould that attitude in the child. It may appear to the
+unthinking like building castles in the sand even to hint at truths
+which it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers nothing of the
+words used in later years. This is not so. What the child absorbs is
+less the actual words than the tone of voice, the mode of expression
+that spiritually impresses itself upon its own little soul.
+
+Then there comes a later stage for most civilized human beings,
+usually after they are three years old, when there arises the
+possibility of permanent consciousness through permanent and specific
+memory of things seen, done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present
+generation will have some vivid memory, dating back to when they
+were between three and four years old, when they received a strong
+mental impression that grown-ups were lying to them or that there
+was something funny or silly in questions which they asked. Perhaps
+they noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was taken seriously,
+questions about where pussy got her kittens were laughed at. Almost
+each one of us who is to-day grown up then received some grievous
+injury. This time is of great importance in the psychology not only
+of the child, but of the whole adult race arising from the growing up
+of each child, for one’s earliest memories are few but very vivid. As
+things are to-day, generally between the ages of three and four or so,
+in the months which are likely to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit
+is wounded by the shock of a serious lie.
+
+When as a mother or father you are with your children it is vital to
+be most careful to answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the
+questions which arise. No one can foresee which question and answer may
+make that terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.
+
+When your little son or daughter is about the age of three or four
+or five, the day will come when you are asked questions about the
+most fundamental facts in human life, and then the answers to these
+questions contain the probability of a lifelong memory. Answer with the
+_truth_.
+
+Many parents are anxious to tell their children the great truths in
+a wise and beautiful manner. But few feel that they know how to do
+it, for it is a most difficult thing to know how to answer searching
+questions about profound subjects, and particularly about those which
+the community wrongly considers shameful. Each mother knows, or should
+know, the temperament and needs of her child, so that the adaptation
+of the advice I give should be varied to suit the individual child. In
+essence, however, children’s demands at an early age are remarkably
+similar, and the questions of children on birth and sex differ in form,
+though seldom in substance.
+
+The following conversation between a mother and her little son
+indicates what seems to me the best way first to tell a child who has
+reached the age when he may have lasting memory of the facts that he is
+blindly seeking in his baby questions. It will not suffice to learn the
+answers off by heart; the baby will then soon confound his elders, but
+the substance of the conversation should prove useful.
+
+The very first time the query comes: “Mother where did you get me?” the
+mother must not divert the child’s interest, or hesitate, but should be
+ready at once to answer:--
+
+    “God and Daddy and I together made you, because we wanted you.[11]”
+
+    [11] At the request of many readers this conversation was published
+    in the _Sunday Chronicle_.
+
+    “Did God help? Couldn’t He do it all Himself?”
+
+    “You know when you and I are playing with bricks together, you like
+    Mummy to help, but not to do it all. God thought Daddy and Mummy
+    would like Him to help, but not to do everything, because Daddy
+    and Mummy enjoyed making you much more than you enjoy playing with
+    bricks.”
+
+That may suffice for the time, because little children are very readily
+satisfied with one or two facts about any one subject, and the talk
+could easily be diverted. The little mind may brood over what was told,
+and some time later--perhaps a few days, perhaps even a few months or
+more--this question will come up again, possibly in a different form:--
+
+    “Mummy, when was I born?”
+
+The mother should give the day and say:--
+
+    “You know your birthday comes every year on the 18th of April. That
+    birthday is what reminds us of the day you were born, and each
+    birthday you are a whole year older.”
+
+    “I’m five now.”
+
+    “Yes, so you were born five years ago on your birthday.”
+
+    “Where was I before I was born?”
+
+    “Don’t you remember I told you that God and Daddy and I made you?”
+
+    “Yes.... Did you make me on my birthday?”
+
+    “Not all in one day; you took much longer to make than that.”
+
+    “How long did I take to make?”
+
+    “A long, long time. Little children are so precious they cannot be
+    made in a hurry.”
+
+    “How long did I take?”
+
+    “Nearly a year--nine whole months.”
+
+    “Did baby take as long?”
+
+    “Yes, just the same time. Baby is just as precious as you are.”
+
+    “I’m bigger.”
+
+    “Now you are, but you were baby’s size when you were baby’s age.
+    You are bigger because you have grown since your first birthday.”
+
+Again the subject may perhaps drop, or it may be carried directly
+forward.
+
+    “What is being born?”
+
+    “Being born is being shown to the world and seeing the world for
+    the first time. At the end of nine months after God and Daddy and
+    Mummy started to make you, you were ready to open your eyes and
+    breathe and cry, and be a real live baby, and that day they showed
+    you to somebody and you saw the world. That was being born.”
+
+    “Where was I before you finished making me?”
+
+    “Mummy kept you hidden away so that nobody at all should see you.”
+
+    “_Where_ was I hidden?”
+
+    “You were hidden in a most wonderful place, in the place where only
+    quite little babies can be while God and their mummies are making
+    them.”
+
+    “Show me; I want to go back there.”
+
+    “You can never go back; it is only while you are being made you can
+    be there. After your first birthday, you can never go back.”
+
+    “Where was I?”
+
+    “Well, you know, little babies that are being made are very, very
+    delicate, and they have to be kept very warm and comfortable, and
+    nobody must see them, and they must be close, close up to their
+    mummies.”
+
+    The child may interject, “And their daddies too?”
+
+    “Yes, if they have got loving daddies, the daddy keeps close to the
+    mummy; but while babies are being made it is God and mummy that
+    have most of the work to do. That is why you must always love your
+    mummies and obey them.”
+
+The child may be temporarily satisfied, or may continue at once:--
+
+    “But where _was_ it that I was while you were making me?”
+
+    “What is the warmest, softest, safest place you can think of?
+    Mummy’s heart: that is all warm with love. The place Mummy hid you
+    while God and she were making you was right underneath her heart.”
+
+    “Her real heart--the heart that beats like a clock ticking?”
+
+    “Yes, her real heart, just here.”
+
+The mother should lay the child’s hand on her heart and let him feel it
+beating.
+
+    “And just inside, right underneath here, Mummy kept you while God
+    was helping her to make you.”
+
+The child who has been brought up in a home of love and tenderness and
+beauty will find this a thrilling and beautiful thought, like a little
+boy whom I know personally, and to whom this fact was told in this way.
+Solemnly, and without a word, he went away from his mother into the
+middle of the room and stood deep in thought for several minutes. Then
+he turned, looked round, and rushed across the room, threw himself into
+his mother’s lap, his arms round her neck and cried: “Oh, Mummy, Mummy,
+then I was right inside you.”
+
+For days afterwards he was filled with a rapturous joy, and at times
+used to leave his play and come to his mother and put his arms round
+her neck, saying: “Oh, Mummy, that is why I love you so.”
+
+Whatever form the child’s feeling may take, the opportunity should not
+be allowed to pass without a little addition to the conversation, and
+the mother should say:--
+
+    “And you see that is why you must never talk to any one but Daddy
+    and Mummy, or God through your prayers, about such things. As God
+    and Daddy and Mummy, and no one else made your little body, so
+    every thing you want to know about it, all the questions you want
+    to ask, you should ask of them and no one else. You see, you are
+    different from any other child in the world, and as Daddy and
+    Mummy helped to make you, only they know your works. So whatever it
+    is you want to know, or whatever it is that goes wrong, it is Mummy
+    and Daddy who can tell you about it.”
+
+Once may be sufficient for a child to be told the greater truths
+it desires to know, but it is seldom that the child will leave so
+wonderful a subject entirely alone after first learning of it, and many
+portions of the beautiful facts will have to be repeated in a variety
+of forms, or in just the same words, as are repeated again and again
+the beloved fairy tales. The child, however, will be quick to know
+the difference between this story and fairy tales, for children have
+an instinct for truth at a much earlier age than grown-ups generally
+remember.
+
+A further series of questions will probably arise when the child is
+about twelve.
+
+The essential difficulties of these later questions, and the shamefaced
+self-consciousness so usual between parent and child will never arise
+if from the first the deep truths have been known to the child.
+
+The child so instructed is not supplied with all necessary facts,
+and instruction of a more specific and exact nature will have to
+be repeated at further intervals throughout its life, but on this
+foundation, further knowledge can be built without having to wipe out
+anything already implanted, without having to contradict earlier
+instruction, or to acknowledge the gravest error of having lied. Life
+teaches much to a quick child trained to observation, particularly
+in the country, where all children should spend much of their time.
+If the little one has been told what has been given in the previous
+pages it will have all the essential truths on to which it will fit in
+for itself the other data which daily life will bring it; thus it may
+garner a harvest of facts one by one.
+
+Concerning the later instruction which will be necessary, the
+information can be given in many ways. Some advocate school instruction
+of children of twelve or more in the physiology of all the members of
+the body, so that the racial powers are treated in their proper place
+in conjunction with the digestive organs, brain, lungs, etc. Some
+parents prefer to give the instruction themselves, for none but they
+can know so well the individual needs of the child.
+
+Much has already been written and is available in the voluminous
+literature about the presentation of the facts to be imparted at the
+various later ages, and almost every book advises comparisons with
+flowers. For the later ages of ten years and after, this is probably
+the best introduction for specific details, but for the first and
+earliest instruction of the baby mind, such direct simple answers as I
+have indicated are, I am sure, the best.
+
+Children whose parents have treated them as I advise in this chapter
+are _essentially safe_ whatever form later instruction may take. They
+will then have the vitality to survive lies, although ever to lie to
+them will be putting a cruel and useless strain on their recuperative
+powers. If the little child is started upon its life with a beautiful
+and true conception of its relation to its mother, and of man’s
+relation to woman, it will be unlikely indeed that it will grow up a
+hooligan who flouts his parents or a loose and lascivious destroyer of
+women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Cost of Coffins
+
+  He only is free who can control himself.
+
+        EPICTETUS.
+
+    The imposition of motherhood upon a married woman in absolute
+    despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none
+    the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of
+    Church and State.
+
+        SALEEBY: _Woman and Womanhood_.
+
+
+Why do poor slum mothers buy more coffins than do the same number of
+rich women?
+
+The incredulous may answer this question by asserting that they don’t,
+but as a matter of fact they do. The Registrar-General’s Report for
+1911 shows that of every thousand births in the upper and middle
+classes, 76·4 babies die, while of a thousand births in the homes of
+unskilled workmen (this would be the class of the “poor” mothers) 152·5
+babies die.
+
+So that it is clear that if each member of this poorest class of
+mothers had exactly the same number of babies as each mother of the
+rich class, she would have to purchase about two coffins for every
+coffin bought by those whose babies are not so prone to die.
+
+There is, however, another fact which completes the proof of my first
+sentence. The upper and middle classes do not have so many children per
+family as do the poorest class. To a thousand married people in the
+upper and middle classes there were born in 1911 119 babies, but to
+the poor mothers--the wives of the unskilled workmen--there were born
+213. So that in addition to buying twice as many coffins per thousand
+children born, these poor mothers have nearly twice as many coffins
+again, owing to the fact that nearly twice as many children are born to
+them.
+
+I wonder if poor women have ever asked themselves if they can afford
+coffins at this rate?
+
+Of course the coffins of these poor little babies are very small, and
+do not require very much wood to make them. But let us think in what
+other ways they cost: To the mother they cost not only all the little
+the baby had eaten, and used in the way of clothes before its death,
+but all the wastage of her own vitality while she was bearing it; she
+could not work so well, at any rate towards the end of the time.
+Home duties had to be somewhat neglected; the older children had to
+go to school dirtier and less cared for; the husband had less comfort
+and fewer smiles; every one in the family was poorer, not only in
+material things and in the work that might make material things, but in
+happiness and buoyancy.
+
+It needs no imagination to realize, when you have once grasped these
+facts, that poor people are much less able to spare the cost of a
+doomed baby than are the better class people. Then why do they so often
+indulge in this tragic luxury? Chiefly through lack of knowledge,
+through ignorance, particularly on the part of the mother.
+
+Often ignorance is blind and unaware that it is ignorance, stupidly
+blundering through life; but this is not always the mother’s attitude.
+She may, indeed she often does, passionately desire knowledge and seek
+for it wherever she thinks she may find it in her restricted circle.
+Too tragically often she is baffled in her search.
+
+Some years before the war, when I was lecturing at a Northern
+University, a little incident opened my eyes to this fact. I was young
+and had not encountered this aspect of life before, and it burnt itself
+into my consciousness as one of the most vivid impressions of my life.
+It was this:--
+
+One of my students was a woman who was hoping to qualify as a medical
+doctor, and she was having tea with me and chatting about the events of
+the day. As part of her training she had been assisting the doctor in
+dealing with out-patients at a hospital, and a woman had brought in a
+miserable little baby, which wailed all the time and which the mother
+explained wouldn’t put on any flesh or grow into a nice, healthy baby
+whatever she did with it.
+
+The mother, with tears in her eyes, made an intensely earnest appeal
+to the doctor to tell her what was to her unaccountably wrong with the
+infant.
+
+She was a fine strapping woman, and thought her babies ought to be
+large and healthy. She said this was her third or fourth, and the
+others had all died when they were very little.
+
+This happened more than seven years ago. Thank God our racial attitude
+has changed since then.
+
+The doctor put her off with some soothing platitudes, but the woman
+driven to despair said: “I believe there’s something wrong with my
+man. If there’s something wrong with my man I won’t have babies no
+more--it’s just cruel to see them miserable like this and have them
+dying one after the other. Won’t you, for God’s sake, tell me whether
+there’s anything wrong with my man or not?” This appeal was met by the
+assurance that there was nothing wrong, and she should go on having
+babies and do her duty by her husband.
+
+My medical woman student said that it was glaringly obvious that the
+baby was syphilitic.
+
+I asked her why she did not immediately tell the mother the truth. She
+shrugged her shoulders and said: “I’ve got my exam. to pass; if I did a
+thing like that Dr. ---- would stop me going to the hospital. I can’t
+afford to take risks like that. Why, he might not only stop me, but it
+would do the other women students a lot of harm too.”
+
+This was before the war, and England was less enlightened, less eager
+for medical women’s assistance than the war has made her, and it was
+then a fight for a girl to get a footing in the hospitals for the wide
+experience she needed for a general practice.
+
+I vowed to myself that I would never forget that mother, and that some
+day I would batter at the brazen gates of knowledge on her behalf.
+
+Here was a mother with a glimmering of the truth, seeking passionately
+for knowledge from the one person she had a right to turn to for this
+knowledge, and she was put off with lies, encouraged again to bear the
+cost of a hopelessly doomed birth; to risk the agonies of child-birth,
+to bring into the world a creature who for a short spell would be
+tormented and then would cost her a coffin.
+
+By refusing his scientific advice, that doctor in reality sent that
+woman, whose desire to know was stirred, to the gossip of the slum
+alley and the street corner. There she would get a blurred and
+inaccurate, if not actually harmful, idea of what he should have been
+able to tell her in a clean, simple language based on scientific fact.
+
+When this is put down on paper, I feel as though it would be ridiculous
+to begin to point out the monstrous cruelty and the monstrous folly of
+such an action as that doctor’s. Yet such action was not isolated, it
+did not depend on one man’s warped conceptions of loyalty to another
+unknown man, “the husband.” Since the war a public realization of the
+racial destructiveness of such diseases has been increased and the
+woman and her husband would to-day be more likely to receive medical
+treatment.
+
+But even to-day if a mother is truly told that there is “something
+wrong with her man,” would she also certainly be told how in wise
+and healthy fashion she can herself supplement what his criminal
+negligence neglected? If a husband is careless and callous a woman
+must save herself and the community from the waste and the misery of
+irretrievably doomed births.
+
+She will indeed be an exceptionally lucky woman if she to-day finds
+in public hospitals doctors to whom she could turn for knowledge
+how _best_ to control conception, though such knowledge is not only
+essential to her private well-being, but essential to her in the
+fulfilment of her duties as a citizen.
+
+This little incident is but one illustration of many aspects of the
+subject. It is not only _disease_ which necessitates restraint on
+parenthood. No healthy woman can bear a long series of infants in rapid
+succession without loss both to them and to herself. This is discussed
+in my _Wise Parenthood_.
+
+Any one who thinks will see clearly that no civilized country, not
+even the richest in the world, can afford babies’ coffins. Though they
+are smaller than grown-up people’s they are more costly, for they are
+waste and nothing but waste. A grown-up individual, man or woman, has,
+we hope at any rate, given some return to the community in work or in
+ideas for all that his life has cost. But the infant’s death is sheer
+unmitigated waste.
+
+If all the mothers who realize this and who feel their need for the
+best help that science can give them, would insist and persist in
+their enquiries for a knowledge of the most reliable results of modern
+science, they would in the end succeed in getting them. There is enough
+knowledge now in the world for the race to transform itself in a couple
+of generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Creation of a New and Irradiated Race
+
+  Ah, Love! could thou and I with fate conspire
+  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
+  Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
+  Remould it nearer to the Heart’s desire.
+
+        OMAR KHAYYAM.
+
+
+On parents’ love for the helpless child depends the existence of our
+race. Human parenthood necessitates not only the desire for offspring,
+but the willing care of them during the long years while they are
+helpless and dependent. Were this desire and willingness not deeply
+implanted in us our race would become extinct, as in some strange way,
+the higher type of ancient Greeks vanished from the world.
+
+Not only throughout the lower creatures do we find the responsibilities
+of parenthood increasing as we go up the scale towards the higher, but,
+even in the various grades of highly civilized man, the responsibility
+for the children is ever greater in proportion with the general culture
+and position of the parents.
+
+Not many years ago the labourer’s child could be set to work early and
+could very shortly earn his keep; while at the same time the young
+gentleman was an expense and care to his father and mother until he
+had passed through the University of Oxford or Cambridge, and amongst
+some even until he had made his “finishing” world tour. The trend of
+legislation has continuously extended the age of irresponsible youth in
+the lower and lower middle classes, until it now approaches that of the
+middle and upper class youth. A stride in this direction was taken by
+the last Education Act, which has made education compulsory throughout
+the whole country to an age which is nearly university age.
+
+I need not labour the resulting effect of the ever increasing
+prolongation of youth. It is not only apparent but has received
+sufficient treatment from the hands of various authors and thinkers.
+
+Its corollary, however, has still not received that clear and direct
+thought which its significance demands. Parenthood under the present
+_régime_, is not only an increasing responsibility and expense, it
+has become so great a strain upon the resources of those who have for
+themselves and their children a high standard of living that it is
+tending to become a rare privilege for some who would otherwise gladly
+propagate large families.
+
+As Dean Inge reminded us (_Outspoken Essays_, 1919), there was a stage
+in the high civilization of Greece when slaves were only allowed to
+rear a child as a reward for their good behaviour. I find a curious
+parallel to this in the treatment of a section of our society by our
+present community.
+
+Crushed by the burden of taxation which they have not the resources to
+meet and to provide for children also: crushed by the national cost of
+the too numerous children of those who do not contribute to the public
+funds by taxation, yet who recklessly bring forth from an inferior
+stock individuals who are not self-supporting, the middle and superior
+artisan classes have, without perceiving it, come almost to take the
+position of that ancient slave population. It is only as a reward for
+their thrift and foresight, for their care and self-denial that they
+find themselves able (that is allowed by financial circumstances) to
+have one or perhaps two children. Hence by a strange parallel working
+of divers forces, the best, the thriftiest, the most serious-minded,
+the most desiring of parenthood are to-day those who are forced by
+circumstances into the position of the ancient slave and allowed
+to rear but one or two children as a result perhaps of a lifetime
+of valuable service and of loving union with a wife well fitted to
+bear more offspring. While on the other hand, society allows the
+diseased, the racially negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the
+feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community,
+to produce innumerable tens of thousands of stunted, warped, and
+inferior infants. If they live, a large proportion of these are doomed
+from their very physical inheritance to be at the best but partly
+self-supporting, and thus to drain the resources of those classes
+above them which have a sense of responsibility. The better classes,
+freed from the cost of the institutions, hospitals, prisons and so
+on, principally filled by the inferior stock, would be able to afford
+to enlarge their own families, and at the same time not only to
+save misery but to multiply a hundredfold the contribution in human
+life-value to the riches of the State.
+
+The immensity of the power of parenthood, both on the personal lives
+which it brings into existence, and on the community of which each
+individual is to form a part, is not yet perceived by our Statesmen in
+its true perspective.
+
+The power of parenthood ought no longer to be exercised by _all_,
+however inferior, as an “individual right.” It is profoundly a duty
+and a privilege, and it is essentially the concern of the whole
+community. It should be the policy of the community to encourage in
+every way the parenthood of those whose circumstances and conditions
+are such that there is a reasonable anticipation that they will give
+rise to healthy, well-endowed future citizens. It should be the policy
+of the community to discourage from parenthood all whose circumstances
+are such as would make probable the introduction of weakened, diseased
+or debased future citizens. It is the urgent duty of the community
+to make parenthood impossible for those whose mental and physical
+conditions are such that there is well-nigh a certainty that their
+offspring must be physically and mentally tainted, if not utterly
+permeated by disease. That the community should allow syphilitic
+parents to bring forth a sequence of blind syphilitic infants is a
+state of affairs so monstrous that it would be hardly credible were it
+not a fact.
+
+Parenthood, with the divine gift of love in its power, with the
+glorious potentialities of handing on a radiant, wholesome, beautiful
+youth should be a sacred and preserved gift, a privilege only to be
+exercised by those who rationally comprehend the counter-balancing
+duties. But so long as parenthood is kept outside the realm of rational
+thought and reasoned action, so long will we as a race slide at an
+ever-increasing speed towards the utter deterioration of our stock
+through the reckless increase of the debased, which is necessarily
+counter-balanced by the unnatural limiting of the families of the more
+educated and responsible, whose sense of duty to the unborn forbids
+them to bring into the world children whom they cannot educate and
+environ at least as well as they themselves were reared.
+
+In earlier generations the child was taught to speak of its parents in
+a respectful and grateful tone as the “august authors of its being,”
+but this right and proper instruction in reverence was coupled with
+an arbitrary disposal of the child, and a certain harshness in its
+training against which the later generations have revolted. As is usual
+the reformers have deviated from rectitude in the opposite direction,
+so that to-day to find children with deep respect for their parents
+is uncommon. Reverence is being exacted by some rather from the
+parent towards the child as a fresh, new and unspoilt being. This too
+often results in spoiling the child, which is an equally foolish and
+hampering proceeding. The child should be taught from its earliest days
+profound respect, reverence and gratitude towards its parents, and in
+particular towards its mother, for of her very life she gave it the
+incomparable gift of life. True parents give the child the best and
+freshest and most beautiful impulses of their lives, and, at the cost
+of bodily anguish the mother bears it, and its parents for long years
+nurture it, sacrificing many enjoyments which they might have but for
+the cost and care of rearing it. This should be realized by the child,
+who then cannot but feel gratitude to and reverence for the authors of
+its being.
+
+The sheer beauty of the world, were there no other gain from living, is
+so great that the gift of eyes and a mind to perceive it should place
+the recipient of that gift for ever in a reverential debt towards the
+pair who gave.
+
+But the value of the beauty of life, and a just appreciation of the
+immense gift which parenthood confers cannot be realized by all.
+To-day alas, millions are born into circumstances so wretched that
+life can scarcely involve a perception of beauty, or a probability of
+moral action and social service. Also many myriads of children are
+born of parents to whom they can feel that they owe nothing, because
+they know or inwardly perceive that they were not desired, that they
+were not profoundly and nobly loved throughout their coming, that they
+were hurled into this existence through accident, self-indulgence or
+stupidity. Yet parenthood which grants life even on these terms is a
+wonderful power, a cruel and relentless force perverted from its divine
+possibilities.
+
+Youth tends ever to right itself if it but escape the taint of the
+profound racial diseases, and the gift of a well-conditioned body is
+the creation of an incomparable set of co-ordinated powers in a world
+in which the potentialities for the use of those powers is magical.
+
+Innumerable are the efforts at present being made by countless
+different societies, official bodies and individual reformers to
+diminish the ever increasing ill-health and deterioration of our race,
+but their efforts are a fight on the losing side unless the fundamental
+and hitherto uncontrollable factors which make for health are there.
+
+Doctors may cure every disease known to humanity, but while they are
+so doing, fresh diseases, further modifications of destructive germs,
+may spring into existence, the possibility of which has recently been
+demonstrated by French scientists who have experimented on the rapid
+changes which may be induced in “germs.”
+
+Prisons and reformatories, municipal milk, the feeding of school
+children, improvement in housing, reform of our marriage laws, schools
+for mothers, even schools for fathers, garden cities--not all these
+useful and necessary things together and many more added to them
+will ever touch the really profound sources of our race, will ever
+cause freedom from degeneracy and ill-health, will ever create that
+fine, glorious and beautiful race of men and women which hovers in
+the dreams of our reformers. Is then this dream out of reach and
+impossible; are then all our efforts wasted? No, the dream is not
+impossible of fulfilment; but, at present, our efforts are almost
+entirely wasted because _they are built upon the shifting sand and not
+upon the steady rock_.
+
+The reform, _the one central reform_, which will make all the others of
+avail and make their work successful _is the endowing of motherhood,
+not with money but with the knowledge of her own power_.
+
+_For the power of a mother, consciously exerted in the voluntary
+procreation and joyous bearing of her children is the greatest power
+in the world._ It is through its conscious and deliberate exercise,
+and through that alone, that the race may step from its present
+entanglements on to a higher plane, where bodies will be not only a
+delight to their possessors, but efficient tools in the service of the
+souls which temporarily inhabit them.
+
+I maintain that this wonderful rejuvenescence and reform of the race
+need not be a dim and distant dream of the future. It is hovering so
+close at hand that it is actually within reach of those who to-day are
+in their young maturity; we, at present in the flesh may link hands
+with grandchildren belonging to a generation so wonderful, so endowed,
+and so improved out of recognition that the miseries and the depravity
+of human nature, to-day so wide-spread, may appear like a black and
+hideous memory of the past, as incredible to them as the habits of
+cannibals are to us.
+
+An ideal too distant, too remote, may interest the dreamer and the
+reformer possibly, but it cannot inspire a whole nation. An ideal
+within the range of possibility, that each one of us who lives a full
+lifetime may actually perceive, such an ideal can spur and fire the
+imagination, not only of our own nation, but of the world. It is my
+prayer that I may present such a racial ideal, not only to my own
+people but to humanity. It is my prayer that I may live to see in the
+generation of my grandchildren a humanity from which almost all the
+most blackening and distressing elements have been eliminated, and
+in which the vernal bodily beauty and unsullied spiritual power of
+those then growing up will surpass anything that we know to-day except
+among the rare and gifted few. This is not a wild dream; it is a real
+potentiality almost within reach. The materialization of this vital
+racial vision is in the hands of the mothers for the next twenty or
+thirty years.
+
+If every woman will but consciously and deliberately exercise the
+powers of her motherhood after learning of those powers; if she bear
+only those children which she and her mate ardently desire; if she
+refuse to bear any but these, and if she so space these children
+that she herself rests and recovers vitality between their births,
+and during their coming she lives in such a way as I have indicated
+in the preceding chapters, and if at the same time the deadly and
+horrible scourges of the venereal diseases and the multitude of
+ramifications of racial baseness are eliminated _as they can be_, then
+with a comparatively small percentage of accidents and unforeseeable
+errors, the quality of those born will enormously improve, and by a
+second generation all should be already far on the highway to new and
+wonderful powers, which are to-day almost unsuspected.
+
+What are the greatest dangers which jeopardize the materialization of
+this glorious dream of a human stock represented only by well-formed,
+desired, well-endowed beautiful men and women? Two main dangers are in
+the way of its consummation; the first is ignorance. It is difficult
+to reach the untutored mind, to teach a public hardened and deadened
+to callousness and the lack of dreams of their own; even though if one
+could but reach them it would be possible to make them understand.
+
+A second and almost greater danger is not a simple ignorance, but the
+inborn incapacity which lies in the vast and ever increasing stock of
+degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced who are now in our midst and
+who devastate social customs. These populate most rapidly, these tend
+proportionately to increase, and these are like the parasite upon the
+healthy tree sapping its vitality. These produce less than they consume
+and are able only to flourish and reproduce so long as the healthier
+produce food for them; but by ever weakening the human stock, in the
+end they will succumb with the fine structure which they have destroyed.
+
+There appear then two obstacles which might block the materialization
+of my racial vision; on the one hand the ignorance of those who
+have latent powers. This only needs to be stirred by knowledge and
+the inspiration of an ideal, to become potent. This obstacle is not
+unsurmountable. If one but speaks in sufficiently burning words, if
+one but writes sufficiently contagiously, the ideas must spread with
+ever increasing acceleration. Ignorance must be vanquished by winged
+knowledge. I hold it to be the duty of the dreamer of great dreams
+not only to express them in such a way that cognate souls may also
+perceive them. It is the duty of a seer to embody his message in such
+a form that its beauty is apparent and the vision can be seen by all
+the people. The infectiousness of disease, the contagion of destructive
+and horrible bacterial germs have become a commonplace in our social
+consciousness, and we have forgotten, and our artists have in recent
+years tended ever more and more to forget that the highest form of art
+should also be infectious. Goodness, beauty and prophetic vision have
+as strong a contagious quality as disease if they are embodied in a
+form rendered vital by the mating of truth and beauty.
+
+To overcome mere ignorance in others is, therefore, by no means a
+hopeless task, and it is the valiant work of the artist-prophet. Youth
+is the time to catch the contagion of goodness. To youth I appeal.
+
+The other obstacle presents a deeper and more difficult task. It must
+deal with the terrible debasing power of the inferior, the depraved and
+feeble-minded, to whom reason means nothing and can mean nothing, who
+are thriftless, unmanageable and appallingly prolific. Yet if the good
+in our race is not to be swamped and destroyed by the debased as the
+fine tree by the parasite, this prolific depravity must be curbed. How
+shall this be done? A very few quite simple Acts of Parliament could
+deal with it.
+
+Three short and concise Bills would be sufficient to afford the most
+urgent social service for the preservation of our race. They should
+be simply worded and based on possibilities well within the grasp of
+modern science.
+
+The idea of sterilization has not yet been very generally understood
+or accepted, although it is an idea which our civilization urgently
+needs to assimilate. I think that a large part of the objections to
+it, often made passionately and eloquently by those from whom one
+would otherwise have expected a more intelligent attitude, is due to
+complete ignorance of the facts. Even otherwise instructed persons
+confuse sterilization with castration. The arguments which to-day in
+a chance discussion of the subject are always brought forward against
+sterilization have been, in my experience, only those which apply to
+castration. To castrate any male is, of course, not only to deprive him
+of his manhood and thus to injure his personal consciousness, but to
+remove bodily organs, the loss of which adversely affects his mentality
+and which will also affect the internal secretions which have a
+profound influence on his whole organization. I fully endorse the views
+of the opponents of this process.
+
+It is, however, neither necessary to castrate nor is it suggested by
+those who, like myself, would like to see the sterilization of those
+totally unfit for parenthood made an immediate possibility, indeed made
+compulsory. As Dr. Havelock Ellis stated in an article in the _Eugenics
+Review_, Vol. I, No. 3, October 1909, pp. 203-206, sterilization under
+proper conditions is a very different and much simpler matter and one
+which has no deleterious and far reaching effects on the whole system.
+The operation is trivial, scarcely painful, and does not debar the
+subject from experiencing all his normal reaction in ordinary union; it
+only prevents the procreation of children.
+
+It has been found in some States of America, and as I know from private
+correspondents in this country, there are men who would welcome the
+relief from the ever present anxiety of potential parenthood which they
+know full well would be ruinous to the future generation.
+
+There is also the possibility of sterilization by the direct action
+of “X” rays. At present sterility is known as an unfortunate danger
+to those engaged in scientific research with radium, but it might,
+under control, be wisely used as a painless method of sterilization.
+This may prove of particular value for women in whom the operation
+corresponding to the severance of the ducts of the man is more serious.
+It appears however, not always to be permanent in its effect. In some
+circumstances this may be an advantage, in others a disadvantage.
+
+With reference to the sterilizing effect of “X”-rays, the following
+quotation from F. H. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910,
+is pertinent:--
+
+    A more special cause of sterility in men is one which operates in
+    the case of workers with radium or the Röntgen rays. Several years
+    ago Albers-Schönberg noticed that the X-rays induced sterility
+    in guinea pigs and rabbits, but without interfering with the
+    sexual potency. These observations have been confirmed by other
+    investigators, who have shown, further, that the azoöspermia is
+    due to the degeneration of the cells lining the seminal canals. In
+    men it has been proved that mere presence in an X-ray atmosphere
+    incidental to radiography sooner or later causes a condition
+    of complete sterility, but without any apparent diminution of
+    sexual potency. As Gordon observes, for those working in an X-ray
+    atmosphere adequate protection for all parts of the body not
+    directly exposed for examination or treatment is indispensable,
+    but, on the other hand, the X-rays afford a convenient, painless
+    and harmless method of inducing sterility, in cases in which it is
+    desirable to effect this result.
+
+When Bills are passed to ensure the sterility of the hopelessly
+rotten and racially diseased, and to provide for the education of the
+child-bearing woman so that she spaces her children healthily, our race
+will rapidly quell the stream of depraved, hopeless and wretched lives
+which are at present ever increasing in proportion in our midst. Before
+this stream at present the thoughtful shrink but do nothing. Such
+action as will be possible when these bills are passed will not only
+increase the relative _proportion_ of the sound and healthy among us
+who may consciously contribute to the higher and more beautiful forms
+of the human race, but by the elimination of wasteful lives which are
+to-day seldom self-supporting, and which are so largely the cause of
+the cost and outlay of public money in their institutional treatment
+and their partial relief, will check an increasing drain on our
+national resources. The setting free of this public money would make
+it possible for those now too heavily taxed to reproduce their own and
+more valuable kinds.
+
+The miserable, the degenerate, the utterly wretched in body and mind,
+who when reproducing multiply the misery and evil of the world, would
+be the first to be thankful for the escape such legislation would offer
+from the wretchedness entailed not only on their offspring but on
+themselves. The Labour Party, all Progressives, and all Conservatives
+who desire to conserve the good can unite to support measures so
+directly calculated to improve the physical condition, the mental
+happiness and the general well-being of the human race.
+
+Even to-day almost all the thriftiest and better of the working class,
+and the artisan class in particular, are already in the ranks of those
+who are sponged upon, and to some extent taxed, for the upkeep of
+the incompetent, and it is just from among the best artisan and from
+the middle class that the most serious minded parents and those who
+recognize their racial responsibilities are principally to be found.
+There is throughout the whole Labour movement, as throughout the less
+vocal but deeper feeling of the middle class, a passionate desire to
+eliminate the misery and human degradation which on every hand to-day
+saddens the tender conscience. The limiting of their own families to
+meet the pressure of circumstances will never achieve their desires.
+The best to-day are making less and less headway, and the inferior are
+increasing more and more in proportion to them.
+
+Directly, however, the need for such legislation as I have outlined
+above is realized, and such legislation is passed, then the tide will
+be turned. Then, at last, we shall begin to see the elimination of the
+horror and degradation of humanity, which at present is apparently so
+hopeless and permanent a blot upon the world. And then, and then at
+once, will the positive effects of the conscious working of love and
+beauty and desired motherhood begin to take effect. The evolution of
+humanity will take a leap forward when we have around us only fine and
+beautiful young people, all of whom have been conceived, carried and
+born in true homes by conscious, powerful and voluntary mothers.
+
+Meanwhile the prison reformers, psycho-analysts, doctors, teachers and
+reformers of all sorts will be going on with their reforms, and will be
+claiming this and that wonderful improvement in the school children,
+and they will probably never realize that it will not be their reforms
+which have worked these apparent miracles; it will be the change in
+the attitude of the mother, the return to the position of power of the
+mother, her voluntary motherhood, the conscious and deliberate creation
+by the mother and her mate of the fine and splendid race which to-day,
+as God’s prophet, I see in a vision and which might so speedily be
+materialized on earth.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+
+A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD.
+
+B. ON BIRTH.
+
+C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+Sometimes a woman is doubtful whether or not she is about to become a
+mother, and may be too shy to ask those with whom she is associated.
+She should, if it is possible, seek the advice of a highly qualified
+midwife or medical practitioner, but this is not always possible, and
+it may be useful for her to know the following signs:--
+
+The first and most widely recognized indication that conception has
+taken place is “missing a period” or the cessation of the menstrual
+flow, while, at the same time, there is no ill-health. A woman may even
+feel unusually bright and well.
+
+There is generally an increase in the size of the breast, followed
+as the months progress by a very noticeable increase in the size and
+bright blue colour of the veins round the breast, and also a darkening
+in colour and a changing from pink to brownish tint of the area round
+the centre of the breast.
+
+After the third month, there is visible a steadily increasing
+enlargement of the lower part of the body, but, as this also happens
+with some forms of illness, this alone and without the other signs is
+not proof that motherhood has commenced.
+
+“Quickening” or the movements of the child, are a much better
+indication of motherhood, and these are generally to be perceived about
+the twentieth week, or roughly half-way through the whole period of
+prenatal life; but see further the remarks in Chapter XIII, p. 113.
+
+The perception of the child’s heart beats is absolute proof of coming
+motherhood. These may be perceived after the fourth or fifth month
+quite readily by a nurse or other observer, though the mother herself
+can but seldom perceive them.
+
+“Morning Sickness,” which is so often experienced, and in most books
+for the “expectant mother” is quoted as one of the first signs of
+pregnancy, _should never occur at all_--see Chapter XI--although
+unfortunately it is true that it does frequently occur in women who are
+bearing children under present conditions.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+ON BIRTH
+
+
+The usual agonies of child birth vary greatly in extent according
+to the structure of the woman. But, as was shown in Chapter II, the
+tendency already is present, and probably will increase, for this to
+be an almost intolerable strain upon the woman. Tardily indeed have
+efforts to relieve her agonies in child birth been made; Queen Victoria
+took a grave and adventurous step when she bore one of her children
+under chloroform. Chloroform, however, only deadens consciousness at a
+comparatively late stage in child birth, and its use through the many
+long hours, even perhaps sometimes days of agony which precede the
+later stages is not often possible. It is, therefore, for some types of
+women a very insufficient narcotic.
+
+Natural “painless Child Birth” is, of course, the ideal, and is claimed
+to be the result of the “fruit and rice diet,” see _Tokology_ by Dr.
+Alice Stockham, but although this greatly reduces the pain for many,
+and undoubtedly makes the months of pregnancy easier, it cannot make
+birth anything but a torture if the proportion of the child’s head to
+the bony arch is above a given limit. The “Christian Science” claim
+for not only painless but bloodless birth has been reported to me, but
+never at first hand, and I have not yet had the first-hand statements
+of women who are said to have experienced it.
+
+“Twilight Sleep,” a comparatively recent discovery, has been much
+advocated, much praised and much blamed. There may be types of women
+who find it advantageous, but the fact that it necessitates going to
+a nursing home, away from home, is very much against its use under
+ideal circumstances. For those who have no home, or a sordid and
+overcrowded one, a nursing home may be a place of refuge. “Twilight
+Sleep” (scopolamine-morphine) is, however, for the more sensitive type
+of woman, an extremely unreliable drug, which may frequently take no
+narcotic effect upon the patient, who suffers added agony as the result
+of relying upon it, and it may be very dangerous for the child.
+
+There is also the method of birth through the soft part of the body,
+avoiding the birth of the child through the bony structure altogether.
+This operation is described as Cesarean section, and involves incision
+both through the abdominal walls and through the walls of the womb.
+For some women with very small bones Cesarean section is necessary if
+they are to produce living children. Even for women who, by paying
+the price of agony, can produce children by normal birth, this method
+may be found very advantageous. I see a possibility of its widely
+extended future use. In hundreds, perhaps thousands of years hence when
+the child’s head will be proportionately even larger in comparison
+with the mother’s bones than it is to-day, it may indeed be the only
+method which will stand between the higher human races and their total
+extinction.
+
+There is a certain amount of rather gossipy opinion that women who are
+spared the full torture of child birth do not have equally passionate
+love for the child. This, however, is nonsense. Love depends far more
+on the mother’s desire for parenthood at the time of the child’s
+conception and her feelings towards it all through the months of
+waiting than on the hours of birth, although the appealing weakness
+and fascination of a baby may win a deeper love than the mother-to-be
+expected to feel for her child.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX C
+
+SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH
+
+
+The leading authority in the _Manual of Human Embryology_, edited by
+Franz Keibel and Franklin P. Mall in two volumes, London, 1910, says:--
+
+    “In ancient times it was generally believed that the duration
+    of pregnancy in man, unlike that in lower animals, was of very
+    uncertain length; and it was not until the seventeenth century that
+    it was more accurately fixed, by Fidele of Palermo, at forty weeks,
+    counting from the last menstrual period. In the next century Haller
+    found that if pregnancy is reckoned from the time of a fruitful
+    copulation it is usually thirty-nine weeks, and rarely forty weeks
+    in duration. In general these results are fully confirmed by the
+    thousands of careful data collected during the nineteenth century.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    “However, from thousands of records it is found that the mean
+    duration of a pregnancy varies in first and second pregnancies, is
+    more protracted in healthy women, in married women, in winter, and
+    in the upper classes.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    “From these figures it is seen that most pregnancies take place
+    during the first week after menstruation, and that the duration
+    of pregnancy is longer if copulation takes place towards the end
+    of the intermenstrual period. And this is explained if we assume
+    that in the first week, especially the first few days after the
+    cessation of menstruation, the ovum is in the upper end of the
+    tube awaiting the sperm and that conception immediately follows
+    copulation. When the fruitful copulation takes place in the latter
+    two weeks of the month the opposite is usually the case; the sperm
+    wanders to the ovary and there awaits the ovum; and, therefore, on
+    an average, pregnancy is prolonged in this group of cases, when
+    determined from the time of copulation.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    “In determining the age of human embryos it is probably more
+    nearly correct to count from the _end_ of the last period, for
+    all evidence points to that time as the most probable at which
+    pregnancy takes place.”
+
+On the whole it is generally found that 280 days (_i.e._, 40 weeks)
+can be reckoned as the average period during which the child develops
+internally if the date is counted from the first day of the last
+menstrual period and 269 days if estimated from the date of actual
+union.
+
+Leuckart tabulated results from a large number of births which took
+place within the first ten months of marriage, and found that there
+was a maximum number of births on the 275th day, then a decrease and
+a second maximum on the 293rd day. Nevertheless, in spite of careful
+reckoning, there are, as will be recognized, many sources of error, and
+medical men and nurses are often wisely cautious of giving any exact
+date for an anticipated birth; sometimes too cautious even to suggest
+the week within which the birth will take place. I have known a good
+many mothers, however, who were much more accurately certain about this
+point than their attendants, and have found that the birth took place
+exactly on the day they anticipated. As an illustration of this, I give
+the answer from one of my correspondents, both of whose children were
+born on the exact day she anticipated. I asked her how she estimated
+these periods, and she said:--
+
+    “I simply took old Dr. Chevasse’s rule which he gives in _Advice to
+    a Wife_; you know how he puts the date of conception and opposite
+    it the probable date of birth. I went by the first union after the
+    last period. It so happened that my husband was seedy and there
+    was no union for a fortnight after the end of the period. I took
+    that first union as the date of conception and looking up the date
+    in Chevasse and the corresponding date of birth opposite, I found
+    it to be August 20th, and sure enough on August 20th he was born.
+    With the second boy, the union took place the day after the last
+    period, and I took that as the starting date and against it I found
+    January 21st and on January 21st he arrived in spite of the doctors
+    insisting in each case that it would be three weeks earlier. What I
+    do is, I always make a mark in my diary against the date of first
+    union after every period. Then when I had missed a period and so
+    knew that there was probably conception, I could at once tell the
+    probable date.”
+
+The table Chevasse quoted from Galabin is as follows--
+
+  From Jan. 1st to Oct. 1st = 273 (274) days, add 5 (4) days
+    „  Feb. 1st to Nov. 1st = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  Mar. 1st to Dec. 1st = 275         „    „  3      „
+    „  Apl. 1st to Jan. 1st = 275         „    „  3      „
+    „  May  1st to Feb. 1st = 276         „    „  2      „
+    „  June 1st to Mar. 1st = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  July 1st to Apl. 1st = 274 (275)   „    „  4 (3)  „
+    „  Aug. 1st to May 1st  = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  Sep. 1st to June 1st = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  Oct. 1st to July 1st = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  Nov. 1st to Aug. 1st = 273 (274)   „    „  5 (4)  „
+    „  Dec. 1st to Sep. 1st = 274 (275)   „    „  4 (3)  „
+
+
+  _Printed in Great Britain by_
+  UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+The following apparent errors have been corrected:
+
+p. 2 "hearts’ desire" changed to "hearts desire"
+
+p. 26 "undertsand" changed to "understand"
+
+p. 73 "incapacities is," changed to "incapacities, is"
+
+p. 124 "diappointments" changed to "diappointments"
+
+p. 130 "parent this" changed to "parent: this"
+
+p. 148 "agggravation" changed to "aggravation"
+
+p. 150 "ffower" changed to "flower"
+
+p. 154 "want to to" changed to "want to"
+
+p. 218 "ignorance" changed to "ignorance."
+
+p. 233 "Franz, Keibel" changed to "Franz Keibel"
+
+
+The following possible errors have not been changed:
+
+p. 4 millenium
+
+p. 34 co-incidently
+
+p. 132 August 24 1893
+
+p. 235 follows--
+
+
+The following are used inconsistently in the text:
+
+lifelong and life-long
+
+overstrained and over-strained
+
+prenatal and pre-natal
+
+shamefaced and shame-faced
+
+X-rays, “X” rays and “X”-rays
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIANT MOTHERHOOD ***
+
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diff --git a/45711/45711-0.zip b/45711/45711-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Radiant Motherhood
+       A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future
+
+Author: Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45711]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIANT MOTHERHOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RADIANT MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+
+
+_BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part I. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. 12s. net.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part II. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. �1 1s. net.
+
+    Ancient Plants. Illustrated. Published by Blackie. 4s. 6d. net.
+
+    The Study of Plant Life. 2nd Edition. Illustrated. Published by
+    Blackie. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Married Love. 8th Edition. Published by Putnam. 6s. net.
+
+    Wise Parenthood. 6th Edition. Published by Putnam. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    A Letter to Working Mothers. Published by the Author. 6d. net.
+
+
+TRAVEL.
+
+    A Journal from Japan. Published by Blackie. 7s. 6d. net.
+
+
+LITERARY.
+
+    Man, Other Poems and a Preface. Published by Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Conquest, a Three-Act Play. Published by French. 1s. net.
+
+    Gold in the Wood and The Race. Two Plays. Published by Fifield. 2s.
+    net.
+
+    With Prof J. Sakurai, Plays of old Japan, The No. Published by
+    Heinemann. 5s. net.
+
+
+    The author's vivid and imaginative sympathy has really enabled her,
+    in some degree, to communicate the incommunicable.
+
+        ATHEN�UM.
+
+
+
+
+  Radiant Motherhood
+
+  A Book for Those Who
+  are Creating the Future
+
+
+  By
+
+  Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+  Doctor of Science, London; Doctor of Philosophy,
+  Munich; Fellow of University College, London;
+  Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
+  and the Linnean Society, London
+
+
+  LONDON
+  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, LTD.
+
+  TORONTO
+  THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+  _First published August 9, 1920_
+
+
+  _Copyright; translations and all other rights
+  reserved by the Author. Copyright in U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+_Dedicated to young husbands and all who are creating the future_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                       PAGE
+         PREFACE                                         ix
+ CHAPTER
+      I. THE LOVER'S DREAM                                1
+     II. CONCEIVED IN BEAUTY                              9
+    III. THE GATEWAY OF PAIN                             18
+     IV. THE YOUNG MOTHER-TO-BE:
+         HER AMAZEMENTS                                  32
+      V. HER DELIGHTS                                    39
+     VI. HER DISTRESSES                                  44
+    VII. THE YOUNG FATHER-TO-BE:
+         HIS AMAZEMENTS                                  52
+   VIII. HIS DELIGHTS                                    58
+     IX. HIS DISTRESSES                                  62
+      X. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT MOTHER   71
+     XI. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT FATHER   93
+    XII. THE UNION OF THREE                              99
+   XIII. THE PROCESSION OF THE MONTHS                   113
+    XIV. PRENATAL INFLUENCE                             130
+     XV. EVOLVING TYPES OF WOMEN                        146
+    XVI. BIRTH AND BEAUTY                               161
+   XVII. BABY'S RIGHTS                                  171
+  XVIII. THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE HUMAN CHAIN            183
+    XIX. THE COST OF COFFINS                            201
+     XX. THE CREATION OF A NEW AND IRRADIATED RACE      208
+
+
+  APPENDICES
+
+  A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD                        229
+  B. ON BIRTH                                                   231
+  C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH  233
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This book is written for the same young people who inspired _Married
+Love_. Many of my readers have asked me to write such a book as this,
+and I sincerely hope that it will not disappoint them. Many, many
+people have contributed facts which have helped me to write it. The
+book, however, is pre-eminently the work of my baby son and his father,
+whose beautiful spirits have been, and will be, through all eternity
+united with me in a burning desire to bring light into dark places.
+
+        M. C. S.
+
+
+
+
+Radiant Motherhood
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Lover's Dream
+
+    So every spirit, as it is most pure,
+        And hath in it the more of heauenly light,
+    So it the fairer bodie doth procure
+        To habit in, and it more fairely dight,
+        With chearefull grace and amiable sight.
+    For of the soule the bodie forme doth take:
+    For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
+
+        SPENCER: _An Hymne in honour of Beautie_.
+
+
+Every lover desires a child. Those who imagine the contrary, and
+maintain that love is purely selfish, know only of the lesser types
+of love. The supreme love of true mates always carries with it the
+yearning to perpetuate the exquisite quality of its own being, and to
+record, through the glory of its mutual creation, other lives yet more
+beautiful and perfect.
+
+Existence being such a difficult compromise between our dreams and the
+material facts of the world, this desire may sometimes be thwarted by
+factors outside itself; may even be so suppressed as to be invisible in
+the conduct and unsuspected in the wishes of the lover. Yet the desire
+to link their lives with the future is deeply woven into the love of
+all sound and healthy people who love supremely.
+
+It is commonly said that most women marry for children, and not out of
+a personal love, and there is more truth in this saying than is good
+for the race. To-day, alas, many women cannot find the perfect and
+sensitive mate their hearts desire and they hope in _any_ marriage to
+get children which will mitigate the consequent loneliness of their
+lives. Sometimes they may, to some extent, succeed, but far less often
+than they imagine, for that strange and still but little understood
+force "heredity" steps in, and the son of the tolerated father may
+grow infinitely more like his physical father than he is like the dear
+delight his mother dreamed he might be.
+
+Few girls have not pictured in day dreams the joy of holding in their
+arms their own beautiful babies. No man of their acquaintance, however,
+may seem fine enough to be their father. Until she has been crushed
+by experience, or, unless she listens with absolute belief to the
+depressing information of her elders, each girl believes that her own
+intense desire for perfection will be the principal factor in creating
+the beautiful babies of her dreams. Often it seems as though this power
+were granted, for women sometimes bear lovely children by fathers in
+whom one may seek in vain for any bodily grace or charm.
+
+The century long working of economic laws based on physical force,
+the remnants of which still affect us, has resulted in man generally
+having the selective power and tending to choose for his wife the most
+beautiful or charming woman that his means allow; hence hitherto on
+the whole, the race has been bred from the better and more beautiful
+women. This has undoubtedly tended to keep the standard of physical
+form from sinking to the utter degradation which we see in the worst of
+the slums, and in institutions where live the feeble-minded offspring
+of inferior mothers who have wantonly borne children of fathers devoid
+of any realization of what they were doing.
+
+From these avenues of shame and misery, however, I must steer my line
+of thought, for this book is written pre-eminently for the young, happy
+and physically well-conditioned pair who mating beautifully on all the
+planes of their existence, are living in married love.
+
+Whether early in the days of their marriage or postponed for some
+months or more out of regard for his wife's body and beauty, the hour
+will come when the young husband yearning above her, sees in his wife's
+eyes the reflection of the future, and when their mutual longing
+springs up to initiate the chain of lives which shall repeat throughout
+the ages the bodily, mental and spiritual beauties of each other, which
+each holds so dear. Perhaps in lovers' talk and exquisite whispers they
+have spoken of this great deed on which they are embarking, and each
+has voiced that intense yearning which filled them to see another "with
+your eyes, your hair, your smile," living and radiant. The lovers dream
+that they will be repeated in others of their own creation, always
+young, running through the ages which culminate in the golden glories
+of the millenium.
+
+The dream is so wonderful, the thought that it pictures in the mind so
+full of vernal beauty, light and vigour that, were facts commensurate
+with it, its result should spring all ready formed from between the
+lips of those who breathed its possibilities like Minerva from the head
+of Jove.
+
+It seems incredible that such splendid dominant designs to fulfil God's
+purpose should be hindered, and made to bend and toil through the hard
+material facts of the molecular structure of the world, and that it
+is only many months afterwards that the first outward body is given
+to this dream, and that then it is in a form not strong and dancing
+in lightness and beauty but weak and helpless with many intensely
+physical necessities which for months and years will require the utmost
+fostering care or it will be destroyed by material effects, hostile
+and too strong for it. Yet such is the limitation of our powers of
+creation. And underneath the intense passion of love and all its rich
+dreams of beauty is the slow building, chemically molecule by molecule,
+biologically cell by cell, against obstacles the surmounting of which
+seems a superhuman feat.
+
+Lovers who are parents give to each other the supremest material gift
+in the world, a material embodiment of celestial dreams which itself
+has the further power of vital creation.
+
+In this and all my work, I speak to the normal, healthy and loving in
+an endeavour to help them to remain normal, healthy and loving, and
+thus to perfect their lives. So in this book I do not intend to deal
+with those whose marriages are mistaken ones, or with those who do
+not know true love. I write for those who having made a love match
+are passing together through the ensuing and surprising years, and
+incidentally doing one of the greatest pieces of work which human
+beings can do during their progress through this world, and that is
+creating the next generation.
+
+In nature, the consummation of the physical act of union between
+lovers generally results in the conception of a new life. We share this
+physical aspect of mating and the resulting parenthood with most of the
+woodland creatures. How far many of the lowlier lives are conscious of
+the future results of their mating unions is a problem in elementary
+psychology beyond the realm of present knowledge. But that parenthood
+is the natural result of their union is to-day known, one must suppose,
+by almost all young couples who wed. I am still uncertain how far the
+two are _conscious_ of this in the early days of their union, when
+every circumstance encourages that supreme self-centredness of happy
+youth. Much must depend on the age, and on the previous experience and
+education of the two; much also on their relative natures. A profoundly
+introspective and thoughtful man and woman are more liable than
+others to be speedily aware of the many interwoven strands of their
+joint lives, and to live consciously on several planes of existence
+simultaneously.
+
+The supreme act of physical union as I have shown in my book, _Married
+Love_, consists fundamentally of three essential and widely differing
+reactions, having effects in correspondingly different regions. There
+is (_a_) the intimately personal effect on the internal secretions and
+general vitality of the individual partaking of that sacrament; (_b_)
+there is the social effect of the union of the two in a mutual act in
+which they must so perfectly blend and harmonize; and (_c_) there is
+the racial result which may lead to the procreation of a new life.
+
+In the early days of the honeymoon, personal passion and the
+concentrated delight of each in the mate is probably more than
+sufficient in all its rich complexity to fill the consciousness of
+the two who are thus united in a life-long comradeship to form that
+highest unit, the pair. But as education and the conscious control of
+our lives grow, the young pair who are so blissfully self-centred as
+not to remember or not to be aware of the racial effects of their acts
+are probably decreasing in numbers. Among the best of those who marry
+to-day, the majority only enter upon parenthood or the possibility of
+parenthood when they feel justified in so doing. The young man who
+profoundly loves his wife and who considers the future benefit of
+their child, protects her from accidental conception or from becoming
+a mother at times when the strain upon her would be too great, or when
+he is unable to give her and the coming child the necessary care and
+support. That myriads of children are born without this consideration
+on the part of their parents applies to the commonalty of mankind, but
+not to the best.
+
+Often to-day the betrothed young couple will speak openly and
+beautifully of the children they hope to have, while others equally
+full of the creative dream feel it too tender a subject to put into
+words, and may marry without ever having given expression to the
+possibility that they will generate through their love yet other
+lovers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Conceived in Beauty
+
+    ... Here in close recess
+    With flowers, garlands and sweet smelling herbs,
+    Espous�d Eve deck'd first her nuptial bed,
+    And heav'nly choirs the Hymen�an sung,
+    What day the genial angel to our sire
+    Brought her in naked beauty more adorn'd,
+    More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods
+    Endow'd with all their gifts....
+    ... Into their inmost bower
+    Handed they went; and, eased the putting off
+    Those troublesome disguises which we wear,
+    Straight side by side were laid; nor turn'd, I ween,
+    Adam from his fair spouse; nor Eve the rites
+    Mysterious of connubial love refused:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    These, lull'd by nightingales, embracing slept,
+    And on their naked limbs the flowery roof
+    Shower'd roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
+    Blest pair, and O! yet happiest if ye seek
+    No happier state, and know to know no more.
+
+    MILTON: _Paradise Lost_.
+
+
+In ancient Sanskrit, there is a work dealing minutely with love and
+with the different forms its expression takes in different types of
+people. This has been modified, added to and re-written by many later
+authors, and under various names works based on this are to be found in
+Sanskrit and translated into various Indian dialects.
+
+In these volumes much that is curious, and to Western nations, absurd,
+is to be found, but also several profound observations which appear
+to be based on truths generally ignored by us. One of the interesting
+themes of these very early writers is a recognition and a description
+of the characteristics of the best and most perfect type of woman, the
+"Padmini." In addition to describing fully her physical appearance and
+characteristics, it is observed that she being a child of light and
+not of darkness, prefers the supreme act of love to take place in the
+daylight rather than the dark.
+
+In this country, owing to our artificial, over-burdened and
+over-strained lives, the physical union of lovers is almost always
+confined to the night time. Crowded as we are in cities and suburban
+districts, solitude in Nature is almost impossible; for most, seclusion
+is only known in a closed room after dark. The Sanskrit writer of the
+sixth century, however, takes love more seriously than we do, and he
+describes how for the sacred union serious preparation of beauty should
+be made--a room or natural arbour decked with flowers; and for the
+supreme expression of love (that is the love between a pair each of
+the highest and most perfect type), this should take place in the light
+of day and not the darkness of the night. Even in our present degraded
+civilization there are some who do realize the sacredness and the value
+of the bodily embrace in the fresh beauty of nature and sunlight. There
+must be many beautiful children who were conceived from unions which
+took place under natural conditions of light and open air radiance. The
+most spontaneous time for conception is the summer when our air is mild
+and sweet enough for true love in Nature's way.
+
+In an empire where woodland or seaside solitude is not obtainable by
+lovers for this their most sacred function, the distribution of the
+population is gravely wrong. It will, however, probably for some time
+to come be difficult for those who desire such a profound return to
+natural rectitude, to obtain the necessary security of seclusion amid
+beautiful surroundings. Therefore, alas, it will in all probability
+long remain only possible to most lovers to ramble together in nature,
+and then later to follow the usual course of uniting within their room.
+
+We do not know enough about ourselves or the results of our actions,
+under our present conditions, to realize to what extent the hour of
+conception modifies the quality of the offspring. We only know that
+the child of lovers beautiful in mind and body, the child ardently
+desired by them, whose coming is prepared with every beauty which it is
+in their power to obtain, is often well worth all the outlay of love
+and thought. Certainly among those personally known to me who have
+followed the rather exceptional course I indicate, the children are
+remarkable for both physical beauty and exquisite vitality, balanced
+with sweetness and strength of mental and spiritual qualities.
+
+There is an old and in my opinion valuable view (although it has not
+been "scientifically proved") that the actual hour of conception, the
+condition of the parents at the moment when the germs fuse is one of
+vital consequences to the child-to-be. Scientific proof of this will
+be, of course, extraordinarily difficult to discover, but indirectly
+there do appear to be some actual data in favour of the converse,
+namely that temporary unhealthy states of the parents result in the
+conception of children so inferior as to be markedly and seriously
+anti-social. Forel (_Sexual Question_, 1908) says:--
+
+    The recent researches of Bezzola seem to prove that the old belief
+    in the bad quality of children conceived during drunkenness is
+    not without foundation. Relying on the Swiss census of 1900,
+    in which there figure nine thousand idiots ... this author has
+    proved that there are two acute annual maximum periods for the
+    conception of idiots (calculated from nine months before birth)
+    the periods of carnival and vintage, when the people drink most.
+    In the wine-growing districts, the maximum conception of idiots at
+    the time of vintage is enormous, while it is almost _nil_ at other
+    periods.
+
+It is, of course, not always possible to arrange the hour of the union
+which will lead to conception. And further even when the hour of the
+union is arranged, nature, to some extent, controls and may modify
+conditions before conception. Sometimes the fertilization of the egg
+cell by the sperm cell takes place in the hour of the bodily union of
+the lovers, sometimes this inner process is delayed by hours or days
+(see overleaf). Conception is possible in most women at almost any
+time during the years of potential motherhood, yet there do appear to
+be several factors which lead to the potential fertility of a woman
+varying very much from time to time. Some women, for instance, appear
+to be liable to conceive only for a certain number of days in each
+month, and these are in general the two or three days immediately
+following the monthly period and the day or two immediately before.
+With other women, however, unions on any day of the month may lead to
+conception, but this depends, possibly, not only on the woman herself
+but on the vitality and probable length of life of the sperm cells of
+her husband. This also varies very greatly in individuals. The longest
+time which the individual sperm has been observed to remain vital after
+entry into the woman is seventeen days (see Bossi, _N. Arch. d'Obstetr.
+Gynocol._, April 1891).
+
+Hence it will be realized that a union arranged to take place under
+ideal and perfect conditions, perhaps on a holiday into wild and
+inspiring solitudes, may result as desired in the entry of the sperm
+into the womb of the woman, and yet the actual fusion of the sperm and
+egg cell, and the consequent conception may not come to pass until some
+days later.
+
+Strange it is indeed in this world, in which so much scientific and
+laborious observation has been devoted to all sorts of irrelevant and
+trivial subjects, that knowledge of the actual processes of our own
+fertilization and conception and of the extent of the significance to
+the future generations of the mode and condition of the union of the
+parents are almost totally unknown to scientists or doctors, and are
+disregarded by the majority of the public.
+
+A recent memoir in the French Academy of Science[1] dealing with
+statistical figures (going back in France, at any rate, so far as 1853)
+proves that there does seem to be a definite seasonal influence on
+the power of conception. Taking the births for the whole year, it is
+found they are not equally divided throughout the months, but that a
+notable maximum of births is found in February and March for most of
+the countries in the northern hemisphere, the actual maximum of births
+being from the 15th February to the 15th March, and thus indicating
+that the maximum of conceptions took place between the 5th May and the
+5th June. Richet quotes Bertillon as having established the fact that
+this maximum of conceptions does not depend on the chance that brides
+like to be married in the spring, because an identical maximum is found
+in the illegitimate birthrate. Richet gives many tables of figures,
+and maintains that the maximum corresponds both in the town and in the
+country, among the rich and the poor, and among the married and the
+unmarried, and is, therefore, in his opinion, an actual physiological
+function:--
+
+[1] Charles Richet, "De la Variation mensuelle de la Natalit�," 1916,
+Comptes rendus Acad. Sciences, Paris, pp. 141-149 and 161-166.
+
+    C'est que les conditions physiologiques de la maturation de l'ovule
+    et de sa f�condation ne sont pas �galement favorables dans toutes
+    les periodes de l'ann�e. Par suite d'une ancestrale pr�disposition,
+    au moment du printemps, chez la femme, comme chez la plupart des
+    animaux, mais moins nettement que chez eux, la maturation, la chute
+    et la f�condation de l'ovule se font dans des conditions meilleures
+    et plus assur�es.
+
+The corresponding maximum for the southern hemisphere arises between
+August and October. This natural tendency to produce children
+according to the season is, to some extent, altered by the conscious
+and deliberate control of parenthood, which all the more highly
+civilized countries now find that their better citizens are exerting.
+
+This natural time for conception will, however, tend not to be thwarted
+by those who are consciously regulating their lives, because from
+almost every point of view, the summer is the best time in which to
+experience the joys of love. As the verdant spring is the best time for
+a baby to be born, the thoughtful mother-to-be will try, other things
+being equal, to arrange that its birth should take place then, both for
+her own sake and for that of the child. The weeks of recovery after the
+strain of the birth are more easily and happily spent lying in the warm
+sunshine of a spring or summer garden than in the chill of the winter
+months, and even the actual expense of the birth is reduced when it
+takes place in the warmth of the spring or early summer when fires and
+the labour they involve will be saved.
+
+The child too has warm air to surround it on its first introduction to
+the outer world after its long period of warmth and protection within
+its mother, and when in a month or two it is able to kick about on the
+grass, it benefits directly from the rays of the sun and also from the
+sun-warmed earth.
+
+Various notable men and women, and, in particular, the famous Dr. Trall
+of America, have held that the actual hour of conception is the one of
+fate, and that the moods, feelings and conditions of the parents in
+that hour work more vital magic then than they can do in any succeeding
+days or weeks. Instinctively, one would like to feel that this is so.
+Indeed it will take much to _disprove_ it, although it is a theme which
+it is at present impossible to prove, and it must remain always only a
+personal bias, until thousands of people who view marriage aright will
+consciously observe and record many things and contribute them to some
+thinker who will tabulate, correlate and understand them.
+
+Whether the hour of conception affects the child directly or not, the
+memory of an ardent and wonderful experience in which the pair of
+lovers consciously surround themselves with beautiful conditions, and
+deliberately place themselves through their love at the service of
+God and humanity in the creation of the next generation, must give a
+vitalizing and joyous memory to both throughout all their lives. This
+memory being especially connected with the dear child of that union
+must, therefore, have in this indirect way at any rate a positive
+racial value.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Gateway of Pain
+
+    As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and firs
+    The mother looks upon the newborn child,
+    Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
+    When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs'd.
+    Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
+    And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
+    Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
+    Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The price of every beauty in this world is in proportion to its
+quality, even although the payment of the price exacted may be long
+deferred or may be made in such an intricate and remote form that its
+connection with the result is overlooked.
+
+As the greatest thing which lovers can give each other is a child,
+and as none in the world are so great as lovers, the price exacted by
+Nature for the child of loving and sensitive people is correspondingly
+heavy.
+
+This statement may apparently conflict with the idea that the joy of
+bearing a child to the beloved is a woman's consummation of happiness;
+yet it does not conflict, because of the deeper truth that the
+supremest happiness is mysteriously intermingled with self-sacrifice.
+A young woman whose character is sufficiently beautiful and sensitive
+to know the highest joys of motherhood--the full delights of human
+existence and love--will also be sensitive to the varied pains which
+motherhood will bring. Indeed, in this respect, the poet's saying that
+"the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to
+be pricked by the thorn" is essentially true.
+
+The radiance of the highest form of motherhood is that of the
+transfigured saint, hallowed by suffering comprehended and endured,
+transmuted into a service beyond and above the lower desires of self.
+
+For long, indeed for the many millions of years during which she has
+shown a motherhood comparable with that of human beings,[2] Nature has
+essentially trapped and tricked the mother into her motherhood. All
+the woodland and jungle creatures, the deer or the tiger, the rabbit
+or the squirrel, grow up through their brief adolescence into a
+partial consciousness of delight in themselves and reach the phase of
+their development in which their own desires urge them to unite with
+each other. One can scarcely believe that they are conscious of the
+resulting parenthood which will become a physical fact at a later date,
+although the training of her cubs by a woodland mother undoubtedly
+does include handing on, through some speechless communication, of
+some actual instruction. A similar blind parenthood, but in addition
+_coerced_, has for many thousands of years been characteristic of a
+large portion of the human race. Even to-day motherhood is too often
+blind: the young girl delighting in herself and the fairness of her own
+body, conscious of the power she wields in social life as a beautiful
+and attractive creature whom older people pet and please and young men
+place upon a pedestal, is urged by this natural self-centred delight
+into accepting through flattery the enjoyment of herself by some chosen
+mate; and the later consequences of motherhood are then faced either in
+amazed astonishment or in open revolt.
+
+[2] By this I mean the motherhood which carries and protects the
+developed young within the mother's body, unlike that of the lower
+animals, such as fishes, which leave the eggs to their fate.
+
+Earlier civilizations often dealt with the excessive births resulting
+from blind or coerced parenthood by destroying the children as infants
+after birth. This was done directly, and often by her leading citizens,
+in Greece (one of the highest forms of civilization ever attained) and
+_still_ infanticide direct or indirect goes on among all the populous
+races of the world. Where the value placed on the mother's mental and
+physical suffering is low, one may still see motherhood, not as a fine,
+voluntary and glorious act of self-sacrifice from the highest possible
+motives of love and service directly to the beloved, and indirectly to
+the race, but as the exploitation of a trapped and helpless sacrifice.
+
+Mothers will say that their babies are their greatest joys; one may
+ask, therefore, how I can use the word "sacrifice" in connection with
+motherhood. The use of the word is just, and based on truths too
+generally concealed by those who know them, and far too generally
+unknown by those who ought to know them. Ignorance of their extent has
+made men callous, indifferent or ribald towards the profound sacrifices
+of motherhood.
+
+Few there be, however, who do not know of the agonizing torments of
+actual birth. The Bible is read aloud in churches, and in its wording
+there is some recognition of the existence of this agony, although
+based upon earlier and simpler civilizations in which the women were
+probably better cared for and better fitted for motherhood than the
+majority of women are to-day. Following biblical tradition, the memory
+of the agony of birth is generally portrayed as being wiped out by
+the supreme joy in the child which follows. To-day, however, this
+effacement of the anguish is by no means universal, and the abiding
+horror of the birth is so great that not a few women refuse to bear
+another child. Then men, who cannot even imagine the experience of
+child-bearing, denounce such a mother, rate her and hold her up to
+derision. How little do they realize that in her they may see Nature's
+working of the laws of evolution (see p. 24).
+
+The torturing agony of birth might so easily have been averted by
+Nature had the construction of our bodies differed but very slightly
+from those which we to-day possess in common with most of the higher
+animals. The human baby when the hour comes for it to sever its
+connection from its mother, and as an independent individual to venture
+into the open air of the world, has to make its way through the arched
+gateway of bone fixed and set by the mother's own requirements as a
+frame to her own structure. The encircling archway of bone through
+which the infant has to pass is but three or four inches in diameter.
+It would have been possible had our evolution taken a different
+turn for the infant to have made its exit through the soft wall of
+the mother's body instead of through this fixed and hardened circle
+of her bone. But for some causes too remote for us at present to
+discover this was not so, and the essential fact faces us to-day
+that every infant born naturally must be born through this circle of
+bone. Moreover if the infant is a well-developed and healthy one,
+as the ordinary baby of a healthy and beautiful young couple should
+naturally and rightly be, that infant's head is larger in diameter than
+the circle of bone through which it has to pass. Its tissues have,
+therefore, to be squeezed and pressed to mould their shape in order to
+allow its exit through the orifice, and this must be a slow process,
+and one which almost always entails great pressure and consequent agony
+to the mother. Dr. Mary Scharlieb says in _The Welfare of the Expectant
+Mother_:--
+
+    It is, however, scarcely possible that either the public or the
+    profession realizes that one woman dies in child birth for every
+    250 children born alive. In addition to this we have to remember
+    that the same accidents and diseases which kill the mothers and the
+    babies inevitably cause a still heavier percentage of crippling and
+    invaliding (p. 43).
+
+Twenty-five per cent. and more of the babies conceived and borne die
+before they reach normal birth. Often they find the journey through
+the bony archway into the outer world so difficult and arduous a task
+that they perish in the process of birth, although probably had they
+been born by Cesarean section, they would have survived and grown into
+healthy children.
+
+We do not consider what the infant itself in birth may be enduring.
+The infant is "unconscious," that is to say it carries no memory of
+these earlier months in its conscious memory as it grows up, but the
+excessive moulding, particularly of its head, which often has to take
+place and sometimes takes weeks to right itself, must, one thinks,
+greatly disturb the little brain, and in my opinion may have a lifelong
+effect.
+
+I have never heard this aspect of our present problem duly considered.
+The fact that the increasing brain capacity of civilized man tends ever
+to give the new born infant a larger head, and tends proportionately
+to increase the size of the head out of relation to the size of the
+circle of its mother's bone, has been commented on, and appears to some
+far seeing thinkers as the possible cause of the ultimate extinction
+of the human race. Because if we go on developing in the way we are at
+present doing, ever depending more and more on our brains, and the head
+of the new born infant tends to increase with the natural development
+of the brain, the day will come when the birth of a child is absolutely
+blocked by the relative diameter of its head and of its mother's pelvic
+bones. If the higher races maintain a dominant place in the world, the
+day may come when with nearly all women such an incompatible relation
+will arise. Of what avail then would be the ratings and peevish fury
+of callous men? What scheme the race may have devised before that date
+to relieve this cruel deadlock we cannot here discuss. The perfecting
+of the method of birth by Cesarean section offers much promise. It may
+become a racial necessity. This possibility, on which to-day we are
+beginning to impinge, indicates one great cause of the torturing agony
+of the actual hours of birth which the young mother and father-to-be
+may have to face before they can see the child of their love.
+
+Fortunate women are even still so constructed that the circle of bone
+has a relatively large orifice which allows the infant comparatively
+easily to pass through it, and the difficulty and danger of birth for
+them is minimized. With them the birth pangs may be so trivial in
+comparison with the result, that they are truly "almost negligible" as
+most men would like to believe of most women.
+
+Such women, when outward circumstances allow it, are those whom every
+impulse should encourage to be the mothers of the large families, which
+are, under proper conditions, still desirable for a portion of our
+people.
+
+Such a woman as the one who wrote me the following letter is indeed the
+standard which all women and would-be mothers would gladly reach were
+it possible in any degree to control the formation of a growing girl's
+body so that as a woman she might retain such a primitive adaptation to
+motherhood:--
+
+    On the exact right day the babe arrived ... in a quarter of an hour
+    he was there, without nurse, doctor or any one and with no pain to
+    myself. This little party has grown into a splendid specimen, very
+    large (he was 8-1/2 lbs. at birth) and firm and muscular. He is the
+    whole day long laughing and kicking or sleeping.
+
+Such women, however, so far as records go, are few. Much might be done
+by science to discover what are the causes of the reverse condition,
+and if possible to attempt to eliminate them.
+
+In view of the agony which myriads of women throughout the ages of
+civilization have endured, it seems strange indeed that no effort
+should apparently have been made by the learned to understand the
+causes which control the individual formation of the growing structure,
+with a view possibly to securing some such development. In recent
+years, however, a little has been done in the recognition of the
+causes of the converse, that is to say the excessive narrowing of the
+pelvis to the degree where child birth is not only torment but a life
+and death agony. And it is now well known that this condition is
+associated with malnutrition and rickets in infancy and early girlhood.
+
+The little baby girl who has rickety bones (which result from being
+improperly fed as an infant) is, in extreme cases certain, and in
+many cases very likely, to have such contracted pelvic bones that
+when her turn comes for motherhood, the birth of a living child may
+be impossible by the ordinary processes of Nature. Here again, as so
+often is inevitable, in the course of any consideration of the profound
+truths of mated existence, we impinge upon the treatment of the unsound
+and the diseased. This _under_ development of the mother's pelvic bones
+is a different problem from that evolutionary one touched on in the
+paragraphs above.
+
+Alas, that it should be true that the great majority of city dwellers
+come into the category of the spoilt and the tainted in some respect or
+another. But with the vision of true health and beauty as a standard
+before our eyes, many might escape the incipient weaknesses by
+consciously pursuing a standard of health, beauty and normality. It is
+this standard, this ideal picture, which may yet be reproduced in the
+lives of millions, which I desire to present in this book, so that in
+telling young married people some of the great facts which are ahead of
+them I will present only those difficulties which are inevitable, and
+leave to others the handling of disease. As things are to-day among
+British stock,[3] it is the very exceptional women who find birth an
+entirely easy process of which the pain is trivial, and this is chiefly
+due to the bony structure fixed and limited in size, which stands as
+a gateway of pain between the infant and the outer world, between the
+young wife and her motherhood.
+
+[3] In this, and in most of the generalisations found in this book,
+I am speaking of things as they are in Great Britain. While to a
+considerable extent the same is true of America and the Scandinavian
+countries, it must be remembered all through that I am speaking of the
+British, and primarily of our educated classes.
+
+Before the hour of birth is reached, however, the young mother-to-be,
+if she is neither instructed nor helped by the wisdom of her elders,
+may have already endured much that it will distress and dismay her
+lover and husband to observe, and much more which she, being a woman,
+will endure without allowing him to perceive, although she may be so
+frightened that it may be hard indeed for her not to cry out in her
+bewildered pain. How much of this distress and pain is essentially
+"natural," how much is the artificial result of our mode of living and
+our ignorance of Nature's laws? What are the things which a healthy,
+finely-built young woman mated to a healthy young man must endure,
+those experiences which she _cannot_ escape and those which she may
+with proper help avoid altogether or in part? It is the object of
+several chapters in this book to answer these questions more truthfully
+and I hope more helpfully than they have yet been answered. The things
+I deal with specially, because they will face nearly every _healthy_
+girl, are in most books ignored.
+
+My chapters may appear superfluous to those who view the long list
+of books purporting to give advice to the young wife and expectant
+mother on how to treat herself and the coming child. I have read the
+majority of those books, and I write this one because of their failure
+to touch on the profoundest essentials in a way which will truly help
+the healthy and sensitive type of young people. The healthy, normal
+and happy in my mind's vision are the standard of the race: those who
+to-day to some extent foreshadow the strength and beauty of bodily and
+mental equipment which will become a commonplace when all have risen
+to their standard, and it is for them that I feel it imperative to add
+this one more book to the long list of books advising the young mother.
+With the young mother I also consider and try to help the young father
+who has been so strangely neglected and ignored and who also needs help.
+
+The majority of the writers on cognate subjects, like the majority
+of the minds of those who are concerned at all with the problems of
+the young mother, really though perhaps unconsciously present studies
+in disease, pictures of aberrations from the normal, accounts or
+innuendos dealing with illness and handicaps, with abnormal conditions
+which should never arise, and the knowledge of which should not be
+brought before the sensitive mind as if they were a usual and general
+thing. The acquiescence in a low standard of health, the discussion
+of diseased conditions as though they were normal, or even as though
+they were unavoidable, are intensive in their result and harmful to all
+who come under their influence. The race sickens ever more and more
+profoundly because of such influences.
+
+We have to-day in our community a new conception in the Government
+Department of the Ministry of Health, but alas, that Ministry is
+engrossed in the contemplation of disease. In the present state of
+our civilization this is perhaps unavoidable, because there are not
+enough people in the country of standing and experience in scientific
+research who have concerned themselves with the problems of the
+healthy and beautiful, and with the needs and requirements in the way
+of instruction and outward conditions and environment of those who by
+nature are healthy and normal, and who desire to remain healthy and
+normal. Even these need instruction to compensate for that which Nature
+cannot give to those who toil apart from her bosom in the cities, where
+they cannot hear her voice for the roaring of the traffic. This is the
+piteous plight of the majority of our citizens to-day, for so many live
+in towns.
+
+Alas, that there are physical facts which all must face of a type
+which makes one feel that Nature is cruel in her treatment of us. When
+two young, beautiful and ardently happy beings are embarking upon the
+greatest work for the community which they can do, with a desire to
+create further beautiful and happy lives, it seems indeed an ironic and
+wanton mistake that there should be distressing physical experiences
+for both of them to endure. But "As gold is tried by the fire, so the
+heart is tried by pain," and if they are given a conscious knowledge of
+what they must face and what they may avoid, there will then be a firm
+foundation and a triumphant consummation to the visions and ideals of
+splendour and perfection which they can secure unimpaired through the
+trials which they conquer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Amazements
+
+    But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand
+    Together tread at last the immortal strand
+      With eyes where burning memory lights love home?
+    Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned
+    And leaped to them and in their faces yearned--
+      "I am your child: O parents, ye have come."
+
+        ROSSETTI: _The House of Life_.
+
+
+The intermingling of the physical, the mental and the spiritual is so
+subtle, intricate and inexplicable that, in describing the states of
+the bride who is about to be a mother, it is difficult to know with
+which first to deal.
+
+In an Appendix, p. 229, I put in compact form one or two of the obvious
+physical phenomena with which it may be necessary for the bride and
+bridegroom to acquaint themselves. Although generally known to their
+elders, my many correspondents have shown me that even such simple and
+direct facts are often unknown to young people, who are frequently so
+shy that they do not like to consult a medical practitioner or an older
+friend. Assuming then that the simple physical facts are known, there
+still remain innumerable subtleties which may cause heart searching,
+perhaps to both bride and bridegroom.
+
+It is almost as though the bearing of a child were a function so
+primitive in its origin that it tends, to some extent, to dissociate
+the ordinary coherence of the mother's life, and to result in a
+weakening of the sub-conscious control over her emotions to which she
+had all her life grown accustomed. Thus she enters upon a complex state
+in which primitive instincts and feelings may be at variance with the
+conscious thoughts and aspirations of highly civilized and sensitive
+humanity.
+
+This complexity of her instincts and her conscious feelings may lead
+the young wife to find an apparently inexplicable conflict in her
+attitude towards her husband. Consciously she desires ardently, with
+all that is best in her nature, to bear the child of their love. She
+adores her husband and is full of tender emotions towards him as the
+coming father, and experiences a form of gratitude that he should be
+the means of fulfilling her dreams; but possibly, at the same time,
+she may be amazed to find in herself an intense and active antagonism
+to his personal presence, an antagonism which she has to fight against
+revealing. She may realize that it is utterly at variance with her real
+feelings, and she may know that it would be the acme of cruelty to
+allow him to become aware of it, particularly when he is full of deep
+concern and love for her, and is doing all that a loving consideration
+can do for her happiness and welfare.
+
+Such a complex diversity of mental states existing perhaps
+co-incidently at the same hour in the mind of a girl may, if acute,
+lead to an outwardly recognizable form of hysteria and even to an
+unbalanced mind. Of such, however, I am not speaking, but am now
+describing the outwardly controllable, but nevertheless inwardly felt
+effervescing conflict of instinctive emotions, which is far more
+frequent than is generally recognized, and which the best balanced and
+most loving women are amazed to experience in themselves.
+
+From women whom I know to be exceptionally happy wives and mothers, I
+have evidence on this theme. With, of course, personal variations, they
+tell me that they have never confided this bewildering experience to
+their husbands, their doctors or their relatives, but, in essence, they
+say what is said in the following words by one of my correspondents:--
+
+In the first few months of coming motherhood she had a feeling of
+antagonism so strong "that it amounted to actual dislike of my
+husband's presence, and a desire to be right away from him. This
+distressed me very much at first as I thought I must be losing my love
+for my husband, and could not understand such a sudden reversal of
+feeling as I loved him very deeply.... At the end of the first three
+months, I found that my feeling of love returned in full strength, and
+with it a feeling of intense devotion and tenderness towards my husband
+as the father of my coming child."
+
+Some such experience, generally and fortunately limited to
+comparatively short though different periods, is not infrequently felt
+and is often a source of secret distress and anguish to the young
+wife whose sense of loyalty to the man she loves and married bars her
+from the relief of talking of these feelings. As is now beginning
+to be realized, emotions deeply experienced which are deliberately
+suppressed, may have far reaching effects even on the health. It is,
+therefore, well that she should know what is, I am sure, the truth,
+that this physical repugnance, which sometimes even amounts to a
+detestation of sharing the same house with the husband, and a desire to
+escape even from the superficial contact of eating in the same room
+with him, is a temporary phase, possibly phylogenetic[4] in its origin.
+
+[4] That is to say, repeating the history of our very early ancestors,
+where the female probably felt some resentment towards the male who had
+encompassed her maternity, and who most certainly would live apart from
+her and not in the ordinary contact of a united life.
+
+This passing phase, whether it lasts a few days or months, is neither
+necessary nor absolutely universal, but so far as I can ascertain it
+appears to be a common occurrence in the lives of the more sensitive
+and tenderly loving of wives. Where the coming child has not been
+desired by both parents, and where the mother resents her coming
+maternity, there is, of course, a totally different problem for
+which there is a very obvious reason. I am speaking now only of the
+mother-to-be who deeply desires her child, who is physically healthy
+and well formed, living under comfortable, protected and happy
+conditions, and who ardently loves and is loved by her husband; it is
+she who may and most frequently does feel this passing phase of intense
+physical antagonism. That she loves, and consciously loves, gives her
+an outward control so that this under-current of inherent antagonism is
+not allowed to show, and is gallantly concealed from the whole world.
+She would feel it an intense disloyalty to speak of it to any living
+soul, but it is there and it is so often a source of distress and
+strain upon the nervous system that it should be openly faced instead
+of being as it now is a repressed feeling. This repression tends to
+result in one of the greatest difficulties of the _healthy_ woman who
+is carrying a child, namely sleeplessness. The complex balance of her
+nervous control is strained by her surprise at herself, and perhaps by
+her self-reproaches, and thus she has an unnecessary burden in addition
+to the one of the coming child. This phase, therefore, is not a fact
+to be ignored or treated too lightly, and while it lasts it should be
+respected so far as is compatible with the circumstances of the two and
+with due regard for the mother. It is not a thing either to fear or
+to be ashamed of. It is perhaps best openly faced as a fact of rather
+curious interest as an ancient survival in oneself of racial history.
+If possible it should form the object of innocently playful laughter
+between the girl and her husband; this would do much to prevent its
+suppression taking a serious root.
+
+Aware of the existence of this phase and its probable meaning and
+treating it in this simple sensible way, neither the young mother nor
+the father-to-be need fear this brief physical antagonism. Where its
+danger lies, however, is in the possibility that unrecognized, it will,
+with those who live a shade less perfectly, result in the beginning
+of a habit of irritation, and perhaps in the setting up of some form
+of verbal bickering on the part of those who cannot lead as secluded
+and separate lives as would be possible in a spacious country or in a
+large establishment. When once the pair have broken the sweet custom
+of speaking only in love to each other, then, even after the temporary
+phase of antagonism has passed, they may find themselves with a habit
+of verbal bickering which is intensely corrosive, ultimately perhaps
+more than any other thing tending to destroy the outward beauty of a
+mutual life.
+
+There is another and reverse aspect of the mental phases through which
+a young mother-to-be may pass, in which she has an intense and added
+passion for her husband, and, as this leads to a subject of great
+importance, and a subject which has never been adequately handled, I
+will defer its consideration to Chapter XII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Delights
+
+    The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs--does anybody
+    know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young
+    girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of
+    love--the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+In a happy and desired motherhood, every hour of the day and night may
+bring its intense delight, both in the dreams of contemplation, wherein
+the experience of love sinks deep into the heart, and of the linking up
+of the present with the future. All natural functions rightly performed
+give a deep satisfaction and content, but this, the greatest function
+of all, now so specialized and intimately interwoven with every highest
+racial impulse and every dearest personal desire of the loving pair,
+yields a wealth and profundity of experience surpassing all else.
+
+In my opinion, undoubtedly the ideal way of spending the earlier months
+of coming parenthood is in the form of an extended honeymoon, in which
+the couple travelling slowly should follow the guide of seasonal
+beauty or should visit place after place of historic interest or
+natural charm so that the mother's mind should be fed and stimulated
+by historic memories, by the exquisite freshness of nature, and the
+grandeur of man's artistic achievements. This, of course, would not be
+possible in its fullest extent to many, until, in the future, society
+recognizes the supreme importance to the race of the expectant mother.
+Some such course, however, might be possible to a larger number than
+it is at present were they to realize not only their personal good but
+the racial benefit of this procedure. In our country, owing to our
+artificial and unclean attitude, the mother-to-be, particularly during
+the later months, stays at home so far as possible, and does not go
+from place to place. When going about entails battling with crowds on
+public conveyances, this is wise. But the easy effort of walking or of
+riding in the old fashioned horse carriage from place to place on an
+extended journey, is ideal, and sometimes appears to have beneficial
+reactions on the character and quality of the child that is coming.
+But, even if such a mode of life is impossible, yet the mother by
+reading and conversation can, if she has a mind of trained imagination,
+vary and enrich the mental environment of her child while it is
+developing.
+
+Then, too, the mother-to-be can count among her delights all the
+intimate personal enjoyment of the little physical things which
+contribute to the great anticipations of the future. She can, if she
+has the skill herself, sew the little clothes, stitching into them
+sunny thoughts and beautiful hopes, making them links between the
+present delightful _solitude � deux_ and another beautiful time which
+the little one who is coming cannot comprehend till, many years hence,
+he or she will experience its charm in turn.
+
+Little things intensely loved undoubtedly bring a greater reward in
+human happiness than great and numerous possessions, the joy of which
+can be but partly grasped. Within a tiny home, a mother whose heart
+vibrates with love can find a thousand sources wherewith to enrich the
+coming life.
+
+But of all her delights, the greatest must always be the thought of the
+wonderful gift, which, at some ever nearing date, she will be able to
+give to the man whom she adores. Some men are negligent of the charms
+and enravishments of children, but I think in every man who fully loves
+and is fully loved by his wife, the thought of the child of them both
+must always be a stimulant to everything most ardently beautiful and
+profound in their natures.
+
+Pictures of the child in after life filling brightly and beautifully
+some big position in the world may flit past the mother's mind during
+this time, but, if the mother is wise, she will not too intimately
+visualize the outward form of her child as a maturing girl or boy. By
+so doing she may indirectly wrong it. (See Chapter XIV).
+
+Her delight should be to picture a tiny laughing messenger from God,
+thinly veiled so that its sex is hidden; the figure of a child a few
+years old, still full of divine innocence and radiant possibilities.
+Happy hours of bodily rest may be spent picturing it in a thousand
+beautiful actions dancing in the sunlight, a contagious centre of joy
+in the whole world around them. On such an idea of delight she may
+lavish every day invigorating thoughts and wonderful dreams; none
+will be wasted, of that she may be assured. If, at the same time, she
+is securing the coming child's bodily well-being through the proper
+material channels, then she can feel that these dreams of higher than
+material beauty are being built into reality. The secret sacred wonder
+of the process of which she is the active centre casts its spell of
+magic and delight around the willing mother. "A Garden enclosed is my
+Beloved," and she feels within her own existence the mystic sense of
+divine beauty, which one feels in another form in a walled garden in
+the summer twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Distresses
+
+    The amount of suffering that has been and is borne by women is
+    utterly beyond imagination.
+
+    HERBERT SPENCER: _Principles of Ethics_, II.
+
+
+The bodily changes which at first almost imperceptibly steal upon the
+mother, if she be a girl who has enjoyed her own physical beauty,
+and has taken that care of herself which so delightful a thing as a
+young woman's body merits, will be at first a series of amazements and
+perhaps of delights as her body rounds itself and becomes more perfect.
+At this time the husband should fill his memory with her exquisiteness,
+for though she will, in the end, return perhaps to her normal strength
+and a re-awakened and different beauty, she will never again in her
+life reach such a point of bodily perfection as she does during the
+first three months or so of her coming motherhood, culminating at about
+the close of the third month.
+
+As the years pass, hallowed and sanctified by love which is understood,
+even when grey with age, her face may gain an ever increasing beauty
+and power, but the perfection of her body is reached in the early days
+when she is first about to become a mother.
+
+To one who cares for the outward form of her body, changes will occur
+inevitably as the months pass, which may give rise to deep distresses,
+principally because they feel at the time so permanent and it is
+difficult to believe that the disfigurements will ever pass. For a
+time she must inevitably become less and less beautiful; she may
+indeed become, even to herself, repugnant. Perhaps to her as to so
+many thousands of women the sight of themselves then is a torment, and
+the conquest of this feeling is a great and increasingly difficult
+mental exercise. As this time approaches and is upon her, the young
+mother-to-be must concentrate all her conscious thought on the beauty
+of the future. She must forget the present and its cruel distortions
+and live in the months and years that are to come when she will have
+with her another life and lovely form to which she has given origin.
+
+Nothing is at present gained for our civilization by the obstinate
+blindness on the part of some, and the wilful deception on the part of
+others, which together encourage the concealment from the bride of
+what she has to face.
+
+On the one hand stand these prudes, but on the other the too eager
+and explicit, even lewd and profane and soiled minds who delight in
+lugubrious warnings.
+
+The result has been that many a woman enters upon her motherhood gaily
+and eagerly, totally unprepared for what is to follow, totally unaware
+that, by the first act of motherhood, she gives up something essential
+to herself and something which is irreplacable in all the after years.
+So great a gift should be made not only voluntarily, but consciously,
+and with full knowledge of what it entails.
+
+Cruel indeed is the callous hardness of the older mind that can see
+without desiring to help the proud and sensitive young spirit embarking
+upon a course which cannot but entail subtle difficulties at the best
+and extreme physical anguish at the worst, yet help of the kind the
+modern sensitive girl needs is almost unobtainable. Rare indeed is the
+mother of the last generation who has the power and the knowledge to
+meet the unvoiced demands of this.
+
+Acquainted as I am with all sorts and conditions of men and women, I
+am nevertheless frequently amazed and filled with burning indignation
+at the well-nigh inhuman cruelty, stupidity and hypocrisy of the older
+generation towards young potential parents. It is not an uncommon
+thing to hear a man who is unfaithful to his wife because she has lost
+her physical beauty, at the same time haranguing the public on the
+compulsory duties of parenthood on the part of all young married women,
+and coupling his denunciations with sneers at the young girl who fears
+to embark on motherhood, reviling her as selfish. Yet the cause of her
+shrinking may be that from all the weltering confusion of contradictory
+and scrappy information which may have been allowed to reach her, the
+one which has fixed itself in her mind most vividly, is that which
+promised her loss of her bodily charm and that of all she possesses
+which is most valuable to her as a bond which binds her husband's
+affection to her. The woman who is perfectly sure of the continuance of
+her husband's spiritual and romantic love does not fear the risks of
+motherhood. All who truly and deeply love, desire parenthood. But can a
+woman who was married by a shallow man only for her beauty dare to risk
+the thing which holds him to her?
+
+There is indeed a diabolical malignity in the older man who is himself
+unfaithful because of the very things in his wife which he denounces
+the younger girl for fearing.
+
+This must not be misunderstood by my readers as indicating that I think
+a woman should shrink in any way or that her husband should grudge the
+sacrifice of all the fragrance and beauty which they possess towards
+making the child of their love the citizen of the future. But with
+fervent intensity, I feel that to keep the young woman ignorant of
+facts, and, at the same time, on the one hand to upbraid and bully her
+and on the other to terrorize her with evil minded tales and tragic
+sights, is conduct which would be laughable in its absurdity did it not
+touch the spring of tears.
+
+As the months of expectant motherhood succeed one another the girl
+will find her power to walk and run, to keep up with her husband in
+his pleasure, his out-door exertions, or even to do the usual standing
+involved in the course of her house work, increasingly curtailed. This
+is perhaps the inevitable consequence of the burden of actual weight
+which results from the later growth of the child within her as it
+increases and approaches the size of a living baby.
+
+Sometimes the fortunate mother finds that she is still capable of the
+same amount of exertion to which she is generally accustomed, but,
+under modern conditions, this is but seldom. The stories of Kaffir
+women on the trek who bear their children and follow on with the
+rest, and savages whose activity is in no way curtailed, are neither
+applicable to modern conditions, nor are they fair standards to set,
+because such women do not live as the modern woman is forced to, nor
+is their bodily organization really comparable with that of our highly
+sensitive brain-evolved race.
+
+Nevertheless, with the exception of heavy exertion, the girl who is
+carrying her child should be able to indulge in a much greater amount
+of healthful exercise, without undue fatigue, than she is generally
+able to enjoy. (See also Chapter X).
+
+Most women have heard rumours of others who have been able to follow
+out almost all their usual occupations, and have felt little or
+no handicap from child bearing. Such an exceptional woman is my
+correspondent who wrote:--
+
+    I lived exactly as usual; I played golf up to the middle of the
+    seventh month and bicycled up to my very last. On the afternoon
+    of the day my second child was born (weighing 8-3/4 lb.) I was
+    shopping with a woman acquaintance, who had no idea there was
+    anything on the way.
+
+Such women, although not very many, do exist among us. Their existence
+is perhaps the source of the hope which always animates every girl
+first embarking on her parenthood that she, by the sheer force of the
+longing for health which is within her, will prove also to be such
+an exception. Sometimes this desire may be apparently fulfilled,
+but generally, unless it is coupled with much greater knowledge
+than most girls possess, as the months pass one by one, her proud
+spirit will bend, she will give up and give up and give up. Humbled,
+weakened, humiliated before herself, through the fact that she is not
+strong enough to fight what she now is inclined acquiescently to call
+"Nature," she too goes down the stream with all the myriads of other
+happy hearted girls, whose gallant endeavours have equally failed. Then
+she creeps, wearily resting by the way, where she had hoped to tread
+with a firm and lightsome step.
+
+There grows in her mind, and this is stronger the more she loves her
+husband, the added distress that she feels that she is failing him.
+He married a mate, an equal, who lighter of step could yet cover the
+ground as well as he, and who could share his amusements, his work to
+some extent perhaps, and his pleasures. She feels that she must, so
+far as she possibly can, maintain this position. This hope impels her
+particularly if they have been married but a short time, and hence
+their days of delightful untramelled companionship have been so few.
+
+In this unselfish distress, which is primarily for him, she is tempted
+to conceal her effort and tends to overstrain herself in an endeavour
+to act as completely as she can the part, as reported, of the early
+Greek or Roman matron or of the proud and savage mother who could
+bear her children as lightly as a woodland creature. Finding sooner or
+later that she _cannot_ do so, she suddenly gives in. Her strength,
+undermined by the series of distresses, the subtle shocks and blows to
+which she is secretly subjected, she yields and takes on that air of
+semi-invalidism, demanding constant care and consideration from her
+husband and those about her, which in a way represents the hauling down
+of her gallant flag. Her dreams of an easy motherhood are vanquished.
+
+She will at times be dimly conscious that she is no longer able to feel
+so acutely. This, in a way perhaps, is Nature's provision against the
+too intense experiencing of emotion, which would otherwise come with
+sensitive motherhood. The sensation can be described, as one woman put
+it, as though each one of her powers of feeling were wrapped round in
+cotton wool, deadened and clogged so that they no longer gave contact.
+This may be well, but it adds in a dim way to the various distresses,
+a sense of unreality and apartness, which, if it coincides with that
+temporary antipathy to her husband, which was noted on page 33, may
+make the mother-to-be, for the time at any rate, indeed a wanderer in
+the valley of the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Amazements
+
+    Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
+    He woke, and wondered more; for there she lay.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The young father-to-be, though a real and very important person, has
+been curiously neglected by all and sundry who concern themselves with
+the affairs of the "expectant mother," "child welfare," and the other
+social and semi-eugenic matters about which well-meaning people have so
+voluminously written and so sedulously talked.
+
+Sometimes jesting reference is made to the rather strange fact that,
+in some savage races, it is the father and not the mother who lies in
+bed for weeks after the birth of the child, but of the material and
+very real psychological experiences and physical difficulties which
+the young father is encountering and living through during the months
+before the advent of his first-born, few have any knowledge. Fewer
+still have offered the father-to-be any sympathy or help. Nevertheless
+with the increasingly perceptive and specialized individuals comprising
+our civilization, there arises an increasing number of young men
+capable of feeling and suffering in some degree corresponding to the
+great realities of which, for each, his home is the centre. And,
+moreover, it must not be forgotten that among our thoughtful classes
+are now growing up the young men whose mothers were among the pioneers
+of women's emancipation, whose mothers, therefore, were _voluntary_
+mothers who have trained their sons consciously and unconsciously,
+directly and indirectly, to be more in harmony with the true and
+natural attitude of a sensitive human being to its mate than are the
+average gross and over-bearing males, sons of enslaved and involuntary
+mothers. The sensitiveness of the modern young man towards his duties
+as a father, towards his wife as the mother of his child is, in my
+experience, very remarkable in its extent and its beauty. I have direct
+and indirect evidence from thousands that among the young Army men in
+various messes on the continent in recent years, an unexpected racial
+seriousness of attitude was shown when the necessary key that unlocked
+the secret chamber was available. Although it is a most deplorable
+truth, that there has been an increase in the racial diseases and an
+outward levity towards women, this is less an inherent baseness on
+the part of the young men than the result of the existence of the
+false conditions in which they have been placed, due to the criminal
+mishandling the whole racial problem has received from those older and
+in a position of authority.
+
+In the nature of things, at first the young man can scarcely avoid
+taking fatherhood much more lightly than the girl takes motherhood.
+In normal, sweet, and healthy men, a desire for children of their own
+is very strong. Yet, however sympathetic their dispositions, however
+observant they may be of others, the unmarried young men cannot, under
+present conditions, have a full comprehension of what the attainment
+of motherhood involves in sacrifice for the mother. Hence the ideally
+mated young couple embarking upon parenthood set about it gaily, but
+before many months have passed, the young father-to-be must also be
+filled with amazements. For, control her impulse to be alone as she may
+(see Chapter III), curb her induced fretfulness as she may, the general
+psychological attraction between the man and the woman must be affected
+by the physiological state of the mother. The young man should find
+himself, if not actually repelled as the months progress, at least
+much more able to give his wife an impersonal tenderness in place of an
+active desire for physical union than he would have imagined possible.
+However sweet their love, if they are average human beings and not
+exceptional, he will perhaps, from time to time, be amazed and pained
+by unexpected peevishness and fretfulness, perhaps by what appear to
+be quite irrational and unjustifiable complaints from his wife. He
+should be made acquainted with the facts on page 33, and should apply
+them to himself and his wife. Knowing of the liability of such a
+temporary development, he can guard against any permanent injuries to
+love arising from the experience, such as often do result when it is
+unexpected and misunderstood.
+
+I remember once being told by a nurse who had been at a large maternity
+home that of those who came there for the birth of their child she had
+only seen one couple between whom there was no bickering, not even
+infinitesimal criticisms and gusts of temper to ruffle the surface
+of their intense and romantic devotion. "Generally the women at this
+time," she said, "lead their husbands an awful dance, and are always
+snapping at them, but they do not really mean it, of course."
+
+Men, on the whole, I think (although it is difficult and dangerous to
+generalize) are less tolerant of "superficial snappiness" than women,
+and the ruffling of the surface which comes with a few angry words
+enters probably deeper into the life of a sensitive man than it does in
+the life of a girl of corresponding type, although, on the other hand,
+a man may very quickly acclimatize himself to ignoring such comparative
+trivialities. Yet at first, at any rate, they not only amaze but
+distress, and when they appear irrational and swiftly pass, they may,
+although a trifle in themselves, be the cause of much misunderstanding
+and may be the foundation of more serious later disharmonies.
+
+To the man who has any biological knowledge, all the wonderful
+processes of the growth of the unseen embryo, leading up to birth, are
+full of amazed wonder. If a man knows, as all should in these days
+(see my book, _Married Love_, for information about the fundamental
+processes of mating) how minute is the single sperm cell from which
+his growing child takes its rise, the immensity of the results of the
+activity of that tiny cell appear indeed stupendous. His flower-like
+bride is changed, her whole body is permeated, altered and impressed by
+the activities of this particle of himself united with its counterpart
+within her.
+
+Only for the utterly callous can the experience of the months of
+waiting be anything but full of continual reminders of the amazing
+complexity of life. Long ago Tennyson felt:--
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+    I pluck you out of the crannies,
+        I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
+        Little flower--but _if_ I could understand
+    What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+    I should know what God and man is.
+
+Even more filled with humble and profound amazement must be the future
+father, who feels that his wife is now the very centre of the greatest
+mystery and wonder of the universe. Looking at her, brooding in her
+dreams, his mind must be continually filled with the consciousness of
+the eager active growth that is in progress, and the intense desire to
+take part in the mystical processes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Delights
+
+    A Garden enclosed is my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
+
+        _Song of Solomon._
+
+
+It is said that men naturally have a more casual interest in fatherhood
+than women have in motherhood. It is sometimes even definitely said
+that men do not have a passion for fatherhood or care profoundly for
+young children. This is not my experience. A much larger number of
+men than are credited with it feel an intense desire for fatherhood,
+and take a great delight in young children. Though they should share
+the joy equally, yet the father often has a larger proportion of the
+pleasure of the little child, while to the mother comes a larger
+proportion of the burden and the difficulties. To the child itself,
+too, the father is often more precious than the mother. An accidental
+testimony to this effect was given by the little daughter of one of
+those "devoted wives and mothers" who thought woman's place was only
+the home, and a mother's duty only to care for her children. The child
+and I were chatting and the little one misunderstood something I said,
+and thought that I asked which of its parents it loved most. The child
+quickly answered, "Oh, I like father best, _of course_--mother is
+there every day and she washes us." The privilege of being a child's
+favourite is no small one, and, as this child shows us, a father may
+win it with unfair facility.
+
+The conscious dream of parenthood, a parenthood which shall give the
+children the best possible chance in life undoubtedly lies behind the
+majority of marriages. Hence when the young man who has married with
+the desire, perhaps not for immediate, but for ultimate fatherhood,
+first learns the definite fact that he has already inaugurated the
+beginnings of his child's development he must experience an intense
+and unique wave of feeling, which, as in the early days of marriage,
+with all its freshness, and with the actual physical difficulties yet
+unfaced, must be one primarily of buoyant delight.
+
+There is also in the earlier months, for the man of artistic
+perceptions, an unique experience in the appreciation of his wife's
+enhanced beauty. It is perhaps known that the most critical artistic
+view of woman claims the highest point of perfection in her form
+about the third month of her first period of motherhood. To a pair of
+lovers who have delighted in their bodily beauty, as all natural and
+healthy and well formed young people should do, this period, when the
+loveliness of the woman is at its very height, and when the man can
+feel that he has contributed to its perfection, must be a time of very
+special entrancement. That it is something from within his most sacred
+being that has added this glow and radiance in perfecting the rounded
+form of the body that he adored in its virginal grace, must give a man
+with artistic and poetic potentialities an all too brief but never
+to be forgotten experience. The young father-to-be should not lose a
+day of these swiftly passing weeks, for this phase, like all human
+developments, but even more intensely so than most, is passing and
+transient, only to be immortalized in the permanence of a perceptive
+memory.
+
+When, as is inevitable, it has passed, and is followed within another
+month or two by a phase so acutely, perhaps agonizingly its reverse,
+the crucifixion of the mother's sensitive feelings which is entailed
+should be hallowed and elevated in both their minds by that deeper,
+less personal, and more profoundly racial delight, the picturing with
+each other of the radiance, the strength, the power, the purpose and
+passion of the life which they are creating. So tragically soon after
+the days when he has feasted his eyes and filled his memory with her
+beauty, she will, she must withdraw her body from him and for months
+to come he will be shut out entirely from all sight of her. The reward
+will be an inner experience of the mind.
+
+A day will come when, for the first time, the father-to-be may lay his
+hand upon his wife below her waist and feel the sturdy little kicks of
+his future son or daughter, and can know that, though hidden from him,
+still there is beside him a vital and independent being whom he has
+wakened to life. The presence of this little creature whom he has not
+seen colours and permeates every hour of their joint existence, and
+links the family in an extraordinary unity, the full significance of
+which I will consider in Chapter XII.
+
+When the later months pass, the father-to-be will have lost one of his
+most exquisite memories if he has not already talked and laughed with
+his future child, and if he and his wife and child together have not
+united in that most mystical union possible to human flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Distresses
+
+    When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is
+    shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the
+    touch of the one in the play of the many.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+With all the passion for children, with the protective chivalrous
+feeling towards his wife which a well born and well knit man
+instinctively feels, through all the joy of fatherhood that is coming
+and the delight in its accomplishment, there must run a thread
+of intense distress at his own helplessness to help. With every
+consideration that the most resourceful man can think of towards his
+wife, with every helpful, tender, encouraging, supporting thing that he
+can do, how little is his share during all these months in the burden
+of the coming parenthood. If, through sympathy, he feels each pang his
+wife may feel; if, through sympathy, he curtails his activity to rest
+with her, nevertheless it is a voluntary abnegation, and if it became
+intolerable at any moment he could escape; he could run over the hills;
+he could go for a day's fierce solitude and activity wherever his feet
+desired to lead him; but he knows that his wife _cannot_, that she is
+chained, that not for a moment of the day or night for nine months can
+she lay down the burden for a brief rest--that there is no exit for her
+from this imprisonment of so many of her potentialities but through the
+gateway of agonizing pain.
+
+The instinct behind marriage is often a feeling of chivalrous devotion
+towards a tender and confiding girl, and the desire to give her every
+protection. The man finds, however, that his act has placed the one
+whom he desired to _protect_ in such a position that she must bear the
+greatest burden possible for a human being to bear, and must bear it
+alone. This must be a deep distress to an imaginative man of integrity,
+although the distress be mingled with other and joyous feelings. To
+pretend that it is not so, to say that the joy of coming parenthood
+should and does wipe out all such under-currents of thought is merely
+to be callous or silly. To repress an intense feeling, to pretend that
+it is not there, may give an apparent surface bravery or brightness.
+But such repression is ultimately destructive to the consciousness and
+whole physique of the one who, thus gallantly to himself, endeavours
+to deny the truth, and is often apt to lead to deeper disorders. The
+modern school of psycho-analysts who endeavour to set right the effects
+of mental strain often discover that throughout life, perhaps dating
+from childhood, a personality has been handicapped and weakened by some
+deep suppression of an intensely experienced emotion.
+
+In my opinion, the pretence that a sensitive man does not feel, and
+does not endeavour to conceal his feeling about his relation to his
+wife, particularly at the time of their first coming parenthood is to
+dishonour man's capacity and his imagination. Why imply that a rational
+man does not experience what surely all but a brute must feel. It
+impoverishes our life of emotional expression, and it tends to injure
+the man himself, to increase the strain by the pretence that the strain
+is not there. I know, for instance, one man who fainted at the time his
+wife gave birth to their child, and who, under no consideration, would
+allow her to have a second child, although he had intensely desired
+and looked forward to the fatherhood of a large family before he knew
+the actual physical experiences which it entailed. Such a man, in my
+opinion, was a good father wasted by an excess of emotion made all the
+more intensely destructive to himself by the endeavour to maintain
+the totally artificial and indeed the crude attitude which is supposed
+to be "correct" for a man, namely a sort of dissociation of himself
+from his wife's experiences and a hardened lack of recognition of all
+that is involved. It is surely better to recognize that there is that
+intense and poignant sense of helplessness, that the sensitive and
+developed young man should and does feel it, but that it should be
+recognized as the compensating price which he pays for fatherhood.
+
+If we are ever to raise our race to the point when every child is
+so precious that no child can be hungry, neglected or unwanted, the
+conscious price which the _father_ pays for his children will be one
+of the assets in valuing the children of the nation. It is, therefore,
+better to acknowledge and encourage such sensitiveness in the father by
+allowing the open and honourable expression of such feeling, and thus
+to avoid that almost neurotic and destructive effect of the suppression
+of such intense feeling as warped the father mentioned above. Because,
+if the wife avails herself of the advice I give in this book, and if
+the time for parenthood is chosen rightly and wisely in relation to her
+general health, and it is ascertained before she embarks upon potential
+motherhood that her bodily and bony structure is fit for motherhood,
+then though the experiences of both will be difficult and profound
+in their testing of the quality of each other, motherhood should
+not result in any excessive strain, and should indeed be a time of
+wonderful life activity.
+
+With all needless ill-health, and wanton ugliness and wasteful distress
+which at present are artificially involved in it, once swept away,
+potential motherhood should not be an unendurable burden. Though the
+father's feelings should be intense and poignant on behalf of his wife
+and though she may go through searching experiences, yet the gladness
+should so preponderatingly weigh in the balance in excess of the
+troubles and difficulties that no normally healthy and well endowed
+young couple should ever suffer so much that they dare not face a
+second maternity, as happens alas only too often to-day.
+
+On quite a lower plane, but nevertheless on the one so essential that
+it greatly affects all the rest of life, is the too frequent distress
+of the young father-to-be about the more material provision of all
+that is necessary for his wife. In counting the cost of the coming
+parenthood, too often quite heavy expenses are unforeseen, and, with
+a fixed income, the young man may have the intense distress of being
+unable to provide all that his wife not only wishes but really ought
+to have. Recent years, for instance, were times of extraordinary
+difficulty for all women who bore children, and who had a naturally
+healthy and proper desire to eat fruit. With oranges at a shilling
+each, as they were in the winter of 1918-19, how could an ordinary
+young couple afford a glassful of orange juice a day, which I recommend
+as profoundly valuable (see p. 80). It was obviously impossible. Such
+a time, of course, one hopes will never be repeated. It was a period
+of undue strain, when none, considering the future of the race, should
+have borne a child unless private reasons made it specially advisable.
+
+But apart from such excessive and unprecedented difficulties, there
+are, and probably always will be, difficulties for the young man who
+desires to provide everything that can benefit his wife. Not long ago
+in the newspapers, a budget of the cost of the baby in an ordinary
+lower middle class home was given, and there was an item: "Dentist's
+bill for the mother, twenty pounds." A wise comment was made on
+this that, alas, it is by no means an unusual, indeed it is a usual
+experience that the coming child adversely affects the mother's teeth,
+and both for the health of the baby and the mother they should be
+attended to. Possibly, even her very life may depend on her teeth being
+thoroughly free from decay after the birth. A heavy dentist's bill is
+too often an unexpected anxiety to the young husband, so that the
+teeth are neglected. Neglected teeth either weaken, or may actually
+result in the death of the mother from their decay, causing internal
+poisoning, to which she is peculiarly liable after bearing a child.
+
+Then too, there are unexpected and heavy expenses which are unforeseen
+through a variety of circumstances, such, for instance, as the
+uncertainty of the date of the birth. Those who go to nursing homes,
+as many are now doing owing to housing and service difficulties,
+experience this trial more acutely than others. They expect and plan,
+perhaps, for the birth within a given week, and the baby may delay two
+or three or even more weeks beyond the calculated time. Young couples,
+scarcely able to afford the heavy expenses of a good nursing home,
+who yet had saved sufficient to allow the wife three weeks there, may
+have their plans quite dislocated by a delay of three weeks in the
+infant's appearance, resulting in the mother unexpectedly having to
+remain double the length of time for which they had saved the money
+for the nursing home. The young father is then faced by the sordid
+difficulty of finding the necessary money, and unless he is gifted in
+such a way as to make extra earning a possibility, is under a condition
+of strain. Just when all his free energy and time should be devoted
+to companionship with his wife and infant, he has to spend extra hours
+working at high pressure in order to meet unexpected expenses. The
+young father-to-be who wishes to maintain the right and beautiful
+atmosphere around his coming child should inform himself of all certain
+and likely contingencies of expense, and should make due provision for
+these before the great act of calling into being one for whom he is
+primarily responsible.
+
+To a healthy man, also, there may be a period of chastening experience
+in sharing daily life with one who is out of health. Though the
+prospective mother _ought_ not to be in any way invalided, yet, alas,
+as things are, too often she is, and only an unselfish man will fail to
+resent the personal sacrifice which he endures as a result.
+
+There is a certain self-centred type of man who may, with the most
+model intentions and in order to lead a self-respecting life, marry,
+and who may find the resulting pregnancy of his wife very disconcerting
+to himself and very thwarting to his own requirements. With a certain
+bitter selfishness, this attitude was unconsciously expressed by one
+of my correspondents in the following words: "Something must be done
+to prevent any more children; imagine what a wretched time I have
+with my wife sick every day for nine months." Perhaps the reader can
+scarcely restrain a smile at so callously self-centred an attitude on
+the part of a husband, but, nevertheless, that man does have a real and
+difficult physical problem before him. One way, of course, in which to
+help such a man would be to place such help and knowledge before his
+wife that her motherhood should be more normal, and not so terrible an
+experience for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Mother
+
+    We cannot reason with our cells, for they know so much more than we
+    do that they cannot understand us; but though we cannot reason with
+    them, we can find out what they have been most accustomed to, and
+    what therefore they are most likely to expect; and we can see that
+    they get this, as far as it is in our power to give it them, and
+    may then generally leave the rest to them.
+
+        SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+To far too many women the time when they are carrying a child is a
+period of strain and semi-invalidism, a time filled not only with
+surprises and difficulties, but too often coloured with actual
+distress and ill-health. _This should not be._ The time of prospective
+motherhood should be one of buoyancy, health, physical activity and
+mental vitality. The low standard of health which the modern woman
+tolerates is deplorable.
+
+But to whom can the young mother-to-be turn for advice and assistance?
+Such healthy, happy, prospective motherhood does not come by instinct
+in our city life. Those around her, older than she, who have had
+children of their own may perhaps be able to give her a hint here and
+a little piece of advice there, which to some extent may alleviate
+her difficulty or pierce with a faint shadow of light the gloom of
+perplexity in the ever deepening unknown into which she is entering
+for the first time; but nearly all such women have themselves gone
+blindly and individually through this period of immense significance
+and mystery without having had any rational help from one devoted to
+the maintenance of _health_.
+
+Almost every book written to advise the coming mother is written by a
+doctor of disease, with very few exceptions by doctors who tolerate
+what is, in my opinion, a disgracefully low standard of general health
+in women. A distinguished gynecologist who, in cross-examination
+before a commission persisted in maintaining that the "daily morning
+sickness" which is so prevalent in women who are carrying a child is
+"physiologically right and natural" (indeed, he implied almost that it
+was necessary) represents an attitude of mind very general and capable
+of far-reaching hypnotic injury to the community as a whole.
+
+By far the best and sanest book available for healthy women is one
+to which I have already referred, namely _Tokology_, by Dr. Alice
+Stockham, but this book has its inaccuracies and its drawbacks, and
+even its pages are too much occupied with the wretched and handicapping
+troubles which women do experience in large numbers, but _which should
+not be_.
+
+Nevertheless, to allow a young girl or woman to enter upon these months
+of trial without making clear to her what she has to face, is cruel
+indeed. For a sensitive woman the experience, even at its best, and
+when most free from incapacities, is yet incredibly and penetratingly
+more terrible than she anticipated. The more sensitive and more
+conscious she is, the deeper and profounder may be her joy in her
+coming motherhood, but, at the same time, the more intense the physical
+experiences through which she must pass.
+
+The modern sensitive young woman does not take things blindly and
+patiently and with resignation, with a pious belief in her own
+inferiority, which may have helped to dull and moderate the sensations
+of her grandmothers. The more evolved she is, the more she may be
+willing to bow to natural law, but the less is she content to suffer
+wanton cruelties imposed upon her by ignorance, stupidity or coercion.
+
+Many are the midwives, maternity nurses and medical practitioners with
+whom I have discussed such matters, and from whom, often incognito,
+I have asked advice. I may say that _none_ gave _all the necessary_
+advice, not one gave one-tenth of what is in this book, only one or two
+gave any necessary simple advice in the sympathetic and understanding
+fashion desirable, and only one or two appeared to have any clear
+_generalizations_ or scientific understanding of the facts about which
+I asked. The resignation, the shrugging of the shoulders in the face
+of things which would otherwise make one weep, or the cheerful braving
+out or pretending that things are not as bad as they are, which is the
+general attitude of mind of the maternity nurse is little more helpful
+than that of the practitioner. Concerning many of the practical facts
+of the later months of pregnancy and actual birth, and the succeeding
+weeks of recovery, the properly trained midwife seems on the whole
+wiser than the average general practitioner, wiser even than the
+specialist who may come at a crisis, but who does not watch his patient
+through the succeeding weeks.
+
+Many young women who have recently been mothers have told me of the
+mental and physical horror which they then experienced, and of the
+added horror that they should feel horror. They have asked me to
+generalize, if it is possible, from their cases in such a way as to
+help others who enter upon maternity's difficulties for the first
+time, so that they may at least be spared that terrible sense of
+isolation and of exceptional failure when they experience one by one
+the things which are inevitable, or the things which are, by our
+artificial lives, so frequently imposed.
+
+The bearing of a child very often may be complicated by actual disease,
+and then requires, of course, expert medical attention. With those who
+are in any sense actually ill, and who should be in the hands of a
+doctor, I am not here dealing, for, in this respect, as throughout my
+other books, I desire only to write of health for the healthy so that
+they may have sufficient knowledge to maintain their health and raise
+the vitality of the race.
+
+I may say here that, even for the healthiest, it is very advisable, not
+only for her first, but for every succeeding pregnancy, that a woman
+should be examined and measured by some wise and healthy-minded medical
+practitioner or midwife at least once during the first three months
+and twice again during the last three months, but that, for the first
+baby, it would be better to go at least every month for examination. In
+that way, the various insidious disturbances of the excretory system,
+and other fundamental things which _may_ go a little wrong, even in an
+otherwise healthy woman, can be detected immediately and dealt with.
+Many however, find a great difficulty in bringing themselves to do
+this.
+
+Undoubtedly it is much better for the prospective mother to go to a
+specialist, old enough to be wise and experienced and mellow, and
+yet young and virile and active enough to be acquainted with modern
+knowledge, and healthy and clean enough to look for and to desire
+health and normality in those who come for advice.
+
+This should pre-eminently be the special field for women doctors,
+but there is not nearly a sufficient body of them with the necessary
+qualifications to meet the requirements of the community, and I should
+like to see a new profession created for women who, to the experience
+and the training of first-class midwives, have added a sufficient
+training in general medicine to be specialized to advise the _healthy_
+prospective mother, and to be able to detect at once anything which
+should necessitate handing her on to the doctor of disease. Such
+practitioners should rank in status somewhere between the cultivated
+midwife of gentle birth (such as a Queen Charlotte's Hospital nurse)
+and the medical woman. Thus the prospective mother would be spared
+that hard and bitter contact with one who has become myopic in the
+observation of disease, and would be able to go to someone specially
+trained to encourage health. Meanwhile, as this is but a bright picture
+of what may come in the future (and that _will_ come if women make a
+sufficient demand for it) it may spare many women distress if I set out
+the physical difficulties and peculiarities which are most liable to
+occur with a _healthy_ woman.
+
+From the welter of accounts of the effects of pregnancy, I have
+disentangled into three groups those which normal women may have to
+face. The difficulties are:--
+
+(1) Those nature-imposed; these are essential; they cannot be avoided
+by the healthiest woman. They can be perhaps, to some extent,
+mitigated. They are things which the coming mother must be helped
+through and over; she cannot be saved from them.
+
+(2) Those entirely artificial; these are quite needless and are the
+results of either ignorance or our gross disregard of known facts, and
+can be entirely eradicated.
+
+(3) Those which are to-day very usual, but which knowledge and a better
+mode of life may entirely conquer.
+
+Now to consider first the third group: those which are general, but
+which a knowledge could or should conquer.
+
+One of the first signs that she is to become a mother, and one of the
+most usual experiences of a young woman when this time begins, is the
+daily recurrence of that penetrating nausea and sickness usually after
+she has risen in the morning, called "Morning Sickness." This is so
+usual that medical practitioners rely on it to some extent as a sign
+of pregnancy. It is described in almost every book for the prospective
+mother, and, as I have mentioned (p. 72), it is sometimes even
+maintained by distinguished gynecologists as a physiological function,
+_i.e._, a normal function.
+
+Now this is a very nauseating and wretched experience to the majority
+of women, and it is one which, I maintain, is entirely imposed by
+ignorance, wrong living and the general hypnotic effect of others'
+perverted views on the woman's system. In those women whose internal
+organs are improperly placed or somewhat malformed, it occurs as a
+physiological result of pressure or other disturbance. _In true health
+there is no physiological reason whatever for the morning sickness_,
+and a woman who lives as she should live during the time of her coming
+motherhood need not experience it. This should, in the next generation,
+be entirely conquered, because it is to a very large extent caused
+by allowing, even forcing to wear corsets, girls when they are still
+unformed and developing. Those women who have never worn corsets in
+the whole of their lives, and who dress as they should dress, and do
+as they should do during the months when they are becoming mothers,
+seldom experience morning sickness. Though there are some who, when
+they know the child is coming, discard their corsets too late, and
+these may still experience this unpleasant feature. The extraordinary
+adaptability and vitality in a woman's system, however, is a remarkable
+thing, and even those who begin later in life than they should to train
+for motherhood may yet accomplish much.
+
+Granted a healthy, well-formed body, a previous life of normal
+activity, sensible attention to the following points will insure
+complete freedom from morning sickness in all but the exceptional and
+pre-disposed:--
+
+    (_a_) Discard every scrap of heavy or constricting clothing,
+    wearing only the lightest garments hung from the shoulders entirely.
+
+As I said in _Married Love_ the standard of dressing for the
+prospective mother, whose garments should be of the lightest wool and
+silk if possible, and should be so lightly hung that a butterfly can
+walk the length of her body without tearing its wings.
+
+    (_b_) Discard all rich, heavy and over-cooked foods, such as
+    pastries and hot cakes, dried peas and beans, rich game or highly
+    seasoned dishes, and live as much as possible on uncooked foods and
+    simple milk puddings, stewed fruit, lightly cooked meat and fish,
+    with the largest obtainable quantity of very fresh ripe fruit.
+
+    (_c_) Start the day not with tea, but with the juice of two or
+    three oranges squeezed into a tumbler.
+
+If she does these things a normal woman may go through the whole nine
+months without experiencing one single moment of nausea, as many a
+woman has done.
+
+A retardation of the action of the bowels or constipation is very
+frequent, and is a cause of many other ill-effects. A right diet such
+as I advise, adding for this purpose honey and brown bread, does much
+to prevent it; if it exists in spite of this, take suitable bending
+exercises (see also page 72), even a warm hydrostatic douche (using a
+douche-can with a little common salt in the water), but do _not_ take
+regular drugs or "aperients."
+
+Another of the very frequent experiences of the mother who is carrying
+a child, particularly towards the later months, is the enlargement of
+the veins of the legs and ankles and the formation of varicose veins.
+These may become very serious if neglected, and even if the woman is
+being doctored, unless, at the same time, she regularly follows the
+proper healthy method of dieting and living. In addition to the dieting
+and clothing described above, which will make her almost certain to be
+immune from varicose veins, she should take warm comfortable sitz baths
+every evening, and she should lie down for at least half an hour or an
+hour in the middle of the day or early evening with her feet raised a
+few inches above the level of her head.
+
+One of the most serious difficulties, felt even by those who avoid all
+other drawbacks, is sleeplessness, particularly in the last month or
+two when the activities of the child may be very disturbing. In this,
+much depends on the position in which the child is lying, and sometimes
+the position of the child can be improved by massage and manipulation
+by a trained midwife or doctor. Something also can be done by the
+mother herself through her mental attitude and hand touch on the child,
+and also by taking hot sitz baths nightly before going to bed. Still
+more, however, is accomplished by right diet, clothes, exercise and
+happiness (see also Chapter XII).
+
+The habit of taking aspirin regularly or in large quantities, which too
+many women indulge in if sleepless during this time, is extremely bad
+both for the child and for the mother. Drugs of any sort should not be
+appealed to. If it is possible during these later months, sleep will be
+much more refreshing, and the advantage will be very great both to the
+coming child and the mother, if her bed can be arranged on a verandah
+or out of doors, but it must not be forgotten that towards the end of
+the period the expectant mother ought not to be out of ear-shot of
+someone.
+
+Now to consider the second group of disabilities; those entirely
+the result of artificial outlook and condition. Among these must be
+classed the inability to walk any distance or to take part in active
+work of any sort. This is partly imposed by the hesitation of a woman
+to be seen at this time, and particularly to face the vulgar and
+leering attitude of the general public, and it is partly also due to
+the general heaviness or strain on the muscles or to the presence of
+varicose veins. If these have, by the methods just described, been
+almost or entirely avoided, she will find that her natural activity is
+much less reduced than it would otherwise be. To walk a mile or two,
+or even three miles the day before or even the day of the birth is not
+at all beyond what can be expected from an ordinary healthy woman who
+lives as she should.
+
+The necessity perpetually to be fussing, to be taking tonics or
+drugs or medicines, to be thinking only of herself and never of any
+general or greater theme, is also eliminated when the general health
+is improved, and any mental or bodily activity which the mother can
+indulge in without a sense of strain is advantageous to the child as
+well as to herself.
+
+The highly nervous condition and overstrained state of so many modern
+women during this time is due entirely to the artificial social lives,
+involving late hours, which they try to lead. The mother-to-be should
+give up almost all social engagements which keep her out of bed after
+9 o'clock. Sleep, fresh air, exercise under the healthiest natural
+conditions she can command, coupled with the right diet, will secure
+her health and strength throughout the time.
+
+The difficulties, however, about which help is most needed are the
+first group, those nature-imposed and inevitable difficulties which
+the woman _has_ to face, and which, without instruction in the things
+she might do to mitigate them, often lead her to suffer intensely,
+though needlessly, and tend to have life-long effects on her health and
+appearance. Simple and sometimes obvious precautions are required, and
+yet these are almost unknown to the generality of advisers to whom the
+prospective mother can turn.
+
+The first and most obvious inmost change that affects her is that
+felt in the muscles below the waist, particularly those which run
+vertically, and which support, by their elasticity and strength, the
+whole front of the body. As the months pass and the child and its
+attendant tissues grow, there is a slowly increasing strain on these
+muscles. As the enlargement proceeds the skin will also stretch, and
+the under-skin and tissues beneath it are finally stretched almost to
+breaking-point, stretched sometimes so that they do break apart and
+leave ultimate permanent little scars under the skin of the mother.
+Few apparently know, but all _should_ know, that this can be almost
+entirely avoided (by fortunate women entirely avoided), if the skin
+and tissues immediately below it are kept supple by daily rubbing with
+olive oil from the fifth month. Perhaps from the fourth month once a
+week, and certainly from the fifth month daily, the mother should rub
+the lower part of her body and her breasts with a little olive oil.
+This will not only have a soothing effect upon the skin, but will
+assist its elasticity in such a way that she may return to her virgin
+condition without leaving those tell-tale scars which so often mark
+a woman, and which many, even highly trained maternity nurses and
+doctors, seem to think are inevitable. Such scars _are not inevitable_,
+and this very simple precaution, coupled with exercise, will frequently
+be sufficient safeguard for the woman who desires to avoid them
+altogether.
+
+The same internal growth which enlarges the muscles and strains the
+skin will also sometimes press apart the two main vertical muscles in
+such a way that there is a tendency for inner tissues to project, and
+for the last month or two this may be very uncomfortable without in
+any way being dangerous. It is then advisable to wear a small stiff
+pad over this and fasten it in place with a narrow, soft elastic band.
+The use of a localized plaster very often strains the skin and leaves
+scars or makes it sore. It is wise to have the small hard central
+bandage wherever there is a tendency to localized projection as will be
+self-evident to anyone who experiences it.
+
+The natural darkening of the colour of the skin when it is strained
+and stretched as it must be is very displeasing to the eye and,
+particularly to a young girl whose beautiful body has been her delight,
+may be a cause of great distress and self-repugnance. It is well that
+she should be helped over this most anxious time of self-detestation
+by the reliable assurance that it is only a temporary phase, and that
+if she keeps in good health, and rubs herself with pure oil for two or
+three months after birth as well as before, the skin will be entirely
+freed from any stained or discoloured appearance, and will return to
+its normal condition.
+
+As the months pass, the actual physical weight of the body will
+increase, gradually becoming a greater burden, so that long distance
+walking and any acute activity such as running or tennis-playing
+must become impossible. Nevertheless if the diet and mode of living
+suggested above is followed out this will be very much less
+embarrassing than is usually experienced.
+
+Many forms of support or maternity corsets are advertised or medically
+recommended to assist supporting the weight at such times, but, unless
+the woman has any actual slipping of the position of the organs or
+any deformity, she is very much better not to take such proffered
+assistance for they will form a broken reed, and, as one knows, "the
+broken reed pierces the hand." It is much better for her to strengthen
+her own muscles by slow and careful exercise, bending forward until she
+touches the ground or as nearly touches the ground as possible; also
+lying on her back on the ground and rising without touching the floor
+with her hands and arms; also slowly raising the feet forward above the
+head while lying on the back, and then allowing them to drop slowly to
+the ground, this last exercise being very strengthening to the central
+muscles of the body wall (detailed accounts of other useful exercises
+will be found in Dr. Alice Stockham's _Tokology_). So long as there is
+no strain upon her, she should exercise throughout the whole of the
+time. She would then not need any artificial support, and would be much
+better without it.
+
+I have never seen it elsewhere clearly stated, but I have discovered
+that one very important reason against corsets is that, however well
+shaped and loose they may be, they tend to touch and exert some slight
+pressure on the soft tissues at the back of the waist; they must do so,
+merely to remain upon the body without dropping off, and this amount
+of pressure is sufficient to induce morning sickness (see p. 88) for
+the following among other reasons. As the womb grows in the centre of
+the body it pushes aside and to the back the many yards of soft tubular
+alimentary canal which normally lie coiled in the front of the body,
+and, if there is no constriction or pressure, these tend to find room
+for themselves round the waist line and to the back, so that there
+appears what seems almost like a coil or roll of fat round the waist.
+This disposition is very advantageous, however, and should not be
+interfered with in the way any corset must interfere, and it greatly
+reduces the ungainly frontal size and helps to keep the body better
+balanced (see p. 91).
+
+At first the breasts will become firmer and larger and will support
+themselves more readily than at any time, but later on their shape
+somewhat changes and they tend to fall. They should then have carefully
+slung and properly arranged supports looped over the shoulder. Neglect
+of this often results in the final and lifelong loss of the beauty of
+the bosom, and it is indeed a cruel thing that the average doctor or
+nurse appears not to be capable of giving any useful advice on this
+point, so that hundreds of thousands of women have not only lost their
+beauty, but have been told that it is an inevitable and natural result
+of having borne a child. That it is well-nigh inevitable under modern
+unaided conditions, may be true. With proper support, proper massage
+and treatment afterwards, the ugly breasts need not have been, and need
+not be.
+
+A thing which often distresses girls, but which however unsightly it
+is while present is a temporary and passing phenomenon, is the sudden
+appearance of freckles, even large patches of brown colouring matter,
+on the skin during the time the baby is forming. So far as I am aware
+nothing can be done to prevent it, and if as sometimes happens these
+brown patches even appear on the face, it is a misfortune which must be
+endured as stoically as possible, encouraged with the knowledge that it
+will entirely pass.
+
+Another curious thing I know one woman experienced, and about which
+I am awaiting further evidence, was the apparent transplantation by
+the child in the mother of the strong black body hairs of the father.
+The result was that during the later months of carrying and for a few
+months after birth, the mother's lower limbs and forearms had a thick
+growth of masculine-like hair, which nearly all fell off within six
+months after the birth.
+
+The tendency that the coming child has to extract nutriment from the
+mother's tissues often results in the loss or temporary spoiling of two
+of her beauties, the beauty of her nails and the beauty of her hair.
+These are apt to suffer unless she is warned in time and protects them.
+The injury to them probably depends on the withdrawal of the proper
+quantity of fat from the tissues. It is, therefore, advisable for the
+mother-to-be to rub her nails and hair with some suitable natural oil.
+Refined paraffin, almond oil or castor oil for the hair are by far
+the best, and for the nails some animal grease such as lanoline, or
+perhaps simple vaseline. Expensive concoctions, very much advertised
+and claiming wonderful properties, generally owe anything which they
+may contain to these ingredients, but more frequently contain little or
+nothing of any value, and are often harmful.
+
+The more fundamental, and, alas, almost inevitable result of bearing
+a child is that it extracts not only the fat from the system, but the
+hardening matter from the teeth. This indeed is, so far as I am aware,
+a theft from the mother by the next generation which no knowledge of
+its liability can prevent, and which can only be met by a careful
+supervision of the mother's teeth both before and after birth. Women
+differ in the amount they lose, but it is, alas, one of the almost
+inevitable things that there shall be a certain weakening of the teeth.
+Sometimes this will right itself and teeth which shook in their sockets
+immediately after the birth may apparently harden again and refix
+themselves firmly, but if the weakening takes the form of actual decay,
+they must be attended to.
+
+In this respect the diet recommended by Dr. Stockham in _Tokology_,
+which advocates the elimination of all calcareous food is perhaps
+inadvisable if strictly followed out, because the growing child insists
+on mineral matter, and it simply takes it from the mother's structure
+if it does not get it in other ways. I have, therefore, thought it
+advisable not entirely to eliminate the wheat and other bone making
+materials from the usual diet as Dr. Stockham recommends, but to
+maintain a certain proportion of wheat, especially whole wheat, in the
+food. Her advice to replace rich dishes by simple rice, stewed fruits,
+etc., is certainly wise, and still more important is it to follow her
+warm recommendation to eat large quantities of fresh fruit.
+
+One of the perfectly natural, but to the young mother rather
+unexpected, results of the changes of the later months is the
+alteration which gradually comes in the position of the centre of
+gravity of her whole body. She is of course scarcely conscious of
+this, and yet it is a point of some importance, because it results
+in a certain liability to slip and to fall, particularly coming
+downstairs. The danger of such a fall is less to the child, which is
+safely surrounded by a buffer of fluid and by the mother's protective
+muscles, but more to the mother herself, who, in falling, may strain or
+injure herself. The growth which results in this change in the centre
+of gravity comes too rapidly for the system quite perfectly to adjust
+itself to it. It will be remembered how long it takes a baby to learn
+to balance itself upright upon its feet; the adult mother-to-be has
+had a whole lifetime knowing just how to balance, and every muscle
+has become adjusted to the centre of gravity in its accustomed place.
+The change in the distribution of weight changes the position of the
+centre of gravity to some extent, sufficiently at any rate to throw
+the co-ordination of many years somewhat out of gear, and it is,
+therefore, wise for the expectant mother to take particular care not
+to slip or stumble unexpectedly. The sudden and active movement of the
+child which may kick or turn with no warning may cause her quite to
+lose her balance, particularly if she is on a steep staircase. It is
+well, therefore, to make a special point of keeping guard against this
+possibility by always having a firm grip on the handrail when going up
+or down stairs during the later months of carrying a child.
+
+However well and full of a sense of power and creative vitality she
+may be, a woman should take long hours of rest: to bed at nine each
+evening and not up till eight o'clock in the morning and taking at
+least one hour lying down during the day. During the nine months of
+bearing the unborn child, she should remember she is providing it with
+_vitality_ every second of the twenty-four hours of each day, and she
+should neither have forced upon her, nor should she desire to do, work
+which ever tires her, though she should live an active, full, healthy,
+happy existence and should be capable of nearly all her normal work and
+enjoyments. If she is wise she will work in direct contact with sun-lit
+earth. Gardening ensures the truest sense of physical well-being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Father
+
+    I was a child beneath her touch,--a man
+      When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,--
+      A spirit when her spirit looked through me,--
+    A god when all our life-breath met to fan
+    Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
+      Fire within fire, desire in deity.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The higher the evolution of the creatures, the more is the parental
+responsibility shared by both parents. Among human beings the
+institution of monogamy, which is universally accepted as a higher
+form of human relation than polygamy, involves in the dual partnership
+a certain sharing of the actual physical difficulties of parenthood
+by the father which is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous
+establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy strictly maintained, does
+really affect the physical aspects of expectant fatherhood _more_ than
+it does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.
+
+The modern pair, being intensely and deeply united, the effects of the
+experiences and physical states of one have actual reverberations and
+physical effects on the other. In this respect the change in the girl's
+attitude of mind towards the man, which is sometimes a result of the
+physical effect of motherhood (see Chapter III), may have a very far
+reaching influence upon the man's health and happiness if he does not
+comprehend the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension,
+know how to endure or overcome it. Undoubtedly a home which is
+disturbed by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed irritations has a
+physical effect on the general mental balance, and consequently on the
+whole health of the pair involved.
+
+The way in which these difficulties can be overcome is by a mutual
+comprehension, so far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and
+sometimes perhaps by the attitude of "bowing before the storm" until it
+has passed, recognizing that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.
+
+Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate reverberations from
+his wife's state. The actual physical fact has to be faced by the
+father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on the period when all
+his natural desires for a completed sex union with his wife were met
+and consummated by equal desires in her, there comes a time when such
+impulses on his part are not only not responded to by his wife, but are
+perhaps antagonized and may be entirely thwarted by either her mental
+or her physical condition.
+
+In Chapter XII, I will show how, to some extent, and at probably rather
+long intervals, his impulses may be not only satisfied but may be
+harmoniously responded to and may be profoundly valuable. Nevertheless,
+in almost every period of coming fatherhood, there will be at least
+some months when bodily union is actively repugnant and consequently
+actively harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive feeling
+of the mother against any act should be sufficient to bar it, because,
+even if the act itself should not be harmful, to force her will at such
+a time or to lure her into coercing herself against her own will is in
+itself harmful. A young husband, therefore, will be faced by periods in
+which it will be impossible for him to have any of the unions to which
+he may have become accustomed and which his natural virility may at
+first continue to demand.
+
+This difficulty is of very varying intensity for different types of
+men. Some feel it so acutely that, although they may do so with deep
+shame, they yield to the impulses and are unfaithful to their wives
+in a bodily sense just at the time when of all others they may be
+mentally and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such shameful
+conflict of will with deed must have blackened many a father's memory,
+and, with due understanding of all the circumstances, it should be
+eliminated from our race: it should not take place. Nature has created
+a way out for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic rapport
+with his wife. While the wife on whom he centres all his desires
+and love is in a bodily condition which deprives her from such an
+experience as a complete union with him, this fact has a mental and
+consequently a physical reaction on the better type of man, and he
+finds, sometimes even to his surprise, that the instinctive impulses to
+which he has been accustomed die down. At first perhaps becoming only
+sufficiently dormant to be conquered by a deliberate exertion of the
+will, but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from his wife increases,
+its reaction stills his desire also, and his need for unions may
+temporarily cease.
+
+This is partly to be explained as a nervous reaction due to his anxiety
+and his concentration of nervous force on his wife, which tend to
+inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which would otherwise
+demand an outlet.
+
+The vitality, the physical state, the needs, however, of different men
+vary very greatly, and there are those who really do require some
+physical assistance in addition to will power and even a religious
+determination to help them through this time of difficulty. For such
+I recommend daily thorough washing in cold water of the organs of
+generation, and when an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking of
+the whole body in as hot a full length bath as can be borne.
+
+It may perhaps sound fantastic because one has not yet scientific
+proof (neither had Leonardo da Vinci when he casually made the first
+announcement that our earth is a planet of the Sun), but I think,
+in addition to the physical presence of the secretions potentially
+demanding exit, that a very important factor in the desire for sex
+union is an electrical accumulation within the system, and undoubtedly
+the soaking in hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to allay
+the urgency for a desire for a sex union.
+
+These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to
+maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration
+of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute
+everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child,
+should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which
+his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by
+incorrigible physical requirements, may have a hard time; if it is
+insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some
+slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical
+treatment.
+
+After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of
+the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the
+wife's pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this
+is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some
+months or a year after the wedding. (_Cf._ _Married Love_, Chapter IX).
+
+Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse
+of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the
+mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this
+with tact and intelligence may be surmounted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Union of Three
+
+    "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
+
+
+In the early days of our modern civilization, that is to say within the
+last couple of hundred years, the treatment of women in Western Europe
+sank to a terribly low ebb. Although the last few years have done much
+to restore woman to some of her ancient rights and privileges, there
+are still among us a distressing proportion of ignorant, coarse and
+consequently ruthless men who are not debarred from becoming husbands.
+Such men have been in the past in the habit of "using their wives"
+regardless of the desires or even the actual health requirements of
+the unfortunate women who are tied to them, and such men have made a
+practice of continuing to indulge in sex union even through the later
+stages of pregnancy. I have heard from midwives, to my amazed horror,
+that some such depraved men (not bestial, for no beast behaves in such
+a way) have even used their wives while they are still in bed after
+child birth. With such I have in this volume no concern beyond the
+mention that they are loathsome.
+
+Their existence, however, has had an effect on a better type and has
+given rise to reaction on the part of men infinitely their superiors.
+Women who have seen their sister women thus outraged have had the
+support of men of sensitive conscience and consideration when they
+have claimed that the mother who is carrying and nursing her child is
+sacred, and must not be approached by her husband at all during the
+whole of the child's coming and nursing period. It has, therefore,
+come about that a large number of our best and most high-minded women
+(supported by correspondingly high-minded men, anxious to do the best
+that is within their power for their wives and children) hold the view
+that no sex union after the third month, or perhaps that no sex union
+at all is allowable during pregnancy.
+
+Now this is one more matter which has not begun to receive the
+consideration which it deserves. When I wrote _Married Love_ I felt
+that I was not entitled to decide on this subject, and I tried to hold
+the balance between the various opinions, and drew attention to the
+fact that the prospective mother of the lower creatures is always set
+apart. This was apparently misinterpreted by some of my readers as
+being a personal expression of opinion, and women wrote or spoke to
+me about the subject saying they were sure I was right _because their
+husbands held the same opinion as I did_, BUT _the women themselves
+were ashamed, almost humiliated, to confess that during the carrying of
+their child they most ardently desired unions_.
+
+To these, as individuals, I pointed out that I was very far from
+expressing a definite opinion in my book on this point, and that my
+actual opinion indeed inclined towards thinking that restricted unions
+should be advantageous. In a later edition (the 7th) of my book, I
+enlarged on what I had to say on this subject, concluding: "There is
+little doubt that in this particular, even more than in so many others,
+the health, needs, and mental condition of women who are bearing
+children vary profoundly."
+
+Through evidences from very various types of women in the last year or
+two, I have now accumulated facts in sufficient numbers to begin to see
+something approaching a possible generalization on this subject.
+
+One of the most striking things I noticed concerning the evidences I
+received was that the women who confessed to a desire for sex union
+while they were carrying a child were, almost without exception, the
+_best_ type. A hasty generalization would have predicted that those
+very women with their pure attitude, their high degree of culture,
+their intellectual attainments, and their gracious self-restraint in
+outer life were just exactly those women who would maintain a fierce
+chastity during the nine months. These quite remarkable corresponding
+experiences of similarly superior women forced the matter vividly upon
+my attention, and I am now prepared to make a tentative generalization,
+coupled with the generalization to be found in Chapter XV.
+
+The attitude of one of the women who confessed her intimate feelings
+to me is typical of those of this type, and is illuminating. She is
+a woman of unusually gifted brain, well endowed physically and a
+normally healthy mother in every respect; she is noted for a peculiar
+beauty and sweetness of disposition, and an unusually high degree of
+sensitive appreciation of beauty and goodness. In conversation she
+said to me: "You know I feel so ashamed and degraded by myself, but
+just at the time when I felt I ought to be sacred from these things,
+I more ardently desired my husband than I had done throughout all my
+married life of fifteen years." She then told me that her husband who
+had been truly devoted to her all his life was particularly considerate
+and thoughtful for her during her time of expectant motherhood, and
+that when she tentatively hinted at her wish for union with him he
+refused tenderly on the grounds that the higher standard for men was
+to share, however difficult it was, in the nine months of complete
+abstinence. He said that, for the sake of the child and herself, he
+must refuse. Her desire, however, again recurred, much to her own shame
+and mortification, because she felt that what her husband said really
+represented the highest accepted standard of pre-natal conduct. Quite
+a number of rather similar and also exceptionally endowed women have
+confessed to me in almost the same terms the same feeling.
+
+Before I indicate my conclusions, let us briefly consider some of the
+surrounding circumstances of this problem. As I said in the opening
+paragraphs of this chapter, the nobler and better men have been carried
+away by a certain type of woman into thinking that it is man's share
+of the difficulties and self-sacrifice of parenthood that he should
+entirely sacrifice what is spoken of as "his desires." In my opinion,
+this attitude involves two profound fallacies. The first fallacy is
+that the act of sex union is to meet only "his desires"; it is not.
+Completed union is something infinitely greater: it is a consummation
+jointly achieved by both the man and his wife. This attitude I make
+clear in my book, _Married Love_ and in my new _Gospel_ addressed to
+the Bishops at Lambeth. And I must postulate in this, my present book,
+the far reaching effects on the bodily, spiritual and mental health
+of a man and woman concerned in this complex sex union. The truth is
+that the husband who mutually and considerately unites with his wife
+when she can accept him is not merely gratifying his own desire, he
+is enriching her whole system as well as his own through this mutual
+alchemy.
+
+Before following up the logic of this paragraph, let us turn to the
+woman and her needs. The drain on her system of providing for another
+life out of her own tissues, and the substances which pass through her
+own body, must be very severe unless she is amply provided with all the
+subtle chemical compounds which are demanded of her. Now there is much
+evidence that in unmarried women, and in young wives who are debarred
+from sex union altogether, something approaching a subtle form of
+starvation occurs; conversely that women absorb from the seminal fluid
+of the man some substance, "hormone," "vitamine" or stimulant which
+affects their internal economy in such a way as to benefit and nourish
+their whole systems. That semen is a stimulant to a woman was long
+ago recognized as probable, and is now the opinion of several leading
+doctors. Reference to this will be found in Havelock Ellis, vol. 5,
+1912. See also the paper by Toff in the _Centralblatt Gynakologie_,
+April, 1903. Incidentally the converse is true, and the man who
+conducts himself properly during the sex union, and remains for long in
+contact with his wife after the ejaculation is completed, also benefits
+through actual absorption from his wife. For this I have the testimony
+of a number of men.
+
+If, therefore, the woman who is becoming a mother, and who is
+supporting a second life, feels the need of union with her husband
+it is, I maintain, an indication that her nature is calling out for
+something not only legitimate but positively beneficial and required,
+and that it should be not only a man's privilege, but his delight, to
+unite with his wife at such a time and under such circumstances.
+
+The maintenance of the right balance of the internal secretions of the
+various glands which re-act on sex activity is important to women at
+all times, and particularly during the time when a woman is becoming a
+mother. One of the results of the growth of the child is the increased
+activity of the thyroid gland in the neck, which considerably increases
+in size.
+
+A general account of the relation of such glands to a woman's mental
+and physical balance is found in Blair Bell's book (_The Sex Complex_,
+1916), but he does not deal with the special aspect of a woman's
+requirements which forms the subject of this chapter.
+
+There is, even with the type of woman who does feel the need of, and
+ardently desires some sex unions with her husband during the long
+months, almost always a space of time, perhaps as much as two or three
+months consecutively, when she will have no such desires at all and
+there are also times of special liability to lose the child through
+premature birth, when unions should be avoided. Unexpected abortions
+most usually take place at the dates around the time which would have
+been a monthly period.
+
+When I consider the evidence which I have before me, which is almost
+exclusively from the very best type of women, and when I observe that
+the most generally perfected, and finest women of my acquaintance,
+and they in particular, desire occasional moderate intercourse during
+pregnancy, I feel that one has a guide to what is best for the race.
+In these women and the conduct which their needs inspire, we have an
+indication of the truest and highest standard of all. The deviations
+of conduct may at last return from both the grossness of abuse and the
+reaction from it, and settle in the right and middle path. After the
+excessively virtuous, and perhaps undersexed type of woman, in contrast
+to the totally base attitude of the earlier and coarser type of man,
+has made the thoughtful speed from baseness to an ascetic absence
+of unions, we should be led back by these well developed and well
+balanced and noble minded women to the right and middle way. In this
+the spontaneous impulse of the responsible mother will be the guide for
+her husband and will benefit all three concerned.
+
+For, let us realize what a profound mystical symbol is enacted when
+the union is not that of a single man and woman, but of that holy
+trinity the father, the mother and the unborn child. _Only_ during
+these brief sacred months can the three be united in such exquisite
+intimacy, and during all these months when the child is forming, it
+is only in the few infrequent embraces of subdued passion that the
+husband and father-to-be can come truly close to his child, that he
+can, through additions to her system from his own, assist the mother in
+her otherwise solitary task of endowing it with everything its growth
+demands.
+
+Every woman who is bearing a child by a man whom she loves deeply,
+longs intensely that its father should influence it as much as it is
+possible for him to do: in this way _and in this way alone_ can he give
+it of the actual substance of his body.
+
+This view of mine, in the present crude state of scientific knowledge
+must, of course, be stated as an hypothesis, but it will be proved
+later on when science is sufficiently subtle to detect the actual
+microscopic exchange of particles which takes place during proper and
+prolonged physical contact in the sex union.
+
+Light on my thesis is also shown by the converse: For instance, an
+interesting suggestion was made by a distinguished medical specialist
+as a result of his observation of two or three of his own patients,
+where the prospective mother had desired unions and the husband had
+denied them thinking it in her interest: the doctor observed that
+the children seemed to grow up restless and uncontrollable, with a
+marked tendency to self-abuse. To these two or three instances I have
+added some which have come under my own observation and, although as
+yet the evidence is insufficient to support a dogmatic attitude, I
+incline to think that not only the deprivation of the mother of proper
+union during pregnancy, but also the after effects of some years of
+the use of _coitus interruptus_ tends to have a similar effect upon
+later children. That is to say that mothers whose natural desire for
+union has been denied, and mothers who are congenitally frigid rather
+tend to produce children with unbalanced sex-feeling liable to yield
+to self-abuse. Immoderate and excessive desire for sex union during
+pregnancy so far as I am aware is rare, and where it occurs it should
+of course be treated as an abnormality.
+
+The mother of the higher type, such as I have indicated in the
+paragraphs above who does desire unions, will probably only require
+them infrequently during these months.
+
+It should be obvious, but as the general public often lacks a
+visualizing imagination, I ought to add, that for the proper
+consummation of the act of union, particularly during the later months
+of coming parenthood, the ordinary position with the man above the
+woman is not suitable and may be harmful. The pair should either lie
+side by side, or should lie so that they are almost at right angles
+to each other, so that there is no pressure upon the woman. Or the
+man should lie on his side behind the woman, which makes penetration
+easy and safe and free from pressure. I might point out here a fact
+which is of general importance in all true consummations of the sex
+union, and that is that all the preliminaries and even the final act of
+ejaculation itself do not constitute the whole of the truest union. A
+truth on which I lay great stress, although I have not yet dealt with
+it fully in any publications, is the fact that an _extremely_ important
+phase of each union is the close and prolonged contact after the
+culmination takes place. The benefit to both of the pair of remaining
+in the closest possible physical contact for as long a time as is
+possible after the crisis is almost incalculable.
+
+A whole chapter could be written upon this theme, and indeed it should
+be written. In the union during pregnancy, a woman is by nature
+debarred from the complete and intense muscular orgasm and for her,
+indeed, the union must essentially consist almost solely of the close
+contact of skin with skin and of the absorption of molecular particles
+as well as the resolution of nervous tension as the result of so close
+and prolonged a contact.
+
+Among the children known to me personally, several of the most
+beautiful were the children of mothers and fathers who had unions
+during the months of their development. The following quotation from a
+young husband may be of interest in this connection:--
+
+    The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile walk
+    over country ground, and I slept with my wife the very night before
+    he was born.... We had unions, but not in the ordinary position;
+    she would be on her side with her back to me, and after union
+    would quietly go off to sleep in my arms, and in the morning would
+    wake with a joyful and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the
+    finest of babies from all points of view.
+
+As I have seen photographs of the child, I can endorse the parent's
+opinions.
+
+Tolstoy's condemnation of any sex contact while the wife was pregnant
+or nursing may have influenced some serious men, but, as in many other
+respects, Tolstoy's teaching is so widely contradictory, and depends so
+much upon his own age and state at the time, one cannot but regret the
+unbalanced influence his literary power has given him.
+
+While this chapter may be taken as an indication that sex union is, in
+my opinion, not only allowable but advisable for certain types during
+the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless I do not wish it to
+be misinterpreted in such a way that a single act of union which is
+repugnant to the prospective mother should be urged upon her "for her
+good."
+
+There is undoubtedly a large body of most excellent women who are as
+individuals distinctly rather undersexed, but who are on the whole good
+mothers, profoundly well meaning and right minded and virtuous women
+to whom the time of prospective motherhood is an intensely individual
+period, during which they feel an active repugnance to any sex union.
+
+Women of this type are not able to give the _completest_ dower to
+their children, but are immensely superior to the average and baser
+type which forms the majority. If such women do not spontaneously
+desire unions they should be left unharried by any suggestion that they
+would benefit by them, and the husbands of such women should, in their
+own interests, curb any natural impulses which may conflict with the
+intense feeling of the wife. Husbands, however, should also be aware
+that such women generally feel as they do because they have never been
+_wooed_ with sufficient grace and tenderness.
+
+To sum up, I am convinced that unless there is any indication of a
+disease or abnormal appetite in any respect, that the natural wishes
+and desires of the mother-to-be who is bearing a child should be the
+absolute law to herself and her husband, for during these months
+she is on a different plane of existence from the usual one. She is
+swayed by impulses which science is as yet incapable of analysing or
+comprehending, and experience has again and again proved that she is
+wise to satisfy any reasonable desire, whether for the spiritual,
+bodily or mental contributions to her growing child's requirements or
+those which would strengthen her own power of supporting that child.
+
+Fortunate indeed is the husband of the best, well-balanced and
+developed mother-to-be, who with intense emotion shares with him in the
+closest and most exquisite intimacy, the creating of a life which has
+every prospect of adding beauty and strength to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Procession of the Months
+
+    "The mother is the child's supreme parent."
+
+        HAVELOCK ELLIS.
+
+
+At first invisible, with no outer changes to indicate the vital
+internal processes, from the moment of conception an intense activity
+has begun within the mother. Sometimes women are aware of the actual
+moment of conception, and faintly perceive for the first two or three
+days sensations too delicate to be called pain and yet intense and
+penetrating as though of the lightest touch upon the inward and most
+sensitive consciousness. I have read reports of women, and know one
+personally, who felt the process of conception, although this will
+probably be generally received with incredulity. The majority of people
+are less completely cognisant of the voices of their own organism,
+and perhaps for two or three months are almost unaware that anything
+different from the usual course of their life is taking place.
+
+If, as seems to me unquestionably the best and happiest relation, the
+man and woman who are creating a child are doing so deliberately,
+consciously and with acute interest, a mutual knowledge of the
+principal stages through which their child passes should add greatly to
+their interest and the intensity of their feeling.
+
+From the first moment of its conception, indeed often for months before
+this has been possible, their child is to the loving pair a living
+entity of whom they may speak.
+
+The active egg cell, which is ready for fertilization, is produced
+in one or other of the two ovaries, which lie internally and cannot
+be touched or reached in any way without operating upon the mother;
+they have no direct contact with the outer world. These two ovaries
+each communicate with the central chamber, which is called the womb or
+uterus and this is a strong muscular organ, into the walls of which the
+attachment of the minute embryo fastens, and within this chamber the
+growing embryo gradually fills the space reserved for it. The womb or
+uterus has a connection with the outer world through the lower mouth
+called the os, which opens into the vaginal channel. This os or mouth
+with its rounded lip can just be felt at the end of the vaginal channel.
+
+Fertilization consists in the actual penetration of the egg cell by the
+male sperm, the nuclei of which unite. As I have elsewhere described
+(_Married Love_, Chap. V) the numbers of male sperm provided in any act
+of union outnumber by millions those actually required, because for
+each single fertilization one egg cell combines with one sperm cell.
+The egg cell or ovum is very large in comparison with a single sperm;
+nevertheless it is itself a minute, almost invisible protoplasmic
+speck, measuring rather less than 1/120th of an inch in diameter,
+and roughly spherical in its shape--a minute pellet of jelly-like
+protoplasm with a concentrated centre or nucleus. The single sperm
+which unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is little more
+than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm round it, and a long cilium
+or hair-like continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus propels
+itself or swims towards the egg cell. Judging by analogy, it leaves
+this tail outside the egg cell on the mutual fusion. The nucleus of
+the sperm and of the egg unite in a very complex and precise manner.
+In other organisms, and probably also in human beings, the entry of a
+single sperm to the egg cell shuts out the possibility of other sperms
+fusing with them, because directly it has been fertilized, the egg cell
+exudes a film of substance which antagonizes the other sperms, and
+which ultimately forms a filmy skin around itself.
+
+From the moment of the fusion of the nuclei of the male and female
+cells, active changes and nuclear divisions are in progress. The egg
+cell, which is free, travels slowly to the allotted place in the womb
+or uterus of the mother, and there it settles down in the tissue of the
+wall and attaches itself. Until it has attached itself firmly to the
+wall of the uterus, conception proper has not finally taken place, and
+a fertilized egg cell may be lost through want of a capacity to attach
+itself to the womb, or through some nervous or other disturbance of the
+walls of the womb, which throw it off after it has been attached. The
+distinction between the actual moment of fertilization (or union of the
+male and female nuclei) and of the final attachment which secures true
+conception is an important one, though frequently overlooked. Sometimes
+the failure to conceive a child may not at all be due to lack of
+fertility and readiness to unite on the part of the egg cell and sperm
+cell, but may be due to some nervous or other influence on the wall of
+the uterus, which consequently throws off the ovum before it has firmly
+settled into its place there.
+
+A few days after conception, and when the ovum has attached itself
+to the proper place, a definite zone of tissue begins to form which,
+growing and altering with the growth of the tiny developing child
+(which is now called the embryo), forms a medium of transmission
+between it and the mother through which pass the substances used and
+excreted by the embryo in its growth.
+
+After fertilization, intense and rapid activity takes place in
+the nuclei of the cells, first in the united nucleus of egg and
+sperm cell, and later in the nuclei of all the resulting division
+cells. The nucleus of the sperm cell is supposed to contain twelve
+chromosomes which go through a formal rearrangement and mingling with
+the corresponding chromosomes in the egg cell. As a result of the
+complete fusion and intermingling of the male and the female factors
+on fertilization, all the resulting divisions of cells which follow
+derive their nuclei partly from the male and partly from the female
+nucleus of the parents. Thus, if it were possible to trace the history
+of every tissue cell in the body of your child, we should see that each
+nucleus of all the myriads that compose its structure would ancestrally
+consist of part of the many sub-divisions of the nuclei of both father
+and mother. Thus to speak of one side of the body as being male in its
+inheritance and the other female, is the most unmitigated nonsense,
+though this idea formed the basis of a recent book.
+
+The rapidity with which the first cells grow to form tissues, once they
+have been stimulated by union is very great, and from the ovum, which
+on the day of fertilization is only 1/120th of an inch in size, the
+growth is so rapid that it is ten times as big at the end of fourteen
+days. By that time the length is one-twelfth of an inch, and it weighs
+one grain. By the thirtieth day the tiny embryo is already one-third
+of an inch big, and were it practicable, which, of course, it is not,
+to remove it living from its bed of tissue in the mother's womb and
+examine it, even with the naked eye, and still more with a magnifying
+glass, it would be possible to see the rudiments of the legs, head and
+arms which are to be.
+
+By the fortieth day the embryo is about one inch in length, and the
+shape of the child, which it is to be, is quite clearly visible. Dark
+points are to be seen where later it will have eyes, nose and mouth,
+and there is already a hint of its backbone.
+
+Meanwhile, as may be realized, although to have grown in forty days to
+the size of an inch from a minute speck 1/120th part of an inch is a
+great and rapid achievement, nevertheless the existence of a thing one
+inch big within her makes little outer difference to the mother, and
+all the earlier weeks and months of the growth of this tiny organism do
+not yet take more visible effect on the mother's body than to enhance
+its contour. After the first child this effect is less noticeable, and
+a woman may be unaware that she is about to become a mother. The first
+sign in a really healthy woman generally is in the form of her breasts,
+which sometimes begin to enlarge by the second or third week. It is
+said that the more healthy and perfectly fitted for motherhood a woman
+is, the sooner her breasts show signs of the effect of the developing
+embryo but, particularly with a woman who has already borne a child,
+there may be no external sign until at least three months have passed.
+
+By the sixth week, the limbs and most essential parts of the child are
+apparent, and there are the minute indications of the beginning of
+its future sex organs. It is evident, therefore, that if there is any
+desire to control the sex of the coming child, it is already too late
+by the sixth week to do anything, were it ever possible reliably to
+control sex at any time. It is, therefore, apparent that any passionate
+desire for a child of one or the other sex which the mother may indulge
+in when she knows she is about to be a mother, say by the third or
+fourth month, is futile. It may also be injurious (see Chapter XIV).
+
+By the second month, nearly all the parts are fully apparent, even the
+eyelids are visible in the embryo and a tiny nose begins to project;
+fingers and toes can be seen, and some centres of bone begin to
+harden, as for instance, in the ribs.
+
+By the third month the embryo reaches an average length of three or
+more inches, and weighs on an average about 2-1/2 ounces. In this month
+the sex organs of the future baby are rapidly developing, and indeed
+are rather unduly prominent in proportion to the other parts which
+enlarge relatively later.
+
+Between the third and the fourth month, or often not till a little
+after the fourth month, the active muscular movements of the embryo's
+limbs can be felt by the mother. The experience of this, like the
+consciousness of the moment of conception, depends very much upon the
+sensitiveness and delicate balance of the mother's conscious control of
+herself.
+
+Some are insensitively, though perhaps comfortably, unaware of what
+is going on in their systems; others are conscious, not of what is
+properly going on, but of what is going wrong in their systems owing to
+disease or maladjustment; but there are others who, in perfect health,
+are yet so acutely sensitive and conscious that they can at will
+detect, as it were, the condition of their whole organs. Such women as
+these will sooner feel the active movements of the embryo than those
+who are less perceptive. As a rule, medical practitioners estimate that
+about half-way between the date of conception and the date of birth,
+which should be a full nine calendar months, that is to say about 4-1/2
+months from the date of conception, muscular movements of the child are
+detectable and distinct.
+
+In the third month, however, some women are conscious of the most
+delicate fluttering sensation.
+
+By the end of the third month, a definite enlargement of the mother's
+body becomes visible, because not only the actual child within her
+has to be accounted for in the space among her organs, but all the
+accessory growth of the chamber which accommodates the child in the
+womb has to find its place, the womb growing rapidly and containing
+not only the child, but the large amount of fluid by which the child
+is surrounded, and in which it partly floats. The visible changes in
+the mother to some extent depend on the proportion of this fluid which
+develops, some having much more than others, and it is to this rather
+than to the actual size of the child for the first four or five months
+that any outward change is due.
+
+About the end of the third month the soft and cartilaginous beginnings
+of the vertebral column begin to harden in various centres, and
+afterwards the hardening of the bones (or ossification) slowly spreads
+throughout the whole skeletal system. For some other bones in the
+body, however, the hardening is not fully completed by the time of
+birth.
+
+By the fifth month, the child weighs six to eight ounces, and is from
+seven to nine inches long. By this time its movements are very active
+and almost continuous except when it sleeps. It should be trained
+to sleep at the same time as its mother, and thus give her rest. My
+phrase "it should be trained to sleep" may arouse incredulous smiles
+from medical men, even from mothers who have borne children, but it
+is not impossible to train a child even so young as an unborn embryo,
+strange as it may sound. From about this month (the fifth) to the time
+of birth, the child appears to have a strong and definite personality,
+and sometimes, in some strange and subtle way, it seems possible to
+communicate with it. If there is that sweet and intense intimacy
+between mother and father which there should be if the full beauty of
+parenthood is to be realized, the child is apparently to some extent
+conscious of the nearness of its father, and I know at least of one or
+two couples who spoke to their coming child as though it were present,
+and who, by a touch of the hand could to some extent control and soothe
+it so that it would sleep during the night when the mother desired to
+sleep.
+
+About the fifth month the actual nails begin to grow, although the
+local preparations for their growth took place much earlier.
+
+After the fifth month, the child grows rapidly in weight, in the sixth
+month weighing nearly two pounds and during the seventh nearly three.
+
+If it is placed in the best possible position, its head would be
+directed downwards, and it should be lying so that its arms and legs
+are tucked in much as a kitten curls up when it is asleep. It will
+move, however, sometimes completely round, entirely altering its
+position.
+
+By the eighth month it weighs about four pounds and averages perhaps
+sixteen inches or so long. It should by this time be very active, so
+that its movements are not only strongly felt by the mother, but are
+externally quite perceptible.
+
+By the ninth month, at birth, the child weighs between six and eight
+or more pounds. It is better for the mother that it should not be too
+heavy, as, unless she is a large and strongly built woman, the actual
+weight of the child becomes a great strain upon her, however strong she
+may be.
+
+A child may be born during the seventh month, and children born
+during the seventh month live and have sometimes even grown up
+learned and important men. Sir Isaac Newton is an illustration of a
+premature child. Usually, however, a seventh month infant is terribly
+handicapped; its skin is not yet fully developed, and in many respects
+it is quite unfitted to face the world.
+
+Many claims are made that a child is seven months at birth which are
+based on the mis-counting of the date of conception or a desire to
+conceal a pre-marital conception. When one is shown, as one sometimes
+is, a bouncing, healthy, ordinary baby, and told that it was "a very
+forward seven months child," those who know can only smile or sigh,
+according to the circumstances, for an ordinary, healthy, bouncing baby
+with nails and well formed skin has never yet been generated in seven
+months.
+
+The seventh month is the time of greatest danger for a late
+miscarriage, and many have been the disappointments of parents who
+ardently desired a child, but who lost it through premature birth at
+the seventh month. I have often wished to know why this should be so,
+and have found no satisfactory answer or indication of any scientific
+reason for this, but when revolving all the possibilities of ancestral
+reminiscence, it occurred to me that possibly our earlier ancestors,
+ancestors in fact so early as to be scarcely human, were born at the
+seventh month. I was, therefore, interested to find that for some of
+the monkeys seven months is the date of normal birth. Possibly some
+such ancestral characteristic may make the seventh month a critical
+time in the development of the human embryo, a time when it inherits
+the reminiscence of the possibility of separating itself from its
+mother and coming into the outer world.
+
+The times, moreover, when birth is most liable are those few days in
+each month which correspond to the regular menstrual flow in the woman,
+the periods which would have taken place at each twenty-eight days
+had not the child been developing. It is, therefore, often desirable,
+particularly for the later months, for the woman to take one or two
+days of complete rest, or even to remain in bed during that dangerous
+day or two, so as to minimize the possibility of a miscarriage.
+
+The same applies of course to some extent to the eighth month, but
+curiously enough, miscarriages in the eighth month appear to be less
+frequent. It is also popularly said that it is more difficult to rear
+a child born in the eighth month than one born in the seventh, though
+this does not appear to be true.
+
+The last week or two of the child's antenatal existence are used by
+it in finishing itself off; growing its tiny shell-like nails, losing
+the downy hair which covered its body earlier in its existence, and in
+a sense preparing itself, and particularly its skin, for contact with
+the outer world which is to come. Its movements are very active, and if
+it is in the most perfect position, the head tends to sink deep down
+towards the canal approaching the circle of bone through which it will
+have to pass (see Chapter II).
+
+The question is often asked as to which is the time when the embryo
+is most sensitive to outward impressions, but as yet there is no
+sufficient body of evidence to show that at any particular time more
+than another (unless it be on the actual day of conception, see Chapter
+II) is the power of influence greater than any other.
+
+Is it possible to pre-arrange, to determine the sex of the child which
+is voluntarily conceived? Since earliest human experiences have been
+recorded, this has formed the theme of some writers and thinkers, and
+a variety of opinions have been expressed, theories propounded, and
+rules for the production of a girl or boy at will have been given. Each
+of the views, however, still remains far from being established, and
+damaging exceptions may be found to every theoretic rule. The impartial
+observer must feel that we are still unable to control the sex of the
+child.
+
+There are three main theories on this subject: (_a_) one is that the
+nature of the child which will be produced is already pre-determined
+in the ovum and sperm cell before they have united; (_b_) the second
+theory is that the critical moment which settles the sex of the
+future offspring is the moment of fertilization and the changes in
+the nucleus immediately resulting from it; (_c_) and the third theory
+is based on the view that the differentiation of the organs, which
+makes the difference in sex, take place at some stage in the embryo's
+development after it is already a many-celled organism.
+
+The first named theory lies behind the advice which varies around the
+theme that according to whether the conception takes place from the
+egg cell grown in the right or the left ovary and testicle so will the
+child be a boy or a girl. Instances of the desired child proving to be
+of the sex "arranged for" by following out some such methods are of
+comparatively frequent occurrence, but to the scientist are completely
+counter-balanced by other and negative results.
+
+The second and third theories do not offer the same explicit
+application in practical advice. But all the practical advice, on
+whatever basis it is builded, appears to me to be laid on insecure
+foundations. In my opinion, the complexities of the factors which
+determine sex are such that it depends much less on the outward
+and visible nutrition of the mother, than on the inner and almost
+inscrutable quality of the nutrition of the ovum and spermatozoon
+before and immediately after fertilization has taken place.
+
+That sex, even in some vertebrate creatures is actually controllable
+through nutrition can be easily demonstrated with a batch of frogs'
+eggs. These can be divided into two portions and by simple differences
+in the feeding of the young tadpoles male or female frogs can be
+obtained; the richly nourished ones produce the female frogs, those
+on sparser diet the male. The human embryo, however, developing in
+and through its mother, will depend to some extent on her diet, but
+in a much less direct way, for, as all know, the actual nutrition of
+the system does not depend merely on the quantity and valuable nature
+of the food taken into the mouth; it depends equally or even more on
+the digestive power, on the circulatory system, even on the mentality
+of the person who eats, and to add still further to the complexity,
+the tissues and organs of one part of the body may be receiving fully
+sufficient nutriment, while owing to some hindrance or difficulty some
+other tissues may be wasting and under-nourished. It is consequently
+necessary before we can theorize, to determine, even in the healthiest
+woman, whether or no a very rich and abundant nutriment is reaching the
+developing embryo in its earliest and most critical days, for, on the
+other hand, just in this critical time, a woman relatively ill-fed and
+in relatively poorer health may be digesting her simple diet well and
+may be so stimulated as to provide for the minute developing embryo
+a richer and more nutritious environment than her better fed sister.
+Consequently, even if, as I incline to believe, the pre-determination
+of sex depends on the nutriment procurable by the early dividing cells
+of the embryo, it is still almost beyond the realm of scientific
+investigation or of human control to determine whether or not the
+embryo is surrounded with such stimulating food as will produce a girl,
+or the rather sparser diet which will produce a boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Prenatal Influence
+
+    "To leave in the world a creature better than its parent: this is
+    the purpose of right motherhood."
+
+        CHARLOTTE GILMAN: _Women and Economics_.
+
+
+On the power of the mother directly to influence her child while it
+is still unborn, diametrically opposite opinions have been expressed,
+and without exaggeration I think one may safely say that the tendency
+of biological science has been to scout the idea as "old wives' tales"
+and incredible superstition. Fortunate indeed it is that though our
+immature and often blundering science has in many ways permeated and
+influenced our lives, yet this denial of profound truth by those
+incapable of handling it in the true terms of science, has not entirely
+barred this avenue of power to the mother. Fortunately there are
+innumerable children who owe their physical and spiritual well-being to
+the profound racial knowledge still dormant in the true woman. As I
+said when I touched upon this question in _Married Love_:--
+
+    Yet all the wisest mothers whom I know vary only in the degree
+    of their belief in this power of the mother. All are agreed in
+    believing that the spiritual and mental condition and environment
+    of the mother does profoundly affect the character and spiritual
+    powers of the child.
+
+Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist and co-discoverer with
+Darwin of the principle of Evolution, was in many respects a pioneer
+of unusual foresight and penetrating observation, who thought that
+the transmission of mental influence from the mother to the child was
+neither impossible nor even very improbable. In 1893 he published a
+long letter detailing cases, which he prefaced by saying:--
+
+    The popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother affect
+    the offspring physically, producing moles and other birth-marks,
+    and even malformations of a more or less serious character, is
+    said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy facts, and it
+    is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical grounds. But I
+    am not aware that the question of purely mental effects arising
+    from prenatal mental influences on the mother has been separately
+    studied. Our ignorance of the causes, or at least of the whole
+    series of causes, that determine individual character is so great,
+    that such transmission of mental influences will hardly be held to
+    be impossible or even very improbable. It is one of those questions
+    on which our minds should remain open, and on which we should be
+    ready to receive and discuss whatever evidence is available; and
+    should a _prim� facie_ case be made out, seek for confirmation
+    by some form of experiment or observation, which is perhaps less
+    difficult than at first sight it may appear to be.
+
+    In one of the works of George or Andrew Combe, I remember a
+    reference to a case in which the character of a child appeared to
+    have been modified by the prenatal reading of its mother, and the
+    author, if I mistake not, accepted the result as probable, if not
+    demonstrated. I think, therefore, that it will be advisable to make
+    public some interesting cases of such modification of character
+    which have been sent me by an Australian lady in consequence
+    of reading my recent articles on the question whether acquired
+    characters are inherited. The value of these cases depends on their
+    differential character. Two mothers state that in each of their
+    children (three in one case and four in the other) the character
+    of the child very distinctly indicated the prenatal occupations
+    and mental interests of the mother, though at the time they were
+    manifested in the child they had ceased to occupy the parent, so
+    that the result cannot be explained by imitation. The second mother
+    referred to by my correspondent only gives cases observed in other
+    families which do not go beyond ordinary heredity.
+
+    ... Changes in mode of life and in intellectual occupation are
+    so frequent among all classes that materials must exist for
+    determining whether such changes during the prenatal period have
+    any influence on the character of the offspring. The present
+    communication may perhaps induce ladies who have undergone such
+    changes, and who have large families, to state whether they
+    can trace any corresponding effect on the character of their
+    children.--_Nature_, August 24 1893, pp. 389, 390.
+
+Yet this suggestive pronouncement of the world-famous naturalist has
+never been seriously followed up by scientists.
+
+I think the time is now ripe for a definite statement that: _The view
+that the pregnant woman can and does influence the mental states of the
+future child is to-day a scientific hypothesis which may be shortly
+proved_. I make this definite statement, in conjunction with the
+cognate and illuminating facts from other fields of research, a few of
+which are discussed in the following pages.
+
+That our mental states can affect, not only our spirits and our
+points of view, but actually the physical structure of our bodies, is
+demonstrable in a hundred different ways, and appears either to be
+proved or merely suggested according to the bias and temperament of the
+one to whom the demonstration is made. But there is one at least of
+these physical correlations which can be demonstrated with scientific
+thoroughness, and which proves beyond doubt that the mental state of
+the mother _has_ a reaction upon her infant even after it has severed
+its physical connection with her, and is a baby of a few months old.
+This fact is that a nursing mother who is subjected to a violent shock
+which results in a paroxysm of temper or of terror in her own mind,
+conveys the physical result of this to her infant when next she nurses
+it, so that the child has either an attack of indigestion or a fit.
+The effect of the mother's mental state is transmitted by the influence
+on the milk, the chemical composition of which is subtly altered by her
+nervous paroxysm, and which thus acts as a poison to the infant.
+
+A much more subtle and closer correlation must exist between the
+mother's mental states and the child when it is still not yet free and
+independent in the outer environment of the world but while it finds
+in her body its entire environment, its protection and the resources
+out of which it is building its own structure, while the blood and
+the tissues of her body form its whole world, while through them and
+through them alone can it obtain all its nourishment.
+
+True, the result of the mental state of the mother which we can see
+is, apparently, merely the physical result on the child's digestion of
+the milk which has become poisoned: but to stop at this point like a
+jibbing mule, and to refuse to take the further step in the argument
+because the child is yet too young for us to understand its resulting
+mental states, which reason indicates must be correlated with its
+poisoned digestive system, is to defraud the mind of the logical
+conclusion of a sequence of ideas.
+
+The argument is as follows:--
+
+(_a_) The mother's intense _mental_ experience and consequent nervous
+paroxysm has a physical result upon the composition of her milk
+(presumably, therefore, upon other portions of her body, though this is
+irrelevant for the moment);
+
+(_b_) This physically altered milk has a physical effect upon the
+infant who shows other and more extreme forms of physical distress;
+
+(_c_) This physical distress must obviously to some greater or lesser
+degree, affect the child's nervous system; and (which is the point
+where the old-fashioned will break off);
+
+(_d_) Consequently the child's mental state will be affected--although
+it is too young to translate this into conscious forms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Were I to make this the main thesis of my book, examples of the effect
+of mental states on bodily functions could be readily multiplied, and
+illustrations drawn from facts quoted in other connections could be
+found in a great number of medical works. I here bring together a few
+which when placed in juxtaposition offer if not proof, yet such strong
+support of my theme as to place it in the realm of the scientifically
+ascertainable. For instance, Blair Bell in _The Sex Complex_, 1916,
+says:--
+
+    Religious manias may lead to ideas which fill the patient with
+    abhorrence of sexual intercourse, and in this way directly
+    interfere with the genital functions. There is indeed no doubt
+    whatsoever that the mind influences function just as function
+    influences the mind; for example, it has been shown that fright
+    leads to an immediate increase in the output of suprarenin, and we
+    know well from constant clinical observations that hypothyroidism
+    leads to mental depression (pp. 209 and 210).
+
+and Havelock Ellis in _The Psychology of Sex_, vol. 5, 1912, says:--
+
+    We can, again, as suggested by F�r�, very well believe that the
+    maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and
+    degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently
+    active movements of the _foetus_ may be really consecutive on
+    unconscious maternal excitations. We may also believe that, as
+    suggested by John Thomson, there are slight inco�rdinations _in
+    utero_, a kind of developmental neurosis, produced by some slight
+    lack of harmony of whatever origin and leading to the production
+    of malformations. We know, finally, that, as F�r� and others have
+    repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by experiments on
+    chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly
+    affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the
+    mother's psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect
+    specifically the physical conformation or even the psychic
+    disposition of the child within her womb must remain for the
+    present an insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude
+    that in some cases such action seems to be indicated.
+
+Direct evidence of the physical aspect of my thesis is found in the
+fact quoted by Marshall in _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, p.
+566:--
+
+    So also it has been found that immunity from disease may be
+    acquired by young animals being suckled by a female which had
+    previously become immune, the antibody to the disease being
+    absorbed in the ingested milk.
+
+Further argument upon these lines might well be brought forward in
+favour of the view that the potential mother, during the months whilst
+she is acting as the child's total environment in all physical ways,
+is also through her mental states and conditions affecting the child's
+ultimate mentality and artistic and spiritual powers.
+
+This subtle control exerted over the formation of the child may be
+visualized as more like some effect parallel to the remote influences
+of the internal secretions in controlling the other organs of the body
+than the more mechanical picture of things visualized by the Mendelians
+and those who concentrate on the purely physical and material aspects
+of heredity as related to chromosome structure.
+
+The tendency in recent years in biological work has been far too
+much to lay stress upon the curiously mathematical laws Mendel
+discovered, and consequently to concentrate attention upon the physical
+chromosomes as containing the factors which carry hereditary qualities.
+Physiologists are now making an attempt to bring back into the
+treatment of life a more rational outlook, and nothing has contributed
+more to the scientific basis of this than the recent following up
+of the suggestions made so long ago as 1869 by Brown-S�quard. Since
+Starling named the internal secretions Hormones (see the Croonian
+Lecture, 1905) they have been much discussed by physiologists and some
+medical men (see for instance the recent work of Blair Bell, _The Sex
+Complex_, 1916 already quoted).
+
+To form a rough mental picture of what is happening one must combine
+the physiological and the mechanical outlooks. One then obtains the
+idea that the mother is, through her mental states, affecting and
+to some extent controlling the production of the various internal
+secretions, and other more subtle and still undetected influences
+from various organs upon other organs, and that, in so doing she is
+making the environment for the various hereditary factors, in which
+their potentialities find it possible to develop or to be suppressed
+according to the circumstances which she thus creates. As is now
+beginning to be realized, we all have an immense number of latent
+potentialities, which may lie dormant and develop only under suitable
+circumstances.
+
+Thus in my view the mother may actually and in every sense
+fundamentally influence and control the character of her child, working
+through the remote effects of internal secretions which play on the
+complex material factors of hereditary qualities which form the
+material basis of the child's potentialities.
+
+Thus both heredity and environment have a vital part to play in
+building character, _but greater than either is the subtler environment
+within the prospective mother created by her during the nine antenatal
+months_.
+
+Sometimes people who would otherwise like to believe that a mother has
+this power, are deterred by their own experience or that of others, who
+have, under conditions of distress and unfavourable circumstances, had
+children whose dispositions seem not to have suffered, but appear as
+sunny and happy as a child apparently conceived under more favourable
+circumstances. Here, however, one is immediately faced by the
+difficulties of accurate observation entailing a large number of data
+which tend to cancel out; for the mother who may personally have been
+below her usual standard of health and spirits while bearing the child
+may, nevertheless, actually be in such a good physical condition, or be
+a member of such a sound, healthy stock that the child's heredity was
+better than that of the average human being, and consequently that the
+child itself was provided with a healthy well-run body.
+
+While to contrast with it and apparently to refute my thesis, there
+may be a mother full of the most ardent hopes and buoyant spirit,
+looking forward with supreme joy to the advent of her baby, doing all
+she can to give it every beautiful mental impression and physical
+health, whose work may yet be undone by some cruel chance, such as
+venereal infection, or some local malformation which has resulted in
+weakness in, let us say, the child's digestion. We all know how peevish
+mere indigestion will make anybody. Or she, the well-intentioned and
+outwardly well-circumstanced mother may, unknown to herself, have been
+battling against the cruel handicap in some racial, heritable defect
+in her husband; the child, therefore, may, with all her efforts, yet
+fail to be joyous owing to the too strong physical bias which chance or
+heritable disease has given it.
+
+The existence of such apparently conflicting and contradictory
+individual instances in no way refutes my main thesis, which is that
+granted equal conditions of clean and wholesome ancestry, granted
+equally favourable conditions of health and nutrition for the mother
+during her period of carrying the child, that that child benefits and
+is superior to the other who has had the advantage of a happy mother's
+conscious effort to transmit to it a wide and generally intellectual
+and spiritual interest in the great and beautiful things of the world.
+
+This fact is often illustrated in the different children of the same
+parents. Of children born under as nearly identical circumstances
+as may be possible within a year or two of time, the one may have a
+totally different disposition with totally different qualities from the
+other. The chance of birth, the inheritance of the innumerable possible
+characteristics latent in both parents might be sufficient to account
+for this were chance alone at work, but very often information may be
+obtained from the observant mother which correlates her own state while
+carrying the child with the after condition of the child itself.
+
+One rather striking instance of such a correlation is by a curious
+chance known to me, and should be of general interest. Oscar Wilde,
+whose genius was sullied by terrible sex crimes, which he expiated
+in prison, is known to all the world as a type whose distressing
+perversion is a racial loss. His mother once confided to an old friend
+that all the time she was carrying her son Oscar, she was intensely and
+passionately desiring a daughter, visualizing a girl, and, so far as
+was possible, using all the intensity of purpose which she possessed to
+have a girl, and that she often in after years blamed herself bitterly,
+because she felt that possibly his perverted proclivities were due to
+some influence she might have had upon him while his tiny body was
+being moulded.
+
+Evidence upon this subject of the power or otherwise of the mother
+to influence her coming child is wanted, and it is very difficult to
+obtain, partly because of the reticence of those who have been through
+the dim and secret mysteries of motherhood, and partly because their
+accuracy cannot well be tested until after the child has reached
+maturity. In these after years the mother is likely to be swayed by the
+course the child's life has taken, into unconsciously laying stress
+upon one or other point which may seem correlated with its after
+achievements.
+
+Evidence, however, in the form of notes kept during the time the
+mother is carrying the child which may be compared with the child's
+life in later years are very valuable, and, if any readers have such
+with which they would entrust me, a sufficient body of such evidence
+might possibly be accumulated to assist materially in the formation of
+a strong spiritual asset in the creation of the best possible human
+beings.
+
+The father who desires to influence his child must do so through the
+mother: had clever men more generally realized this we should have
+heard less of the lament that clever men so often have stupid sons.
+
+Of the more physical aspects of the mother's power to influence
+the form of the development of her growing child we have abundant
+evidence. If the mother is starved, and by starved I mean less the
+actual starvation from want of food than the subtler starvation of
+improper food or food lacking in the truly vital elements, then the
+child visibly suffers. For instance, rickets, a disease of grave racial
+significance to which reference has already been made (see Chapter II),
+is due to the lack of certain necessary elements in the food.
+
+A simple diet, the simpler the better, is sufficient adequately to
+provide all the essentials of nourishment for the mother and her coming
+child, and much indeed may be done for the general health and beauty of
+the child by providing the mother with the best form of material from
+which the embryo may build itself. The use of foods containing large
+quantities of vitamine (real butter and oranges, for instance, are
+specially good) is very advisable. They are not only enriching in their
+action in assisting true assimilation of other foods, but they probably
+tend to make good the general drain on the mother's vitality which
+would naturally take place were she not amply provided with these most
+subtle ingredients, which, though present in such minute quantities in
+fresh food, are yet of incalculable value. The effect of proper and
+specially adapted dieting, not only on the health of the mother, but
+also on the beauty and general vigour of the child, is a thing which
+is particularly expressed by various writers who have followed up the
+early experiments on diet made by Dr. Trall.[5]
+
+[5] This book has been reprinted in a modern expurgated and mutilated
+edition, which deprives the reader of the most valuable portions of the
+author's work. I should advise readers to see one of the original early
+editions if they desire to read the book intended by the author for the
+public.
+
+There is also Dr. Alice Stockham's book, _Tokology_, to which I have
+previously drawn attention. Although, as I then said, it contains
+errors of a comparatively trivial nature such as calling carbonaceous
+material "carbonates," which may have been sufficient to prejudice
+the scientific mind against the rest of her work, it contains the
+profound and valuable message Mr. Rowbotham published in England in
+1841, amplified, and to some extent enriched by this woman doctor's
+experience.
+
+Those lovers who ardently desire their child and have a mental picture
+of it long before its birth may delight in speaking of it to each other
+as though it were, as indeed it is, alive. For this a name is required,
+but in order to avoid the danger suggested on page 141, it is wiser
+perhaps to choose the name of both a girl and a boy, the name which the
+child would be called by according to its sex after birth, and, while
+it is still unseen, to link the two together in speaking of the coming
+child.
+
+Sometimes for private reasons a girl in particular or a boy in
+particular may be desired, but the well-balanced mind of a parent,
+particularly of the first child, should welcome either a son or a
+daughter, each of whom has its peculiar charms, and neither of whom
+can be described as more valuable than the other. Our false estimate
+of boys as superior is largely due to economic conditions and the
+custom of male entail. This should, and of course will, be altered. It
+is the first _child_, whether boy or girl is no matter, who is "the
+first-born" with all that that connotes in rapture and wonder to its
+parents.
+
+Owing to the fact that more boys are born than girls, there is always
+the greater chance of the birth of a boy than a girl. From this point
+of view it would appear that girls are more precious, but boys are
+oftener ailing and feeble and difficult to rear, so that it is perhaps
+well that more of them should be born than of their stronger sisters.
+
+Throughout its coming, the little one should be thought of in such a
+way that it will be equally welcome whichever its sex, and thus be
+given the best chance of developing fully and naturally in its own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Evolving Types of Women
+
+    Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of
+    freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
+
+    Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
+    colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.
+
+    No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight
+    and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.
+
+    Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination or joy, and all
+    my desires ripen into fruits of love.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+One of the great sources of disharmony in our social life is the extent
+of the extraordinary ignorance about ourselves which still persists.
+From this spring our conflicting opinions and diametrically opposed
+views, and also the apparently self-contradictory evidence on almost
+any point of fundamental importance which is brought before the public.
+
+In no respect is there more conflict of opinion than concerning the age
+at which a woman should marry and become a mother. On the one hand,
+we have advocates of very early motherhood, and they point to the fact
+that a girl of seventeen is often already a woman and strongly sexed;
+they point to the hackneyed statement "that a girl matures sooner than
+a boy"; they point to the fine and healthy babies which very young
+mothers may bear and to the greater pliability and ease of birth,
+and these facts and their arguments may appear conclusive. On the
+other hand, the actual experience of many people conflicts with these
+apparently justified conclusions.
+
+All the highly evolved races tend to prolong childhood and youth. All
+tend to replace early marriage by later marriage and parenthood to the
+obvious advantage of the race.
+
+Marriage and parenthood at fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, which once
+were common in almost every country, are being replaced by later
+marriage and parenthood. As Finot 1913 says:--
+
+    A mystic chain appears to attach the age for love to the
+    consideration enjoyed by women. In the Far East, woman is offered
+    very young to the passion of man, and disappears from existence at
+    the time her contemporaries are just beginning to live. Love, for
+    this very reason, has a purely sensual stamp, degrading to man and
+    to woman. The lengthening of the age of love elevates the dignity,
+    and at the same time increases the longevity, of woman. Beyond
+    the age of thirty or forty the woman, dead to love, was fit only
+    for religion or witchcraft. Her life was shattered. Prematurely
+    aged she went out of the living world. The prolonged summer of
+    Saint-Martin in women will doubtless have consequences which
+    we should be wrong to fear. There is a solidarity of ages. The
+    cares bestowed on the child benefit the old man. The enlargement
+    of the age of maturity allows the child longer to enjoy the
+    years of life that are intended to form bodies and souls.... The
+    sentimental life of the country has undergone similar results.
+    Balzac, in proclaiming the right to love on the part of the woman
+    of thirty, aroused in his contemporaries astonishment bordering on
+    indignation. In his day, was not a man of forty-four considered
+    an old man?[6] Let us not forget that forty or fifty years before
+    Balzac, a philosopher like Charles Fourier, despairing of the
+    sentimental fate of young girls who had not found a husband before
+    the age of ... eighteen years, claimed for them the right to throw
+    propriety to the winds. According to the author of the _Th�orie des
+    Quatre-Mouvements_,[7] this was almost the critical age (_Problems
+    of the Sexes_, transl. Jean Finot 1913).
+
+[6] Balzac: _Physiologie du Mariage_.
+
+[7] Charles Fourier, Leipzig, 1808.
+
+The relative ages of husband and wife also have their influence, but
+should, to some extent, depend more on their _physiological_ age than
+on their actual years. They should, however, not be widely different.
+As Saleeby says:--
+
+    The greater the seniority of the husband, the more widowhood will
+    there be in a society. Every economic tendency, every demand for
+    a higher standard of life, every aggravation for the struggle for
+    existence, every increment of the burden of the defective-minded,
+    tending to increase the man's age at marriage, which, on the
+    whole, involves also increasing his seniority--contributes to the
+    amount of widowhood in a nation.
+
+    We, therefore, see that, as might have been expected, this question
+    of the age ratio in marriage, though first to be considered from
+    the average point of view of the girl, has a far wider social
+    significance. First, for herself, the greater her husband's
+    seniority, the greater are her chances of widowhood, which is
+    in any case the destiny of an enormous preponderance of married
+    women. But further, the existence of widowhood is a fact of great
+    social importance because it so often means unaided motherhood, and
+    because, even when it does not, the abominable economic position of
+    women in modern society bears hardly upon her. It is not necessary
+    to pursue this subject further at the present time. But it is
+    well to insist that this seniority of the husband has remoter
+    consequences far too important to be so commonly overlooked (_Woman
+    and Womanhood_, 1912).
+
+I have observed many girls, who were in every true sense of the word
+girls (that is unconscious of personal sex feeling, still growing in
+bodily stature and still developing in internal organization) until
+they were nearly thirty years of age. In my opinion, the girl who
+is thoroughly well-balanced, with an active brain, a well-developed
+normally sexed body, natural artistic and social instincts is not
+more than a child at seventeen, and to marry her at that age or
+anything like it is to force her artificially, and to wither off her
+potentialities.
+
+The type of woman who really counts in our modern civilization is,
+as a rule, not of age until she is nearly thirty. Not only does she
+_not_ mature sooner than a boy; she matures actually later than a
+large number of men. I have now accumulated a wide and varied amount
+of evidence in favour of the view which I here propound, namely, that
+there is a most highly evolved type of woman in our midst. This type,
+which it will be agreed is the most valuable we possess, encompasses
+women of a wide range of potentialities; they have beautiful entirely
+feminine bodies, with all feminine and womanly instincts well
+developed, with a normal, indeed a rather strong, sex instinct and
+acute personal desires which tend to be concentrated on one man and one
+man alone. I will provisionally call this the late maturing type, for
+such a woman is generally incapable of real sex experience till she
+is about twenty-seven or thirty. I think that she is in line with the
+highest branch of our evolution, that she represents the present flower
+of human development, and that through her and her children the human
+race has the best hope of evolving on to still higher planes--but, and
+this is very important, she is not fitted for marriage until she is at
+least twenty-seven, probably later, her best child-bearing years may be
+after she is thirty-five, and her most brilliant and gifted children
+are likely to be born when she is about forty.
+
+Personal evidence, and also facts in the interesting letters sent
+me by my readers have brought to my knowledge the existence of
+an important proportion of women who are absolutely unconscious
+of personal localized sex feeling until they are nearly or over
+thirty--one woman was nearly fifty before she felt and knew the real
+meaning of sex union though many years married.
+
+From outward observation of the general physique of such of these women
+as I have seen face to face, I may say that, as a rule, they retain
+their youth long; they retain also a buoyancy and vitality which, if
+they are properly treated, and have the good fortune to be married at
+the right time to the right man, may remain with them almost throughout
+their lives. Such women not only prolong their girlhood, they defer
+their age. Such women have, of course, throughout the centuries
+appeared from time to time, and I fancy have generally in the past,
+and still often in the present, suffered acutely through marrying too
+young. When they marry too young they tend, by the forcing of their
+feelings, by the deadening through habit of their potentialities, by
+the trampling on the unfolded possibilities within them, to be turned
+artificially into a "cold type of woman."
+
+Women now older tell me of the fact that for the first years of
+their married life they could give no response, but when they were
+respectively twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one or more, they began first
+to feel they were truly women. Young husbands have written to me of
+their distress that their wives (aged about twenty to twenty-three),
+delightful girls in every respect, seemed utterly incapable of
+any response in the marital orgasm. Sometimes this depends on her
+conformation, but such an incapacity I often attribute to the girl's
+marriage being premature. When she is twenty-seven or twenty-eight
+perhaps her internal development will be complete, and she will then
+be ripe for the full enjoyment of marriage: but if instead of a
+considerate husband she marries one who merely uses her, she stands
+little chance ever of knowing the proper relation of wifehood and
+motherhood.
+
+These facts which I could vary with details from individual
+experiences, in my opinion, indicate a profound truth in the
+development of the human race. It is this: not only do the higher races
+of human beings have a prolonged childhood and youth, but the most
+highly evolved, mentally, physically and racially, of our girls have
+not finished their potential growth into maturity until they are in the
+neighbourhood of thirty years of age.
+
+Does this then mean that all marriage should be deferred till so late?
+By no means, nor is the above conclusion any reflection on the type of
+girl who ripens much more quickly. I fully recognize that from the
+point of view of their sex potentialities some girls are complete women
+at seventeen or eighteen, and that they may then be very strongly sexed
+indeed. Such women should marry young.
+
+The marked differentiation of type of these very notably different
+women can be traced through many other aspects of their lives. I
+consider, for instance, the type of whom I spoke in Chapter XII (who
+has a natural desire for union, representing the highest and most
+complex human union, the union of three) belongs very frequently to the
+late maturing and the most highly evolved form of femininity.
+
+It should be recognized that there are among us not only different
+races, but that in the same stock, sometimes in the same family of
+apparently no specially mixed ancestry, we may find one or more members
+of the late maturing, others of the early maturing type. Sometimes of
+two sisters, the elder may perhaps be still in mind a girl while her
+younger sister is a woman, as can be observed by any one with a large
+circle of acquaintances. It would be well, I think, if humanity, whose
+proper study is mankind, were at least to know themselves sufficiently
+well to realize the existence of such different types, and their
+possible potential value as well as their differing needs. The energy
+at present wasted in the acrid statement of conflicting views would
+be so much better spent on the careful recording and recognizing of
+varying types.
+
+The advice to marry young, which is in every respect socially wise and
+physiologically correct for some, should not be hurled indiscriminately
+at all women, because for the late maturing such advice is socially
+disadvantageous and physiologically wrong.
+
+I am now ready to consider the question of the proper age for
+motherhood about which an immense variety of opinion is expressed. The
+general tendency has been, even in the last few years, to raise the
+age at which a girl may marry, and to raise the age which the medical
+profession advises as the earliest suitable for motherhood. But still
+one often hears of elders, whom one would in other respects like to
+follow, advising the early bearing of children.
+
+Now I should like every potential parent to consider what type of child
+they want. Do they want to secure healthy, jolly little animals with no
+more brains than are sufficient to see them creditably through life? If
+so, let them have their children very early. Such healthy sound people
+with no special gifts are valuable, and there is much work in the world
+for them to do. On the other hand, do they want to take the risk for
+their child of a possibly less robust body, but with the possibility,
+indeed, in healthy families, almost the certainty, of an immensely
+greater brain power, and a more strongly developed temperament? Then
+let them have their children late. And if a man desires to have a child
+who may become one of the _master_ minds whose discoveries, whose
+artistic creations, whose ruling power stamps itself upon the memory
+of our race, whose name is handed down the ages, then let the father
+who desires such a child mate himself with the long-young late-maturing
+type of woman I have just described, and let her bear that child some
+time between the age of thirty-five and forty-five.
+
+How often one hears some version of the phrase: "Yes, it is so sad,
+poor, dear Lord So-and-So, a charming man, but no brains at all; his
+younger brother such a brilliant man; but that is always the way, the
+eldest sons in the aristocracy do seem to get the gift of property
+balanced by the lack of brains." Now I enquire, and I should like my
+readers to enquire, into the secret of this phenomenon, which is by
+no means universal, but is sufficiently common to be endorsed. In my
+opinion, the interpretation of this fact is that the earlier children
+were born when the mother was still too young to endow them with
+brains, particularly if the mother was one of the gifted and cultivated
+women of the late-maturing type.
+
+This also leads me to consider another generality which is frequently
+used as an argument by those who oppose conscious and deliberate
+parenthood. Some people say that by the direct control of the size
+of the family to a small limited number which the parents definitely
+desire, we would be eliminating genius from our midst, and their
+argument runs: Look at Nelson, he was a fifth son; look at Sir Walter
+Scott, he was a third son; and so on. This to the uncritical seems
+conclusive, and many people of great capacity, ideals and heart, who
+otherwise would be wholly on my side in my claim that every child born
+shall be deliberately desired, and that all other conceptions shall
+be consciously prevented, are swayed by this argument and say: "Yes,
+your position would be obviously the right one for the race if it were
+not that later children are so often the better." I turn, therefore,
+to a consideration of the life histories of these men's mothers. Why
+was Nelson the genius of his family? Because his mother was too young
+to bear geniuses at the time she was bearing her elder children. But
+this is not yet a sufficiently accurate consideration of the subject;
+I want to know also of which type the mother was, for, in my opinion,
+the right age for the parenthood of a woman depends also on the type
+to which she belongs, whether the early maturing or the late maturing.
+If she knows herself to be the latter, after it is patent, as it must
+become patent to every one once the idea is placed before them, that
+such women are in our midst, then that woman and her husband should
+usually defer parenthood until she has reached at least thirty years of
+age. If this were done, then not the fourth, fifth or seventh but the
+first child would stand a very great chance of being a world leader,
+a powerful mind, perhaps even a genius. First children have been
+geniuses (Sir Isaac Newton was an only child); all depends on the age,
+the conscious desire, the general type and the surrounding conditions
+during prenatal state of her infant, of the mother who bears him and
+the father from whom he also inherits potentialities.
+
+A few investigations bearing on the effect of the parent's age have
+been published by the Eugenics Society and some individuals, but none
+of these appear to me to be of any value, for none take into account
+the necessary data concerning the type of the mother which I here point
+out, and in all the calculations crude errors occur.
+
+The best woman, with comparatively few exceptions, is already and will
+still more in the future be the woman who, out of a long, healthy and
+vitally active life, is called upon to spend but a comparatively small
+proportion of her years in an _exclusive_ subservience to motherhood.
+A woman should have eighty to ninety active years of life; if she bears
+three or perhaps four children, she will, even if she gives up all her
+normal activities during the later months of pregnancy and the earlier
+of nursing, still have cut out of her life but a very small proportion
+of its total. She should, indeed, after she once is a mother, always
+devote a proportion of her energies to the necessary supervision of
+her children's growth and education, but with the increasing number of
+schools and specialists, nurses, teachers and instructors of all sorts,
+the individual mother has much less of the purely physical labour of
+her children than formerly. That this is not only so, but is _approved_
+by the State can be seen at once by imagining a working class mother
+insisting on keeping her child at home all day under her personal
+supervision--the School Inspector would step in and take the child from
+her for a certain number of hours every day. But this book is primarily
+for middle and upper class women, and for them motherhood increasingly
+should mean a _widening_ of their interests and occupations.
+
+The counter-idea still expressed, even by leading doctors and others,
+is that the whole capability of the individual mother should be devoted
+solely to contributing to her children. This is exemplified in the
+recent statement of Blair Bell: "A normal woman, therefore, would not
+exploit her capabilities for individual gain, but for the benefit of
+her descendants." This view is a false one and is based on a narrow
+vision.
+
+This pictures an endless chain of fruitless lives all looking ever
+to some supreme future consummation which never materializes. By
+means of this perpetual sinking of woman's personality in a mistaken
+interpretation of her duty to the race, every generation is sacrificed
+in turn. The result has not been productive of good, happiness or
+beauty for the majority. No; the individual woman, normal or better
+than the average, _should_ use her intellect for her individual
+gain in creative work; not only because of its value to the age and
+community in which she lives, but also for the inheritance she may
+thus give her children and so that when her children are grown up they
+may find in their mother not only the kind attendant of their youth,
+but their equal in achievement. With a woman of capacities perhaps
+still exceptional, but by no means so rare as some men writers would
+like to pretend, the pursuit of her work or profession and honourable
+achievement in it is not at all incompatible with but is highly
+beneficial to her motherhood. As Charlotte Gilman says:--
+
+    No, the maternal sacrifice theory will not bear examination. As a
+    sex specialized to reproduction, giving up all personal activity,
+    all honest independence, all useful and progressive economic
+    service for her glorious consecration to the uses of maternity,
+    the human female has little to show in the way of results which
+    can justify her position. Neither by the enormous percentage of
+    children lost by death nor the low average health of those who
+    survive, neither physical nor mental progress, give any proof to
+    race advantage from the maternal sacrifice.--_Women and Economics._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Birth and Beauty
+
+    "Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou
+    knowest how to wait.
+
+    Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower."
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+When all goes well and there is no accidental hastening of the birth
+by shock or jar which dislodges the child too soon, the birthday finds
+its place in the ordinary rhythm of the woman's existence. We speak
+generally of the "nine months" during which the child is borne by its
+mother, but this nine months is a fictitious number depending on our
+calendar months, and the developing child is actually ten lunar months
+within its mother. Just as the average almost universal period of
+the woman's rhythm has twenty-eight days cycle, so on this number of
+days does the circle of months leading to birth depend. Ten months of
+twenty-eight days each is the full period of development, at the close
+of which the child seeks its exit through birth. As a rule the day
+of birth corresponds to some extent, if not quite accurately, to the
+former rhythm of her menstrual waves.
+
+An interesting paper containing various scientific data (not all of
+which are universally accepted) is to be found in the _Anat Anzeiger_
+of 1897 by Beard. What is actually the spring behind this rhythm is as
+yet largely unknown, but recent work on the internal secretions from
+the ovary such as was described by Starling in the _Croonian Lecture_,
+1905 (who quotes Marshall and Jolly and other workers), appears to
+indicate that this function like so many others in our system is due
+to the activities of certain glands yielding internal secretions.
+These, penetrating the whole system, have a controlling influence upon
+activities remote from their source.
+
+For the birth itself, the mother should be in experienced hands,
+preferably those of a highly trained and certified midwife or maternity
+nurse such as Queen Charlotte's or the London Hospital supplies, one
+who is experienced in all that has to be done in normal, healthy
+circumstances, and who can detect at once any necessity for specialized
+help. If the mother has lived rightly and wisely, dieted as I suggest
+and is properly formed (as, of course, should be assured through
+examination some time before the birth is expected), the birth should
+be, however terrible an experience, yet one which is safely passed.
+
+In the days which follow she will have much to endure, and instead of
+the peace and quietness which she expected, she will find that she
+has constant disturbances incidental to the nursing of one who is, in
+essentials, a surgical case.
+
+Possibly due to the inconveniences involved in staying in bed, there
+is a tendency at present to encourage the mother to get up and at
+least walk about the room and be up for an hour or two within ten days
+or less of the date of the birth. Almost every one with whom I have
+come in contact, advises this, and in a certain school, particularly
+those who go in for what is called "Twilight Sleep," there is not only
+an effort to get the mother up early, but a pride on the part of the
+mother and her advisers when she gets up perhaps within two or three
+days of the birth.
+
+Some women who have had a good many children boast of how they are up
+and about in ten days. I glance critically at all who tell me that,
+examining both their figures and their general appearance. _Only one
+woman of all who have ever discussed this matter with me urged the
+entirely old-fashioned month in bed following the birth. But_, and
+this is _very_ important, _she was the only one who, having had many
+children, at the same time had done most notable and arduous brain
+work, and also retained her youthful figure and general appearance_.
+
+This quite exceptional and old-fashioned advice is what I would hand on
+to women to-day. The modern craze for getting up quickly is absolutely
+wrong, and has a fundamentally deleterious effect on the general health
+of our women. I should go so far as to say that not only should a woman
+stay in bed the entire month, but that she should for two weeks longer
+scarcely put her foot to the ground. She may lie out of doors or on
+sofas, but, after a birth, _she should lie about for the whole of six
+weeks_.
+
+This may startle my readers. I, who look so keenly into the future, who
+am so progressive, so modern and so desirous of the great and rapid
+evolution of women, to return to the old custom of our grandmothers,
+and demand, not only the month in bed, to ask even more, that there
+should be six weeks spent practically lying about all the time! Is
+this not an anachronism? No. It will be observed that throughout this
+and my other books, my advice always has a biological basis, depending
+on the actual structure or the history of our bodies, and there is
+a very profound and physiological basis for the advice I now give.
+It is this--that not only during the birth is the whole system of
+the mother to some extent jarred and shaken; she suffers in all her
+nerves the sudden relief from the strain upon her muscles and in the
+whole readjustment of her system an extremely profound shock, and the
+treatment for shock entails rest. More than that, the womb which lies
+centrally and is so important an organ in her body, so enormously
+enlarged during the last months through which the child inhabited
+it, returns to its permanent size slowly; its strong, muscular walls
+tensely contract, but this contraction which reduces its size very
+much in the first day or two does not complete itself, does not bring
+the tissues back to the size which they will afterwards permanently
+maintain, _until six weeks have elapsed_. For the whole of six weeks,
+therefore, the womb will be larger and heavier than normal and with a
+tendency to get out of place, while all the muscles of the body wall
+are weakened and out of condition by being so long stretched. A woman,
+therefore, should not put any strain on her muscles like standing
+or walking or taking any active exercise before the six weeks has
+elapsed, though she should, lying both on her back and on her face,
+do exercises calculated to restore the strength of these muscles and
+fit them to take on their work directly she rises. One exercise,
+particularly valuable and but little known, is to raise the diaphragm
+without breathing. This can be done during the six weeks in bed, but
+is particularly valuable on first rising and standing or walking.
+This internal pull upwards of all the organs strengthens both the
+internal and the outer body wall muscles. Such control deliberately
+and frequently exerted throughout the day does more perhaps than any
+one other thing to retain a slender well-formed trunk. It has also a
+curiously bracing and exhilarating mental effect, and as the action can
+be done at any time unobserved, its effect can be utilized at will.
+The ancient Greeks laid great stress on the value of control of the
+diaphragm.
+
+It may be argued that during the time the child was within it the womb
+was very much larger than it is after birth, and nevertheless then
+active walking exercise was recommended. Yes: but during that time the
+womb was supported by the increased tension on the front muscles of the
+body wall against which it pressed and was thus assisted in maintaining
+its position; but after birth, while it is so very much smaller than
+quite recently it has been, and, at the same time, while still much
+larger than normal, and more than the weakened internal muscles are
+prepared to support, it is no longer held firm by the tense body
+wall, for the body wall is now limp, crumpled and almost incapable of
+supporting any strain. If, therefore, the woman stands too soon, the
+inner organs which are again beginning to find their natural place--the
+long digestive tract and other organs--tend to flop downwards, to
+bulge out the still loose and strained abdominal muscles, and press the
+still too heavy womb out of its normal position, the position to which
+it must return, and must permanently take up if the woman is to have
+her general health maintained throughout the rest of her life. Hence,
+before she sets foot to the ground she must lie the nature-decreed six
+weeks, and meanwhile _exercise_ the abdominal muscles so as to prepare
+them to act properly.
+
+When I see and hear of women either forced or lured or eagerly getting
+out of bed in ten days or a week after child birth, I wonder what will
+happen to all those women ten or fifteen years hence. They will be
+fortunate if they do not have what is now so increasingly prevalent,
+namely some form of displacement of the womb with all its attendant
+miseries of handicapped motherhood and wifehood. I maintain that it is
+nothing short of cruelty and criminality to allow the modern woman to
+get up quickly in the way she does. It may possibly be claimed by some
+of the foolish and hardy pioneers of getting up rapidly, that when she
+is a middle-aged or elderly woman she will not be suffering from the
+slow relaxations and displacements which result from putting pressure
+too soon on abdominal muscles unprepared to bear the strain. This
+will not make things safe for the average woman however. It is not
+realized how appalling is the prevalence of womb displacements among
+the lower working-class women, those who are forced by circumstances to
+get up in a week or ten days and go back to work. I think the modern
+increase in displacements in middle and upper class women is partly to
+be traced to the tendency to get up too soon, and also to the impatient
+practitioner's use of instruments to hasten a birth which would come
+naturally in good time. When once the perineal and inner supporting
+muscles have been torn, they are too often mended superficially, but
+inner tears are left which make the perineum an insufficient support
+for the womb, of which the result is its slow and gradual dropping
+out of place, which some years afterwards may acutely handicap the
+unfortunate woman.
+
+In the name of all the fond and happy mothers that I hope the future
+may contain, I would urge every one who possibly can to _insist_ on
+having six weeks of "lying in." This is not only in the interests of
+general health but of beauty. Too long have we become tolerant of the
+hideous formation of the body which is common in older women. We have
+domesticated some animals[8] solely for our own purposes, and they are
+hideous indeed. Why should we women permit a comparable standard for
+ourselves? Why not insist on at least as much care as is devoted to the
+race-horse? Why not take a period of rest after the great effort of
+maternity proportionately as long as a she-wolf or tigress takes in her
+cave, fed by her mate while she lies about and plays with her cubs?[9]
+The standard of beauty of the racing mare, of the wild tigress or
+she-wolf is slender and not markedly different from that of its virgin
+state. Such a standard, and not that of the over-taxed, man-used,
+domesticated animals should be that on which we women should insist.
+
+[8] The sow normally breeding once a year, artificially forced to breed
+two or three times a year. Its appearance is proverbial.
+
+[9] This has been reported to me by travellers and others, but I cannot
+get an authoritative scientific record for the fact.
+
+In this connection should be mentioned one other way in which the
+following of Nature and obedience to her law works for good. In the
+next chapter I mention the baby's right to be fed by nature's food, and
+while the infant is nursing from its mother it stimulates contractions
+in the womb which very much assist in bringing it to its right size and
+position, and so the act of nursing benefits not only the infant but
+its mother.
+
+A number of researches by various experts have been made, which proves
+that the womb reacts to the stimulus of suckling by the child. Pfister
+(_Beit. z. Geb. u. Gyn._, 1901, vol. v, p. 421), for instance, found
+that very definite contractions took place during the baby's suckling,
+particularly for the first eight days after its birth; also Temesv�ry
+(_Journ. Obstet. and Gyn. Brit. Emp._, 1903, vol. iii, p. 511) found
+that the natural involution of the womb after birth was distinctly more
+rapid in those who nursed their babies than in those who did not.
+
+Prolonging the nursing period does undoubtedly not tend to increase
+the beauty of the woman's bosom but to deteriorate it, but, for at any
+rate the first few months, it is _very_ advantageous both to the mother
+and to the child that she should feed it naturally. If throughout the
+nursing period she slings her breast properly from above, and if when
+the nursing period ceases she massages and treats the breast properly,
+it should not lose its beauty in the way which is alas, to-day, too
+general.
+
+Mothers, in the self-sacrifice involved in their motherhood, too
+often forget their duty to remain beautiful. All youth is revolted by
+ugliness, consciously or unconsciously. A girl should not be indirectly
+taught to dread motherhood herself by seeing the wreckage her own
+mother has allowed it to make of her. A high demand for beauty of form
+by mothers is not selfishness but a racial duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Baby's Rights
+
+    "The nation that first finds a practical reconciliation between
+    science and idealism is likely to take the front place among the
+    peoples of the world."
+
+        DEAN INGE: _Outspoken Essays_.
+
+
+Baby's rights are fundamental. They are:
+
+To be wanted.
+
+To be loved before birth as well as after birth.
+
+To be given a body untainted by any heritable disease, uncontaminated
+by any of the racial poisons.
+
+To be fed on the food that nature supplies, or, if that fails, the very
+nearest substitute that can be discovered.
+
+To have fresh air to breathe; to play in the sunshine with his limbs
+free in the air; to crawl about on sweet clean grass.
+
+When he is good, to do what baby wants to do and not what his parents
+want; for instance, to sleep most of his time, not to sit up and crow
+in response to having his cheeks pinched or his sides tickled.
+
+When he is naughty, to do what his parents want and not what he wants:
+to be made to understand the "law of the jungle." From his earliest
+days he must be disciplined in relation to the great physical facts of
+existence, to which he will always hereafter have to bow. The sooner he
+comprehends this, the better for his future.
+
+Most young mothers, even those who have had the advantage of highly
+trained maternity nurses to assist them at first, later require
+authoritative advice about how to treat the baby for whom they have
+given so much, and to whom they wish to give every possible advantage.
+Many books give advice to the young mother and to these she may turn.
+I do not wish to duplicate what they say, but advise every one who has
+an infant, even if they think they know all about the best method of
+bringing it up, to possess a copy of Dr. Truby King's _Baby and How to
+Rear It_ for reference. It is the most practical, sensible and best
+illustrated book of its kind.
+
+There is, therefore, on the subject of baby's material rights not very
+much more that I need to say, but there is one elementary right very
+generally overlooked, and that is the right to love in anticipation.
+
+Baby's right to be _wanted_ is an individual right which is of racial
+importance. No human being should be brought into the world unless his
+parents desire to take on the responsibility of that new life which
+must, for so long, be dependent upon them.
+
+Far too many of the present inhabitants of this earth who are _not_
+wanted because of their inferiority, were children who came to
+reluctant, perhaps horror-stricken, mothers. To this fact, I trace
+very largely the mental and physical aberrations which are to-day so
+prevalent; to this also I trace the bitterness, the unrest, the spirit
+of strife and malignity which seem to be without precedent in the world
+at present [see also _The Control of Parenthood_, final section, and,
+for the remedy, my book, _Wise Parenthood_, both published by Putnam].
+
+The warped and destructive impulse of revolution which is sweeping over
+so many people at present must have its roots in some deep wrong.
+
+Revolution is not a natural activity for human beings. Though the
+revolutionary impulse has swept through sections of humanity many times
+in its history, it is essentially unnatural, an indication of warping
+and poisoning, and a cause of further and perhaps irreparable damage.
+
+Happy people do not indulge in revolution. Happy people with a
+deep sense of underlying contentment and satisfaction in life
+may yet strive ardently to improve and beautify everything round
+them. They strive in the same direction as the main current of
+life--that is the growth and unfolding of ever increasing beauty. The
+revolutionaries--bitter, soured and profoundly unhappy--pit their
+strength against the normal stream of life and destroy, break down and
+rob. Too long humanity has had to endure such outbreaks owing to its
+general blindness and lack of understanding of their causes.
+
+Until the scientific spirit of profound inquiry into fundamental causes
+becomes general even in a small section of the community, superficial
+and apparently obvious explanations are accepted to account for results
+which really arise from profound and secret springs.
+
+The "divine discontent" which has impelled humanity forward along the
+path of constructive progress is a very different thing from the bitter
+discontent which leads to revolutionary and destructive outbursts. The
+village blacksmith of the well-known song, using his healthy muscles
+on hard, useful work which gives him a deep physical satisfaction, may
+feel the former and help forward the stream of progress in his village.
+
+The aim of reformers to-day should be to provide for every one neither
+ease nor comfort, nor high wages nor short hours, but the deeper
+necessities of a full and contented life, bodies able to respond with
+satisfaction to the strain of hard work performed under conditions
+which satisfy the mind in the most fundamental way of all--the deep,
+sub-conscious satisfaction which is given by the sweet smell of earth,
+by fresh air and sunshine, and green things around one.
+
+We draw from all these things some subtle ingredient without which
+our natures are weakened so that a further strain sends them awry.
+To-day we are so deeply involved with the hydra-headed monster of the
+revolutionary spirit that there does not seem time to deal with it
+radically, to attempt to understand it, and consequently to conquer
+it for ever. Even now, when for the first time humanity is on a
+large scale beginning to tackle fundamental problems, I have seen no
+indication that the source of revolution is being sought for in the
+right place.
+
+What is the source of revolution?
+
+The revolutionaries through the ages, feeling themselves jar with their
+surroundings, have been ensnared by the nearest obvious things, the
+happier surrounding of others. These they have endeavoured to snatch at
+and destroy, thinking thereby to improve their own and their comrades'
+lot. Their deductions, though profoundly false, have appeared even
+obviously right to many.
+
+External grievances are what the revolutionary is out to avenge:
+external benefits are what he is out to gain. Generally this is
+expressed in terms of higher wages, a share, or all, of the capital of
+those supposed to be better off, or the material possessions of others.
+These are the things that nearly all strikers and revolutionaries
+are upsetting the world to get, thinking--perhaps sincerely--that
+these things will give them the happiness for which, consciously or
+unconsciously, they yearn. The truth is, however, that it is a much
+more intimate thing than money or possessions which they need. They
+need new bodies and new hearts.
+
+Most of the revolutionaries I have met are people who have been warped
+or stunted in their own personal growth. One sees upon their minds or
+bodies the marks and scars of dwarfing, stunting or lack of balance.
+They have known wretchedness both in themselves and in their families
+far more intimate and penetrating than that of mere poverty.
+
+That, they may answer, is an external grievance which has been imposed
+upon them by society. In effect they say: "Society has starved us,
+given us bad conditions." Thus they foster a grievance against
+"society" in their minds. One bitter leader said to me:--
+
+    I was one of fourteen children, and my mother had only a little
+    three-roomed cottage near Glasgow. We nearly starved when I was
+    young. I know what the poor suffer at the hands of society.
+
+But it was not society that put fourteen children into that cottage; it
+was the mother herself. Her own ignorance, helpless ignorance perhaps,
+was the source of her children's misery. The most for which society can
+be blamed concerning that family is in tolerating such a plague-spot of
+ignorance in its midst. Nor is this pestilential ignorance by any means
+only confined to the financially poor.
+
+This country, and nearly all the world, has innumerable homes in which
+the seed of revolution is sown in myriads of minds from the moment they
+are conceived. Revolted, horror-stricken mothers bear children whose
+coming birth they fear.
+
+A starved, stunted outlook is stamped upon their brains and bodies
+in the most intimate manner before they come into the world, so
+oriented towards it that they _must_ run counter to the healthy, happy
+constructive stream of human life.
+
+What wonder at the rotten conditions of our population when these are
+common experiences of the mothers of our race:--
+
+    For fifteen years I was in a very poor state of health owing to
+    continual pregnancy. As soon as I was over one trouble it was
+    started all over again.[10]
+
+[10] I refer the reader to that poignant book, _Maternity, Letters from
+Working Women_, collected by the Women's Co-operative Guild. Bell, 1915.
+
+Again:--
+
+    During pregnancy I suffered much. When at the end of ten years I
+    determined that this state of things should not go on any longer.
+
+Again:--
+
+    My grandmother had twenty children. Only eight lived to about
+    fourteen years; only two to a good old age.
+
+Again:--
+
+    I cannot tell you all my sufferings during the time of motherhood.
+    I thought, like hundreds of women to-day, that it was only
+    natural, and that you had to bear it. I had three children and one
+    miscarriage in three years.
+
+Need I go on?
+
+There lies the real root of revolution.
+
+The secret revolt and bitterness which permeates every fibre of the
+unwillingly pregnant and suffering mothers has been finding its
+expression in the lives and deeds of their children. We have been
+breeding revolutionaries through the ages and at an increasing rate
+since the crowding into cities began, and women were forced to bear
+children beyond their strength and desires in increasingly unnatural
+conditions.
+
+Also since women have heard rumours that such enslaved motherhood is
+not necessary, that the wise know a way of keeping their motherhood
+voluntary, the revolt in the mother has become conscious with
+consequent injury to the child.
+
+Increasingly, the first of baby's rights is to be _wanted_.
+
+Concerning baby's right to be fed on the food that nature supplies, or
+if that fails on the very nearest substitute that can be discovered,
+there are to-day so many who urge that an infant shall be fed by
+its own mother, that it is perhaps needless to repeat arguments so
+impressive. Nevertheless, perhaps it is as well to remind young
+mothers of two or three of the most vital facts. The first is that
+no artificial substitute, however perfectly prepared and chemically
+analysed, can possibly give those very subtle constituents which are
+found in the mother's own milk and which vary from individual to
+individual. These probably are in the nature of the vitamines now so
+well known in fresh food, but they are something more specifically
+individual than can be scientifically detected. The fresh milk of its
+own mother has a peculiar value to the child which is greater than that
+of any foster mother.
+
+For this reason alone, were it the only one, every young mother should
+nurse her own baby if possible; but, on the other hand, to-day it
+not infrequently happens that the mother may have an apparent flow
+of milk, quite sufficient for the infant in quantity, but that milk
+may be devoid of the necessary supply of fat or sugars or some other
+ingredient for complete nutriment. When this is so, it is often wisest
+to allow the mother to nurse the child partly and to supplement its
+diet by other milk.
+
+Various schools of doctors and maternity nurses have differed even on
+this matter, but it is quite obvious that if the actual food value of
+the mother's milk is below a certain point then the added value of its
+individual vitamine-like qualities will not wholly compensate for the
+loss of actual nourishment.
+
+Among baby's rights, I should perhaps also make it clear that there is
+his right that he should not be used as a bulwark between his mother
+and another baby in a way which is sometimes recommended so that a
+mother may go on nursing her infant for a very long time, sometimes
+even into its second year, in the hope that this nursing may prevent
+her conceiving again. Such a course of action is very harmful both to
+the child and to her and should never be followed. Such a practice is,
+of course, much less common in this country (except among aliens) than
+it is abroad where I have seen healthy children of even three or four
+years of age nursing upon their mother's knees.
+
+In these days, perhaps it is hardly necessary to accentuate baby's
+other rights since the century of the child dawned a generation ago.
+To-day it is perhaps almost more important to accentuate the rights
+of others who exist in the neighbourhood of a baby. But on the other
+hand if one looks penetratingly at the whole problem of character
+development, one sees that among baby's rights is its right to be
+trained from the very first so that its life shall be as little
+hindered by friction as may be possible: that it should be taught the
+elementary rules of conduct and necessary conformity with the hard
+material facts of existence from the very first. A wise nurse's or
+mother's training from the earliest weeks of infancy may make or mar a
+future man's or woman's chance of getting on in the world and making
+a success of their lives, by making or marring the character, the
+capacity to obey, the formation of regular and hygienic habits and the
+realization of the physical facts of the world.
+
+The ancient Greeks taught their youth to reverence that which was
+beneath them, that which was around them, and that which was above
+them. In my opinion this right of youth to be placed in its proper
+orientation in relation to the world has been neglected of late. We are
+suffering from the wayward revolt from an earlier and perhaps harsher
+type of mistake, that of too greatly controlling and thwarting the
+child's impulses. We must maintain a just balance and return to the due
+mean in which the right of a child, not only to be well born but well
+trained, is universally recognized.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Weakest Link in the Human Chain
+
+    "This shall be thy reward--that the ideal shall be real to thee."
+
+        OLIVE SCHREINER: _Dreams_.
+
+
+Proverbs innumerable and daily experience have familiarized every one
+with the idea that the citizen is moulded and his or her essential
+characteristics determined in childhood, and as a result of childhood's
+training. The most profoundly operative of all his qualities is his
+potential sex attitude, because it is that which determines his
+experience of sex and marriage, which colours his thoughts towards
+women throughout his life, which inclines his mind nobly towards his
+own racial actions or which leaves him weak and frivolous in his
+attitude towards the greatest profundities of life.
+
+Children, otherwise brought up with every care and forethought,
+surrounded by all that love and money can give them, are too generally
+left, without their mother's guidance or their father's wisdom, to
+discover the great facts of life partly by instinct and partly from
+the vulgar talk of servants or soiled children a little older than
+themselves. Worse even than this takes place, because most generally in
+this connection they not only do not hear the truth from their mother's
+lips, but they learn from her their most influential and earliest
+lesson in lying.
+
+The curious thing about the particularly pernicious form of lying which
+deals with racial things in the presence of childhood is that we have
+the habit of thinking it quite innocent. Indeed we have even acquired
+the habit of thinking it one of the charming form of lies; hence when
+we are in a reforming mood, seeking for the origins of the wrongs we
+are trying to put right, we pass these "charming" lies by, thinking
+them harmless.
+
+Where did each one of us first learn to lie?
+
+_Nearly every one who is now grown up got his (or her) first lesson in
+lying at his mother's knee._ To the little child, in his narrow but
+ever widening world, the mother is the supreme ruler, the all-wise
+provider of food, clothes, pleasures and pains. The mother (the child
+instinctively feels) must be also the source of wisdom.
+
+Question after question about himself and his surroundings springs
+up in the baby mind. Mother is asked them all, and for every one
+she has some sort of an answer. Then inevitably, at three or four,
+or five years old comes the question:--"Mother, where did you find
+me?"--"Mother, how was I born?"
+
+Then comes the lie.
+
+The child is told about the doctor bringing him in a bag--or a stork
+flying in through the window--or the accidental finding under the
+gooseberry bush.
+
+All children delight in fairy tales, but instinctively they know very
+well the difference between a fairy tale which is recounted to them as
+a story in answer to their mood of "make-believe" and a fiction which
+is putting them off when they are seeking the truth.
+
+If the mother who feels herself too ignorant or too self-conscious to
+answer the truth to the child's questions takes him on her knee and
+deliberately tells him in a "make-believe" mood a fairy tale, the child
+will then not feel that the mother has lied. _He will feel, however,
+that he must ask some one else for the truth._
+
+But most mothers give the answer containing the fiction of the
+gooseberry bush, or whatever it may be, in a manner indicating that
+that is what the child must believe, and the child receives the
+information as a serious answer to his serious question. It is then a
+lie, and a pernicious lie.
+
+Racial knowledge, instinct, whatever you like to call it, is subtler
+and stronger in baby minds than we dulled grown-ups are inclined to
+think. The youngest child has a half-consciousness that what its mother
+said in answer to this question was not true.
+
+Nurse, or auntie, a friend's governess, or any one else who seems wise
+and powerful, is asked the same question when mother is not there,
+and the chances are that if mother had given the stork version auntie
+gives the gooseberry bush or some other fiction which she particularly
+favours.
+
+The baby ponders intermittently, inconsequently, perhaps at long
+intervals, perhaps after years, but ultimately it realizes that its
+mother lied to it.
+
+In this way infinite injury has been done to the whole human stock,
+and more particularly women have suffered from the dishonesty and the
+inherent incapacity of our society to be frank and truthful about
+the most profound and the most terrible aspects of sex, namely, its
+diseases. A wife or a mother has the right to be told the truth.
+
+Women, and particularly mothers, have been outrageously wronged by the
+deliberate lies and untruthful atmosphere about the greater problems
+of sex in which the learned have enshrouded them: but mothers have
+themselves given the first bent to the little sprouting twig of that
+tree of knowledge, and they have bent it _away_ from the sunlight of
+truth and clean and happy understanding.
+
+The mother's excuse is, or would be if she felt herself in any way to
+blame (which, by the way, deplorably, she very seldom does) that these
+terrible mysteries of origin are not suitable for the little innocent
+child to ponder over. She thinks they would shock him. But here the
+mother is profoundly mistaken.
+
+_The age of innocence is the age when all knowledge is pure._ At three,
+four, or five years old, everything is taken for granted--everything in
+the universe is equally a surprise, and is at the same time accepted
+without question as being in the natural course of events. If true
+answers were given to the tiny child's questions, they would seem quite
+rational--not in the least more surprising than the fact that oak trees
+grow from acorns, or that the cook gets a jam tart out of a hot oven.
+
+All the world's events seem magic at that age, and if no exceptional
+mystery were made of the magic of his own advent, the child would
+feel it as natural as all the rest, and having asked the question and
+obtained satisfactory, simple unaccentuated answers, would let his
+little mind run on to the thousand other questions he wants to ask. The
+essential racial knowledge would slip naturally and sweetly into his
+mind mingled with a myriad other new impressions.
+
+There is no self-consciousness, no personal shamefacedness, about a
+tiny child. It accepts the great truths of the universe in the grand
+manner.
+
+If the mother has never failed her child, has always given it what she
+could of wisdom, she will retain his trust and his confidence. When he
+gets a little older she can teach him to go to no one else for talk
+about the intimacies of life, which the child is quick to realize are
+not discussed openly amongst strangers.
+
+Then, later on, when personal consciousness and shyness begin, there
+need not be the acute constraint and tension of the shame-faced
+elder speaking to a mind awakening to itself. Deep in the child's
+consciousness, deeper even than its conscious memory goes, the true big
+facts are planted.
+
+To tell a child of twelve or fourteen the truth is, for most parents,
+an impossibly difficult matter. The reason for this is that it is then
+too late for essentials; only details are then suitable or necessary.
+
+Little children spend much of their early time in exploring themselves
+and their immediate surroundings--all is mysterious, all at first
+unknown. Their own feet and hands, their powers of locomotion and of
+throwing some object to a distance, the curls of their own hair, the
+pain they encounter in their bodies when explorations bring them in
+contact with sharp angles: all are equally mysterious, together forming
+a wonder-world. And babies are very young indeed when they explore with
+all the rest of their bodies, the rudiments of those of their racial
+organs with which they can acquaint themselves. _In my opinion, the
+attitude of a man or woman through life is largely determined by the
+attitude adopted by the mother towards the racial organs_ BEFORE _the
+child was old enough consciously to remember any instruction that was
+imparted_.
+
+Advice is often given in these more enlightened days to instruct your
+boy or girl in his racial power or duties when he or she is ten or
+twelve years old. This to many seems very young, and they hesitate
+and defer it till they are older and "can understand better." In my
+opinion, this is already eight or ten years too late.
+
+_The child's first instruction in its attitude towards its sex organs,
+its first account of the generation of human beings, should be given
+when it is two or three years old_; given with other instruction, of
+which it is still too young to comprehend more than part, but which
+it is nevertheless old enough to comprehend in part. Very simple
+instruction given reverently at suitable opportunities at that early
+age will impress itself upon the very _texture_ of the child's mind,
+before the time of actual memories, so that from the very first
+possible beginnings its tendencies are in the direction of truth and
+reverent understanding.
+
+_A child so tiny will usually not remember one word of what was said
+to it, but the effects on his outlook will be deep._ For at that early
+age, children are meditatively absorbing and being impressed by the
+psychological states and feelings of their instructors and companions,
+and if, in these very earliest months, the mother or guardian makes the
+mistake of treating ribaldly the tiny organs or of speaking lightly in
+the child's presence, or of directly lying to the child about these
+facts, that child receives a mental warp and injury which nothing can
+ever eradicate entirely, which may in later years through bitter and
+befouling experiences be lived down as an old scar that has healed, but
+which will have permanently injured it.
+
+I hold this to be a profound truth, and one which it is urgent that
+humanity should realize. I trust that my view will establish itself on
+every hand. If that were my way, I could easily write a whole volume
+on this theme, and coin a polysyllabic terminology in which to mould
+and harden thought on the subject. But I prefer that a few simple words
+should slip like vital seed into the hearts of mothers, and that they
+may mould the race.
+
+It is ignorance of this truth which has led to the dishonouring and
+befouling of pure and beautiful youth, which is the original source of
+the greater part of all the social troubles and the sex difficulties of
+adolescence.
+
+_The tiny child of two or three years old, just beginning to perceive
+and piece together the psychological impressions stamped upon it by
+its environment and the mind-states of those around it, is the weakest
+link in the chain of our social consciousness._ Physically, the new
+born babe for the first few days of its life is the weakest link in
+the chain, the most liable physically to extinction, but spiritually,
+socially the link most liable to warping, even destruction, is the
+awakening mind, the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child
+between two and three years old.
+
+The mother or guardian then who desires her son or daughter to face
+the great facts of life beautifully and profoundly should begin from
+the first to mould that attitude in the child. It may appear to the
+unthinking like building castles in the sand even to hint at truths
+which it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers nothing of the
+words used in later years. This is not so. What the child absorbs is
+less the actual words than the tone of voice, the mode of expression
+that spiritually impresses itself upon its own little soul.
+
+Then there comes a later stage for most civilized human beings,
+usually after they are three years old, when there arises the
+possibility of permanent consciousness through permanent and specific
+memory of things seen, done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present
+generation will have some vivid memory, dating back to when they
+were between three and four years old, when they received a strong
+mental impression that grown-ups were lying to them or that there
+was something funny or silly in questions which they asked. Perhaps
+they noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was taken seriously,
+questions about where pussy got her kittens were laughed at. Almost
+each one of us who is to-day grown up then received some grievous
+injury. This time is of great importance in the psychology not only
+of the child, but of the whole adult race arising from the growing up
+of each child, for one's earliest memories are few but very vivid. As
+things are to-day, generally between the ages of three and four or so,
+in the months which are likely to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit
+is wounded by the shock of a serious lie.
+
+When as a mother or father you are with your children it is vital to
+be most careful to answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the
+questions which arise. No one can foresee which question and answer may
+make that terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.
+
+When your little son or daughter is about the age of three or four
+or five, the day will come when you are asked questions about the
+most fundamental facts in human life, and then the answers to these
+questions contain the probability of a lifelong memory. Answer with the
+_truth_.
+
+Many parents are anxious to tell their children the great truths in
+a wise and beautiful manner. But few feel that they know how to do
+it, for it is a most difficult thing to know how to answer searching
+questions about profound subjects, and particularly about those which
+the community wrongly considers shameful. Each mother knows, or should
+know, the temperament and needs of her child, so that the adaptation
+of the advice I give should be varied to suit the individual child. In
+essence, however, children's demands at an early age are remarkably
+similar, and the questions of children on birth and sex differ in form,
+though seldom in substance.
+
+The following conversation between a mother and her little son
+indicates what seems to me the best way first to tell a child who has
+reached the age when he may have lasting memory of the facts that he is
+blindly seeking in his baby questions. It will not suffice to learn the
+answers off by heart; the baby will then soon confound his elders, but
+the substance of the conversation should prove useful.
+
+The very first time the query comes: "Mother where did you get me?" the
+mother must not divert the child's interest, or hesitate, but should be
+ready at once to answer:--
+
+    "God and Daddy and I together made you, because we wanted you.[11]"
+
+    [11] At the request of many readers this conversation was published
+    in the _Sunday Chronicle_.
+
+    "Did God help? Couldn't He do it all Himself?"
+
+    "You know when you and I are playing with bricks together, you like
+    Mummy to help, but not to do it all. God thought Daddy and Mummy
+    would like Him to help, but not to do everything, because Daddy
+    and Mummy enjoyed making you much more than you enjoy playing with
+    bricks."
+
+That may suffice for the time, because little children are very readily
+satisfied with one or two facts about any one subject, and the talk
+could easily be diverted. The little mind may brood over what was told,
+and some time later--perhaps a few days, perhaps even a few months or
+more--this question will come up again, possibly in a different form:--
+
+    "Mummy, when was I born?"
+
+The mother should give the day and say:--
+
+    "You know your birthday comes every year on the 18th of April. That
+    birthday is what reminds us of the day you were born, and each
+    birthday you are a whole year older."
+
+    "I'm five now."
+
+    "Yes, so you were born five years ago on your birthday."
+
+    "Where was I before I was born?"
+
+    "Don't you remember I told you that God and Daddy and I made you?"
+
+    "Yes.... Did you make me on my birthday?"
+
+    "Not all in one day; you took much longer to make than that."
+
+    "How long did I take to make?"
+
+    "A long, long time. Little children are so precious they cannot be
+    made in a hurry."
+
+    "How long did I take?"
+
+    "Nearly a year--nine whole months."
+
+    "Did baby take as long?"
+
+    "Yes, just the same time. Baby is just as precious as you are."
+
+    "I'm bigger."
+
+    "Now you are, but you were baby's size when you were baby's age.
+    You are bigger because you have grown since your first birthday."
+
+Again the subject may perhaps drop, or it may be carried directly
+forward.
+
+    "What is being born?"
+
+    "Being born is being shown to the world and seeing the world for
+    the first time. At the end of nine months after God and Daddy and
+    Mummy started to make you, you were ready to open your eyes and
+    breathe and cry, and be a real live baby, and that day they showed
+    you to somebody and you saw the world. That was being born."
+
+    "Where was I before you finished making me?"
+
+    "Mummy kept you hidden away so that nobody at all should see you."
+
+    "_Where_ was I hidden?"
+
+    "You were hidden in a most wonderful place, in the place where only
+    quite little babies can be while God and their mummies are making
+    them."
+
+    "Show me; I want to go back there."
+
+    "You can never go back; it is only while you are being made you can
+    be there. After your first birthday, you can never go back."
+
+    "Where was I?"
+
+    "Well, you know, little babies that are being made are very, very
+    delicate, and they have to be kept very warm and comfortable, and
+    nobody must see them, and they must be close, close up to their
+    mummies."
+
+    The child may interject, "And their daddies too?"
+
+    "Yes, if they have got loving daddies, the daddy keeps close to the
+    mummy; but while babies are being made it is God and mummy that
+    have most of the work to do. That is why you must always love your
+    mummies and obey them."
+
+The child may be temporarily satisfied, or may continue at once:--
+
+    "But where _was_ it that I was while you were making me?"
+
+    "What is the warmest, softest, safest place you can think of?
+    Mummy's heart: that is all warm with love. The place Mummy hid you
+    while God and she were making you was right underneath her heart."
+
+    "Her real heart--the heart that beats like a clock ticking?"
+
+    "Yes, her real heart, just here."
+
+The mother should lay the child's hand on her heart and let him feel it
+beating.
+
+    "And just inside, right underneath here, Mummy kept you while God
+    was helping her to make you."
+
+The child who has been brought up in a home of love and tenderness and
+beauty will find this a thrilling and beautiful thought, like a little
+boy whom I know personally, and to whom this fact was told in this way.
+Solemnly, and without a word, he went away from his mother into the
+middle of the room and stood deep in thought for several minutes. Then
+he turned, looked round, and rushed across the room, threw himself into
+his mother's lap, his arms round her neck and cried: "Oh, Mummy, Mummy,
+then I was right inside you."
+
+For days afterwards he was filled with a rapturous joy, and at times
+used to leave his play and come to his mother and put his arms round
+her neck, saying: "Oh, Mummy, that is why I love you so."
+
+Whatever form the child's feeling may take, the opportunity should not
+be allowed to pass without a little addition to the conversation, and
+the mother should say:--
+
+    "And you see that is why you must never talk to any one but Daddy
+    and Mummy, or God through your prayers, about such things. As God
+    and Daddy and Mummy, and no one else made your little body, so
+    every thing you want to know about it, all the questions you want
+    to ask, you should ask of them and no one else. You see, you are
+    different from any other child in the world, and as Daddy and
+    Mummy helped to make you, only they know your works. So whatever it
+    is you want to know, or whatever it is that goes wrong, it is Mummy
+    and Daddy who can tell you about it."
+
+Once may be sufficient for a child to be told the greater truths
+it desires to know, but it is seldom that the child will leave so
+wonderful a subject entirely alone after first learning of it, and many
+portions of the beautiful facts will have to be repeated in a variety
+of forms, or in just the same words, as are repeated again and again
+the beloved fairy tales. The child, however, will be quick to know
+the difference between this story and fairy tales, for children have
+an instinct for truth at a much earlier age than grown-ups generally
+remember.
+
+A further series of questions will probably arise when the child is
+about twelve.
+
+The essential difficulties of these later questions, and the shamefaced
+self-consciousness so usual between parent and child will never arise
+if from the first the deep truths have been known to the child.
+
+The child so instructed is not supplied with all necessary facts,
+and instruction of a more specific and exact nature will have to
+be repeated at further intervals throughout its life, but on this
+foundation, further knowledge can be built without having to wipe out
+anything already implanted, without having to contradict earlier
+instruction, or to acknowledge the gravest error of having lied. Life
+teaches much to a quick child trained to observation, particularly
+in the country, where all children should spend much of their time.
+If the little one has been told what has been given in the previous
+pages it will have all the essential truths on to which it will fit in
+for itself the other data which daily life will bring it; thus it may
+garner a harvest of facts one by one.
+
+Concerning the later instruction which will be necessary, the
+information can be given in many ways. Some advocate school instruction
+of children of twelve or more in the physiology of all the members of
+the body, so that the racial powers are treated in their proper place
+in conjunction with the digestive organs, brain, lungs, etc. Some
+parents prefer to give the instruction themselves, for none but they
+can know so well the individual needs of the child.
+
+Much has already been written and is available in the voluminous
+literature about the presentation of the facts to be imparted at the
+various later ages, and almost every book advises comparisons with
+flowers. For the later ages of ten years and after, this is probably
+the best introduction for specific details, but for the first and
+earliest instruction of the baby mind, such direct simple answers as I
+have indicated are, I am sure, the best.
+
+Children whose parents have treated them as I advise in this chapter
+are _essentially safe_ whatever form later instruction may take. They
+will then have the vitality to survive lies, although ever to lie to
+them will be putting a cruel and useless strain on their recuperative
+powers. If the little child is started upon its life with a beautiful
+and true conception of its relation to its mother, and of man's
+relation to woman, it will be unlikely indeed that it will grow up a
+hooligan who flouts his parents or a loose and lascivious destroyer of
+women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Cost of Coffins
+
+  He only is free who can control himself.
+
+        EPICTETUS.
+
+    The imposition of motherhood upon a married woman in absolute
+    despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none
+    the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of
+    Church and State.
+
+        SALEEBY: _Woman and Womanhood_.
+
+
+Why do poor slum mothers buy more coffins than do the same number of
+rich women?
+
+The incredulous may answer this question by asserting that they don't,
+but as a matter of fact they do. The Registrar-General's Report for
+1911 shows that of every thousand births in the upper and middle
+classes, 76�4 babies die, while of a thousand births in the homes of
+unskilled workmen (this would be the class of the "poor" mothers) 152�5
+babies die.
+
+So that it is clear that if each member of this poorest class of
+mothers had exactly the same number of babies as each mother of the
+rich class, she would have to purchase about two coffins for every
+coffin bought by those whose babies are not so prone to die.
+
+There is, however, another fact which completes the proof of my first
+sentence. The upper and middle classes do not have so many children per
+family as do the poorest class. To a thousand married people in the
+upper and middle classes there were born in 1911 119 babies, but to
+the poor mothers--the wives of the unskilled workmen--there were born
+213. So that in addition to buying twice as many coffins per thousand
+children born, these poor mothers have nearly twice as many coffins
+again, owing to the fact that nearly twice as many children are born to
+them.
+
+I wonder if poor women have ever asked themselves if they can afford
+coffins at this rate?
+
+Of course the coffins of these poor little babies are very small, and
+do not require very much wood to make them. But let us think in what
+other ways they cost: To the mother they cost not only all the little
+the baby had eaten, and used in the way of clothes before its death,
+but all the wastage of her own vitality while she was bearing it; she
+could not work so well, at any rate towards the end of the time.
+Home duties had to be somewhat neglected; the older children had to
+go to school dirtier and less cared for; the husband had less comfort
+and fewer smiles; every one in the family was poorer, not only in
+material things and in the work that might make material things, but in
+happiness and buoyancy.
+
+It needs no imagination to realize, when you have once grasped these
+facts, that poor people are much less able to spare the cost of a
+doomed baby than are the better class people. Then why do they so often
+indulge in this tragic luxury? Chiefly through lack of knowledge,
+through ignorance, particularly on the part of the mother.
+
+Often ignorance is blind and unaware that it is ignorance, stupidly
+blundering through life; but this is not always the mother's attitude.
+She may, indeed she often does, passionately desire knowledge and seek
+for it wherever she thinks she may find it in her restricted circle.
+Too tragically often she is baffled in her search.
+
+Some years before the war, when I was lecturing at a Northern
+University, a little incident opened my eyes to this fact. I was young
+and had not encountered this aspect of life before, and it burnt itself
+into my consciousness as one of the most vivid impressions of my life.
+It was this:--
+
+One of my students was a woman who was hoping to qualify as a medical
+doctor, and she was having tea with me and chatting about the events of
+the day. As part of her training she had been assisting the doctor in
+dealing with out-patients at a hospital, and a woman had brought in a
+miserable little baby, which wailed all the time and which the mother
+explained wouldn't put on any flesh or grow into a nice, healthy baby
+whatever she did with it.
+
+The mother, with tears in her eyes, made an intensely earnest appeal
+to the doctor to tell her what was to her unaccountably wrong with the
+infant.
+
+She was a fine strapping woman, and thought her babies ought to be
+large and healthy. She said this was her third or fourth, and the
+others had all died when they were very little.
+
+This happened more than seven years ago. Thank God our racial attitude
+has changed since then.
+
+The doctor put her off with some soothing platitudes, but the woman
+driven to despair said: "I believe there's something wrong with my
+man. If there's something wrong with my man I won't have babies no
+more--it's just cruel to see them miserable like this and have them
+dying one after the other. Won't you, for God's sake, tell me whether
+there's anything wrong with my man or not?" This appeal was met by the
+assurance that there was nothing wrong, and she should go on having
+babies and do her duty by her husband.
+
+My medical woman student said that it was glaringly obvious that the
+baby was syphilitic.
+
+I asked her why she did not immediately tell the mother the truth. She
+shrugged her shoulders and said: "I've got my exam. to pass; if I did a
+thing like that Dr. ---- would stop me going to the hospital. I can't
+afford to take risks like that. Why, he might not only stop me, but it
+would do the other women students a lot of harm too."
+
+This was before the war, and England was less enlightened, less eager
+for medical women's assistance than the war has made her, and it was
+then a fight for a girl to get a footing in the hospitals for the wide
+experience she needed for a general practice.
+
+I vowed to myself that I would never forget that mother, and that some
+day I would batter at the brazen gates of knowledge on her behalf.
+
+Here was a mother with a glimmering of the truth, seeking passionately
+for knowledge from the one person she had a right to turn to for this
+knowledge, and she was put off with lies, encouraged again to bear the
+cost of a hopelessly doomed birth; to risk the agonies of child-birth,
+to bring into the world a creature who for a short spell would be
+tormented and then would cost her a coffin.
+
+By refusing his scientific advice, that doctor in reality sent that
+woman, whose desire to know was stirred, to the gossip of the slum
+alley and the street corner. There she would get a blurred and
+inaccurate, if not actually harmful, idea of what he should have been
+able to tell her in a clean, simple language based on scientific fact.
+
+When this is put down on paper, I feel as though it would be ridiculous
+to begin to point out the monstrous cruelty and the monstrous folly of
+such an action as that doctor's. Yet such action was not isolated, it
+did not depend on one man's warped conceptions of loyalty to another
+unknown man, "the husband." Since the war a public realization of the
+racial destructiveness of such diseases has been increased and the
+woman and her husband would to-day be more likely to receive medical
+treatment.
+
+But even to-day if a mother is truly told that there is "something
+wrong with her man," would she also certainly be told how in wise
+and healthy fashion she can herself supplement what his criminal
+negligence neglected? If a husband is careless and callous a woman
+must save herself and the community from the waste and the misery of
+irretrievably doomed births.
+
+She will indeed be an exceptionally lucky woman if she to-day finds
+in public hospitals doctors to whom she could turn for knowledge
+how _best_ to control conception, though such knowledge is not only
+essential to her private well-being, but essential to her in the
+fulfilment of her duties as a citizen.
+
+This little incident is but one illustration of many aspects of the
+subject. It is not only _disease_ which necessitates restraint on
+parenthood. No healthy woman can bear a long series of infants in rapid
+succession without loss both to them and to herself. This is discussed
+in my _Wise Parenthood_.
+
+Any one who thinks will see clearly that no civilized country, not
+even the richest in the world, can afford babies' coffins. Though they
+are smaller than grown-up people's they are more costly, for they are
+waste and nothing but waste. A grown-up individual, man or woman, has,
+we hope at any rate, given some return to the community in work or in
+ideas for all that his life has cost. But the infant's death is sheer
+unmitigated waste.
+
+If all the mothers who realize this and who feel their need for the
+best help that science can give them, would insist and persist in
+their enquiries for a knowledge of the most reliable results of modern
+science, they would in the end succeed in getting them. There is enough
+knowledge now in the world for the race to transform itself in a couple
+of generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Creation of a New and Irradiated Race
+
+  Ah, Love! could thou and I with fate conspire
+  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
+  Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
+  Remould it nearer to the Heart's desire.
+
+        OMAR KHAYYAM.
+
+
+On parents' love for the helpless child depends the existence of our
+race. Human parenthood necessitates not only the desire for offspring,
+but the willing care of them during the long years while they are
+helpless and dependent. Were this desire and willingness not deeply
+implanted in us our race would become extinct, as in some strange way,
+the higher type of ancient Greeks vanished from the world.
+
+Not only throughout the lower creatures do we find the responsibilities
+of parenthood increasing as we go up the scale towards the higher, but,
+even in the various grades of highly civilized man, the responsibility
+for the children is ever greater in proportion with the general culture
+and position of the parents.
+
+Not many years ago the labourer's child could be set to work early and
+could very shortly earn his keep; while at the same time the young
+gentleman was an expense and care to his father and mother until he
+had passed through the University of Oxford or Cambridge, and amongst
+some even until he had made his "finishing" world tour. The trend of
+legislation has continuously extended the age of irresponsible youth in
+the lower and lower middle classes, until it now approaches that of the
+middle and upper class youth. A stride in this direction was taken by
+the last Education Act, which has made education compulsory throughout
+the whole country to an age which is nearly university age.
+
+I need not labour the resulting effect of the ever increasing
+prolongation of youth. It is not only apparent but has received
+sufficient treatment from the hands of various authors and thinkers.
+
+Its corollary, however, has still not received that clear and direct
+thought which its significance demands. Parenthood under the present
+_r�gime_, is not only an increasing responsibility and expense, it
+has become so great a strain upon the resources of those who have for
+themselves and their children a high standard of living that it is
+tending to become a rare privilege for some who would otherwise gladly
+propagate large families.
+
+As Dean Inge reminded us (_Outspoken Essays_, 1919), there was a stage
+in the high civilization of Greece when slaves were only allowed to
+rear a child as a reward for their good behaviour. I find a curious
+parallel to this in the treatment of a section of our society by our
+present community.
+
+Crushed by the burden of taxation which they have not the resources to
+meet and to provide for children also: crushed by the national cost of
+the too numerous children of those who do not contribute to the public
+funds by taxation, yet who recklessly bring forth from an inferior
+stock individuals who are not self-supporting, the middle and superior
+artisan classes have, without perceiving it, come almost to take the
+position of that ancient slave population. It is only as a reward for
+their thrift and foresight, for their care and self-denial that they
+find themselves able (that is allowed by financial circumstances) to
+have one or perhaps two children. Hence by a strange parallel working
+of divers forces, the best, the thriftiest, the most serious-minded,
+the most desiring of parenthood are to-day those who are forced by
+circumstances into the position of the ancient slave and allowed
+to rear but one or two children as a result perhaps of a lifetime
+of valuable service and of loving union with a wife well fitted to
+bear more offspring. While on the other hand, society allows the
+diseased, the racially negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the
+feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community,
+to produce innumerable tens of thousands of stunted, warped, and
+inferior infants. If they live, a large proportion of these are doomed
+from their very physical inheritance to be at the best but partly
+self-supporting, and thus to drain the resources of those classes
+above them which have a sense of responsibility. The better classes,
+freed from the cost of the institutions, hospitals, prisons and so
+on, principally filled by the inferior stock, would be able to afford
+to enlarge their own families, and at the same time not only to
+save misery but to multiply a hundredfold the contribution in human
+life-value to the riches of the State.
+
+The immensity of the power of parenthood, both on the personal lives
+which it brings into existence, and on the community of which each
+individual is to form a part, is not yet perceived by our Statesmen in
+its true perspective.
+
+The power of parenthood ought no longer to be exercised by _all_,
+however inferior, as an "individual right." It is profoundly a duty
+and a privilege, and it is essentially the concern of the whole
+community. It should be the policy of the community to encourage in
+every way the parenthood of those whose circumstances and conditions
+are such that there is a reasonable anticipation that they will give
+rise to healthy, well-endowed future citizens. It should be the policy
+of the community to discourage from parenthood all whose circumstances
+are such as would make probable the introduction of weakened, diseased
+or debased future citizens. It is the urgent duty of the community
+to make parenthood impossible for those whose mental and physical
+conditions are such that there is well-nigh a certainty that their
+offspring must be physically and mentally tainted, if not utterly
+permeated by disease. That the community should allow syphilitic
+parents to bring forth a sequence of blind syphilitic infants is a
+state of affairs so monstrous that it would be hardly credible were it
+not a fact.
+
+Parenthood, with the divine gift of love in its power, with the
+glorious potentialities of handing on a radiant, wholesome, beautiful
+youth should be a sacred and preserved gift, a privilege only to be
+exercised by those who rationally comprehend the counter-balancing
+duties. But so long as parenthood is kept outside the realm of rational
+thought and reasoned action, so long will we as a race slide at an
+ever-increasing speed towards the utter deterioration of our stock
+through the reckless increase of the debased, which is necessarily
+counter-balanced by the unnatural limiting of the families of the more
+educated and responsible, whose sense of duty to the unborn forbids
+them to bring into the world children whom they cannot educate and
+environ at least as well as they themselves were reared.
+
+In earlier generations the child was taught to speak of its parents in
+a respectful and grateful tone as the "august authors of its being,"
+but this right and proper instruction in reverence was coupled with
+an arbitrary disposal of the child, and a certain harshness in its
+training against which the later generations have revolted. As is usual
+the reformers have deviated from rectitude in the opposite direction,
+so that to-day to find children with deep respect for their parents
+is uncommon. Reverence is being exacted by some rather from the
+parent towards the child as a fresh, new and unspoilt being. This too
+often results in spoiling the child, which is an equally foolish and
+hampering proceeding. The child should be taught from its earliest days
+profound respect, reverence and gratitude towards its parents, and in
+particular towards its mother, for of her very life she gave it the
+incomparable gift of life. True parents give the child the best and
+freshest and most beautiful impulses of their lives, and, at the cost
+of bodily anguish the mother bears it, and its parents for long years
+nurture it, sacrificing many enjoyments which they might have but for
+the cost and care of rearing it. This should be realized by the child,
+who then cannot but feel gratitude to and reverence for the authors of
+its being.
+
+The sheer beauty of the world, were there no other gain from living, is
+so great that the gift of eyes and a mind to perceive it should place
+the recipient of that gift for ever in a reverential debt towards the
+pair who gave.
+
+But the value of the beauty of life, and a just appreciation of the
+immense gift which parenthood confers cannot be realized by all.
+To-day alas, millions are born into circumstances so wretched that
+life can scarcely involve a perception of beauty, or a probability of
+moral action and social service. Also many myriads of children are
+born of parents to whom they can feel that they owe nothing, because
+they know or inwardly perceive that they were not desired, that they
+were not profoundly and nobly loved throughout their coming, that they
+were hurled into this existence through accident, self-indulgence or
+stupidity. Yet parenthood which grants life even on these terms is a
+wonderful power, a cruel and relentless force perverted from its divine
+possibilities.
+
+Youth tends ever to right itself if it but escape the taint of the
+profound racial diseases, and the gift of a well-conditioned body is
+the creation of an incomparable set of co-ordinated powers in a world
+in which the potentialities for the use of those powers is magical.
+
+Innumerable are the efforts at present being made by countless
+different societies, official bodies and individual reformers to
+diminish the ever increasing ill-health and deterioration of our race,
+but their efforts are a fight on the losing side unless the fundamental
+and hitherto uncontrollable factors which make for health are there.
+
+Doctors may cure every disease known to humanity, but while they are
+so doing, fresh diseases, further modifications of destructive germs,
+may spring into existence, the possibility of which has recently been
+demonstrated by French scientists who have experimented on the rapid
+changes which may be induced in "germs."
+
+Prisons and reformatories, municipal milk, the feeding of school
+children, improvement in housing, reform of our marriage laws, schools
+for mothers, even schools for fathers, garden cities--not all these
+useful and necessary things together and many more added to them
+will ever touch the really profound sources of our race, will ever
+cause freedom from degeneracy and ill-health, will ever create that
+fine, glorious and beautiful race of men and women which hovers in
+the dreams of our reformers. Is then this dream out of reach and
+impossible; are then all our efforts wasted? No, the dream is not
+impossible of fulfilment; but, at present, our efforts are almost
+entirely wasted because _they are built upon the shifting sand and not
+upon the steady rock_.
+
+The reform, _the one central reform_, which will make all the others of
+avail and make their work successful _is the endowing of motherhood,
+not with money but with the knowledge of her own power_.
+
+_For the power of a mother, consciously exerted in the voluntary
+procreation and joyous bearing of her children is the greatest power
+in the world._ It is through its conscious and deliberate exercise,
+and through that alone, that the race may step from its present
+entanglements on to a higher plane, where bodies will be not only a
+delight to their possessors, but efficient tools in the service of the
+souls which temporarily inhabit them.
+
+I maintain that this wonderful rejuvenescence and reform of the race
+need not be a dim and distant dream of the future. It is hovering so
+close at hand that it is actually within reach of those who to-day are
+in their young maturity; we, at present in the flesh may link hands
+with grandchildren belonging to a generation so wonderful, so endowed,
+and so improved out of recognition that the miseries and the depravity
+of human nature, to-day so wide-spread, may appear like a black and
+hideous memory of the past, as incredible to them as the habits of
+cannibals are to us.
+
+An ideal too distant, too remote, may interest the dreamer and the
+reformer possibly, but it cannot inspire a whole nation. An ideal
+within the range of possibility, that each one of us who lives a full
+lifetime may actually perceive, such an ideal can spur and fire the
+imagination, not only of our own nation, but of the world. It is my
+prayer that I may present such a racial ideal, not only to my own
+people but to humanity. It is my prayer that I may live to see in the
+generation of my grandchildren a humanity from which almost all the
+most blackening and distressing elements have been eliminated, and
+in which the vernal bodily beauty and unsullied spiritual power of
+those then growing up will surpass anything that we know to-day except
+among the rare and gifted few. This is not a wild dream; it is a real
+potentiality almost within reach. The materialization of this vital
+racial vision is in the hands of the mothers for the next twenty or
+thirty years.
+
+If every woman will but consciously and deliberately exercise the
+powers of her motherhood after learning of those powers; if she bear
+only those children which she and her mate ardently desire; if she
+refuse to bear any but these, and if she so space these children
+that she herself rests and recovers vitality between their births,
+and during their coming she lives in such a way as I have indicated
+in the preceding chapters, and if at the same time the deadly and
+horrible scourges of the venereal diseases and the multitude of
+ramifications of racial baseness are eliminated _as they can be_, then
+with a comparatively small percentage of accidents and unforeseeable
+errors, the quality of those born will enormously improve, and by a
+second generation all should be already far on the highway to new and
+wonderful powers, which are to-day almost unsuspected.
+
+What are the greatest dangers which jeopardize the materialization of
+this glorious dream of a human stock represented only by well-formed,
+desired, well-endowed beautiful men and women? Two main dangers are in
+the way of its consummation; the first is ignorance. It is difficult
+to reach the untutored mind, to teach a public hardened and deadened
+to callousness and the lack of dreams of their own; even though if one
+could but reach them it would be possible to make them understand.
+
+A second and almost greater danger is not a simple ignorance, but the
+inborn incapacity which lies in the vast and ever increasing stock of
+degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced who are now in our midst and
+who devastate social customs. These populate most rapidly, these tend
+proportionately to increase, and these are like the parasite upon the
+healthy tree sapping its vitality. These produce less than they consume
+and are able only to flourish and reproduce so long as the healthier
+produce food for them; but by ever weakening the human stock, in the
+end they will succumb with the fine structure which they have destroyed.
+
+There appear then two obstacles which might block the materialization
+of my racial vision; on the one hand the ignorance of those who
+have latent powers. This only needs to be stirred by knowledge and
+the inspiration of an ideal, to become potent. This obstacle is not
+unsurmountable. If one but speaks in sufficiently burning words, if
+one but writes sufficiently contagiously, the ideas must spread with
+ever increasing acceleration. Ignorance must be vanquished by winged
+knowledge. I hold it to be the duty of the dreamer of great dreams
+not only to express them in such a way that cognate souls may also
+perceive them. It is the duty of a seer to embody his message in such
+a form that its beauty is apparent and the vision can be seen by all
+the people. The infectiousness of disease, the contagion of destructive
+and horrible bacterial germs have become a commonplace in our social
+consciousness, and we have forgotten, and our artists have in recent
+years tended ever more and more to forget that the highest form of art
+should also be infectious. Goodness, beauty and prophetic vision have
+as strong a contagious quality as disease if they are embodied in a
+form rendered vital by the mating of truth and beauty.
+
+To overcome mere ignorance in others is, therefore, by no means a
+hopeless task, and it is the valiant work of the artist-prophet. Youth
+is the time to catch the contagion of goodness. To youth I appeal.
+
+The other obstacle presents a deeper and more difficult task. It must
+deal with the terrible debasing power of the inferior, the depraved and
+feeble-minded, to whom reason means nothing and can mean nothing, who
+are thriftless, unmanageable and appallingly prolific. Yet if the good
+in our race is not to be swamped and destroyed by the debased as the
+fine tree by the parasite, this prolific depravity must be curbed. How
+shall this be done? A very few quite simple Acts of Parliament could
+deal with it.
+
+Three short and concise Bills would be sufficient to afford the most
+urgent social service for the preservation of our race. They should
+be simply worded and based on possibilities well within the grasp of
+modern science.
+
+The idea of sterilization has not yet been very generally understood
+or accepted, although it is an idea which our civilization urgently
+needs to assimilate. I think that a large part of the objections to
+it, often made passionately and eloquently by those from whom one
+would otherwise have expected a more intelligent attitude, is due to
+complete ignorance of the facts. Even otherwise instructed persons
+confuse sterilization with castration. The arguments which to-day in
+a chance discussion of the subject are always brought forward against
+sterilization have been, in my experience, only those which apply to
+castration. To castrate any male is, of course, not only to deprive him
+of his manhood and thus to injure his personal consciousness, but to
+remove bodily organs, the loss of which adversely affects his mentality
+and which will also affect the internal secretions which have a
+profound influence on his whole organization. I fully endorse the views
+of the opponents of this process.
+
+It is, however, neither necessary to castrate nor is it suggested by
+those who, like myself, would like to see the sterilization of those
+totally unfit for parenthood made an immediate possibility, indeed made
+compulsory. As Dr. Havelock Ellis stated in an article in the _Eugenics
+Review_, Vol. I, No. 3, October 1909, pp. 203-206, sterilization under
+proper conditions is a very different and much simpler matter and one
+which has no deleterious and far reaching effects on the whole system.
+The operation is trivial, scarcely painful, and does not debar the
+subject from experiencing all his normal reaction in ordinary union; it
+only prevents the procreation of children.
+
+It has been found in some States of America, and as I know from private
+correspondents in this country, there are men who would welcome the
+relief from the ever present anxiety of potential parenthood which they
+know full well would be ruinous to the future generation.
+
+There is also the possibility of sterilization by the direct action
+of "X" rays. At present sterility is known as an unfortunate danger
+to those engaged in scientific research with radium, but it might,
+under control, be wisely used as a painless method of sterilization.
+This may prove of particular value for women in whom the operation
+corresponding to the severance of the ducts of the man is more serious.
+It appears however, not always to be permanent in its effect. In some
+circumstances this may be an advantage, in others a disadvantage.
+
+With reference to the sterilizing effect of "X"-rays, the following
+quotation from F. H. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910,
+is pertinent:--
+
+    A more special cause of sterility in men is one which operates in
+    the case of workers with radium or the R�ntgen rays. Several years
+    ago Albers-Sch�nberg noticed that the X-rays induced sterility
+    in guinea pigs and rabbits, but without interfering with the
+    sexual potency. These observations have been confirmed by other
+    investigators, who have shown, further, that the azo�spermia is
+    due to the degeneration of the cells lining the seminal canals. In
+    men it has been proved that mere presence in an X-ray atmosphere
+    incidental to radiography sooner or later causes a condition
+    of complete sterility, but without any apparent diminution of
+    sexual potency. As Gordon observes, for those working in an X-ray
+    atmosphere adequate protection for all parts of the body not
+    directly exposed for examination or treatment is indispensable,
+    but, on the other hand, the X-rays afford a convenient, painless
+    and harmless method of inducing sterility, in cases in which it is
+    desirable to effect this result.
+
+When Bills are passed to ensure the sterility of the hopelessly
+rotten and racially diseased, and to provide for the education of the
+child-bearing woman so that she spaces her children healthily, our race
+will rapidly quell the stream of depraved, hopeless and wretched lives
+which are at present ever increasing in proportion in our midst. Before
+this stream at present the thoughtful shrink but do nothing. Such
+action as will be possible when these bills are passed will not only
+increase the relative _proportion_ of the sound and healthy among us
+who may consciously contribute to the higher and more beautiful forms
+of the human race, but by the elimination of wasteful lives which are
+to-day seldom self-supporting, and which are so largely the cause of
+the cost and outlay of public money in their institutional treatment
+and their partial relief, will check an increasing drain on our
+national resources. The setting free of this public money would make
+it possible for those now too heavily taxed to reproduce their own and
+more valuable kinds.
+
+The miserable, the degenerate, the utterly wretched in body and mind,
+who when reproducing multiply the misery and evil of the world, would
+be the first to be thankful for the escape such legislation would offer
+from the wretchedness entailed not only on their offspring but on
+themselves. The Labour Party, all Progressives, and all Conservatives
+who desire to conserve the good can unite to support measures so
+directly calculated to improve the physical condition, the mental
+happiness and the general well-being of the human race.
+
+Even to-day almost all the thriftiest and better of the working class,
+and the artisan class in particular, are already in the ranks of those
+who are sponged upon, and to some extent taxed, for the upkeep of
+the incompetent, and it is just from among the best artisan and from
+the middle class that the most serious minded parents and those who
+recognize their racial responsibilities are principally to be found.
+There is throughout the whole Labour movement, as throughout the less
+vocal but deeper feeling of the middle class, a passionate desire to
+eliminate the misery and human degradation which on every hand to-day
+saddens the tender conscience. The limiting of their own families to
+meet the pressure of circumstances will never achieve their desires.
+The best to-day are making less and less headway, and the inferior are
+increasing more and more in proportion to them.
+
+Directly, however, the need for such legislation as I have outlined
+above is realized, and such legislation is passed, then the tide will
+be turned. Then, at last, we shall begin to see the elimination of the
+horror and degradation of humanity, which at present is apparently so
+hopeless and permanent a blot upon the world. And then, and then at
+once, will the positive effects of the conscious working of love and
+beauty and desired motherhood begin to take effect. The evolution of
+humanity will take a leap forward when we have around us only fine and
+beautiful young people, all of whom have been conceived, carried and
+born in true homes by conscious, powerful and voluntary mothers.
+
+Meanwhile the prison reformers, psycho-analysts, doctors, teachers and
+reformers of all sorts will be going on with their reforms, and will be
+claiming this and that wonderful improvement in the school children,
+and they will probably never realize that it will not be their reforms
+which have worked these apparent miracles; it will be the change in
+the attitude of the mother, the return to the position of power of the
+mother, her voluntary motherhood, the conscious and deliberate creation
+by the mother and her mate of the fine and splendid race which to-day,
+as God's prophet, I see in a vision and which might so speedily be
+materialized on earth.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+
+A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD.
+
+B. ON BIRTH.
+
+C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+Sometimes a woman is doubtful whether or not she is about to become a
+mother, and may be too shy to ask those with whom she is associated.
+She should, if it is possible, seek the advice of a highly qualified
+midwife or medical practitioner, but this is not always possible, and
+it may be useful for her to know the following signs:--
+
+The first and most widely recognized indication that conception has
+taken place is "missing a period" or the cessation of the menstrual
+flow, while, at the same time, there is no ill-health. A woman may even
+feel unusually bright and well.
+
+There is generally an increase in the size of the breast, followed
+as the months progress by a very noticeable increase in the size and
+bright blue colour of the veins round the breast, and also a darkening
+in colour and a changing from pink to brownish tint of the area round
+the centre of the breast.
+
+After the third month, there is visible a steadily increasing
+enlargement of the lower part of the body, but, as this also happens
+with some forms of illness, this alone and without the other signs is
+not proof that motherhood has commenced.
+
+"Quickening" or the movements of the child, are a much better
+indication of motherhood, and these are generally to be perceived about
+the twentieth week, or roughly half-way through the whole period of
+prenatal life; but see further the remarks in Chapter XIII, p. 113.
+
+The perception of the child's heart beats is absolute proof of coming
+motherhood. These may be perceived after the fourth or fifth month
+quite readily by a nurse or other observer, though the mother herself
+can but seldom perceive them.
+
+"Morning Sickness," which is so often experienced, and in most books
+for the "expectant mother" is quoted as one of the first signs of
+pregnancy, _should never occur at all_--see Chapter XI--although
+unfortunately it is true that it does frequently occur in women who are
+bearing children under present conditions.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+ON BIRTH
+
+
+The usual agonies of child birth vary greatly in extent according
+to the structure of the woman. But, as was shown in Chapter II, the
+tendency already is present, and probably will increase, for this to
+be an almost intolerable strain upon the woman. Tardily indeed have
+efforts to relieve her agonies in child birth been made; Queen Victoria
+took a grave and adventurous step when she bore one of her children
+under chloroform. Chloroform, however, only deadens consciousness at a
+comparatively late stage in child birth, and its use through the many
+long hours, even perhaps sometimes days of agony which precede the
+later stages is not often possible. It is, therefore, for some types of
+women a very insufficient narcotic.
+
+Natural "painless Child Birth" is, of course, the ideal, and is claimed
+to be the result of the "fruit and rice diet," see _Tokology_ by Dr.
+Alice Stockham, but although this greatly reduces the pain for many,
+and undoubtedly makes the months of pregnancy easier, it cannot make
+birth anything but a torture if the proportion of the child's head to
+the bony arch is above a given limit. The "Christian Science" claim
+for not only painless but bloodless birth has been reported to me, but
+never at first hand, and I have not yet had the first-hand statements
+of women who are said to have experienced it.
+
+"Twilight Sleep," a comparatively recent discovery, has been much
+advocated, much praised and much blamed. There may be types of women
+who find it advantageous, but the fact that it necessitates going to
+a nursing home, away from home, is very much against its use under
+ideal circumstances. For those who have no home, or a sordid and
+overcrowded one, a nursing home may be a place of refuge. "Twilight
+Sleep" (scopolamine-morphine) is, however, for the more sensitive type
+of woman, an extremely unreliable drug, which may frequently take no
+narcotic effect upon the patient, who suffers added agony as the result
+of relying upon it, and it may be very dangerous for the child.
+
+There is also the method of birth through the soft part of the body,
+avoiding the birth of the child through the bony structure altogether.
+This operation is described as Cesarean section, and involves incision
+both through the abdominal walls and through the walls of the womb.
+For some women with very small bones Cesarean section is necessary if
+they are to produce living children. Even for women who, by paying
+the price of agony, can produce children by normal birth, this method
+may be found very advantageous. I see a possibility of its widely
+extended future use. In hundreds, perhaps thousands of years hence when
+the child's head will be proportionately even larger in comparison
+with the mother's bones than it is to-day, it may indeed be the only
+method which will stand between the higher human races and their total
+extinction.
+
+There is a certain amount of rather gossipy opinion that women who are
+spared the full torture of child birth do not have equally passionate
+love for the child. This, however, is nonsense. Love depends far more
+on the mother's desire for parenthood at the time of the child's
+conception and her feelings towards it all through the months of
+waiting than on the hours of birth, although the appealing weakness
+and fascination of a baby may win a deeper love than the mother-to-be
+expected to feel for her child.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX C
+
+SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH
+
+
+The leading authority in the _Manual of Human Embryology_, edited by
+Franz Keibel and Franklin P. Mall in two volumes, London, 1910, says:--
+
+    "In ancient times it was generally believed that the duration
+    of pregnancy in man, unlike that in lower animals, was of very
+    uncertain length; and it was not until the seventeenth century that
+    it was more accurately fixed, by Fidele of Palermo, at forty weeks,
+    counting from the last menstrual period. In the next century Haller
+    found that if pregnancy is reckoned from the time of a fruitful
+    copulation it is usually thirty-nine weeks, and rarely forty weeks
+    in duration. In general these results are fully confirmed by the
+    thousands of careful data collected during the nineteenth century."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "However, from thousands of records it is found that the mean
+    duration of a pregnancy varies in first and second pregnancies, is
+    more protracted in healthy women, in married women, in winter, and
+    in the upper classes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "From these figures it is seen that most pregnancies take place
+    during the first week after menstruation, and that the duration
+    of pregnancy is longer if copulation takes place towards the end
+    of the intermenstrual period. And this is explained if we assume
+    that in the first week, especially the first few days after the
+    cessation of menstruation, the ovum is in the upper end of the
+    tube awaiting the sperm and that conception immediately follows
+    copulation. When the fruitful copulation takes place in the latter
+    two weeks of the month the opposite is usually the case; the sperm
+    wanders to the ovary and there awaits the ovum; and, therefore, on
+    an average, pregnancy is prolonged in this group of cases, when
+    determined from the time of copulation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In determining the age of human embryos it is probably more
+    nearly correct to count from the _end_ of the last period, for
+    all evidence points to that time as the most probable at which
+    pregnancy takes place."
+
+On the whole it is generally found that 280 days (_i.e._, 40 weeks)
+can be reckoned as the average period during which the child develops
+internally if the date is counted from the first day of the last
+menstrual period and 269 days if estimated from the date of actual
+union.
+
+Leuckart tabulated results from a large number of births which took
+place within the first ten months of marriage, and found that there
+was a maximum number of births on the 275th day, then a decrease and
+a second maximum on the 293rd day. Nevertheless, in spite of careful
+reckoning, there are, as will be recognized, many sources of error, and
+medical men and nurses are often wisely cautious of giving any exact
+date for an anticipated birth; sometimes too cautious even to suggest
+the week within which the birth will take place. I have known a good
+many mothers, however, who were much more accurately certain about this
+point than their attendants, and have found that the birth took place
+exactly on the day they anticipated. As an illustration of this, I give
+the answer from one of my correspondents, both of whose children were
+born on the exact day she anticipated. I asked her how she estimated
+these periods, and she said:--
+
+    "I simply took old Dr. Chevasse's rule which he gives in _Advice to
+    a Wife_; you know how he puts the date of conception and opposite
+    it the probable date of birth. I went by the first union after the
+    last period. It so happened that my husband was seedy and there
+    was no union for a fortnight after the end of the period. I took
+    that first union as the date of conception and looking up the date
+    in Chevasse and the corresponding date of birth opposite, I found
+    it to be August 20th, and sure enough on August 20th he was born.
+    With the second boy, the union took place the day after the last
+    period, and I took that as the starting date and against it I found
+    January 21st and on January 21st he arrived in spite of the doctors
+    insisting in each case that it would be three weeks earlier. What I
+    do is, I always make a mark in my diary against the date of first
+    union after every period. Then when I had missed a period and so
+    knew that there was probably conception, I could at once tell the
+    probable date."
+
+The table Chevasse quoted from Galabin is as follows--
+
+  From Jan. 1st to Oct. 1st = 273 (274) days, add 5 (4) days
+    "  Feb. 1st to Nov. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Mar. 1st to Dec. 1st = 275         "    "  3      "
+    "  Apl. 1st to Jan. 1st = 275         "    "  3      "
+    "  May  1st to Feb. 1st = 276         "    "  2      "
+    "  June 1st to Mar. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  July 1st to Apl. 1st = 274 (275)   "    "  4 (3)  "
+    "  Aug. 1st to May 1st  = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Sep. 1st to June 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Oct. 1st to July 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Nov. 1st to Aug. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Dec. 1st to Sep. 1st = 274 (275)   "    "  4 (3)  "
+
+
+  _Printed in Great Britain by_
+  UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+The following apparent errors have been corrected:
+
+p. 2 "hearts' desire" changed to "hearts desire"
+
+p. 26 "undertsand" changed to "understand"
+
+p. 73 "incapacities is," changed to "incapacities, is"
+
+p. 124 "diappointments" changed to "diappointments"
+
+p. 130 "parent this" changed to "parent: this"
+
+p. 148 "agggravation" changed to "aggravation"
+
+p. 150 "ffower" changed to "flower"
+
+p. 154 "want to to" changed to "want to"
+
+p. 218 "ignorance" changed to "ignorance."
+
+p. 233 "Franz, Keibel" changed to "Franz Keibel"
+
+
+The following possible errors have not been changed:
+
+p. 4 millenium
+
+p. 34 co-incidently
+
+p. 132 August 24 1893
+
+p. 235 follows--
+
+
+The following are used inconsistently in the text:
+
+lifelong and life-long
+
+overstrained and over-strained
+
+prenatal and pre-natal
+
+shamefaced and shame-faced
+
+X-rays, "X" rays and "X"-rays
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Radiant Motherhood
+       A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future
+
+Author: Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45711]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIANT MOTHERHOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="transnote coverimage">The cover image was produced by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center x-large"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span>
+RADIANT MOTHERHOOD</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<div class="ad">
+<h2><i>BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h2>
+
+
+<h3>SCIENTIFIC.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The Cretaceous Flora, Part I. Illustrated.
+Published by the Trustees of the British
+Museum. 12s. net.</p>
+
+<p>The Cretaceous Flora, Part II. Illustrated.
+Published by the Trustees of the British
+Museum. £1 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>Ancient Plants. Illustrated. Published by
+Blackie. 4s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>The Study of Plant Life. 2nd Edition. Illustrated.
+Published by Blackie. 3s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>Married Love. 8th Edition. Published by
+Putnam. 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p>Wise Parenthood. 6th Edition. Published
+by Putnam. 3s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>A Letter to Working Mothers. Published by
+the Author. 6d. net.</p></div>
+
+
+<h3>TRAVEL.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>A Journal from Japan. Published by Blackie.
+7s. 6d. net.</p></div>
+
+
+<h3>LITERARY.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Man, Other Poems and a Preface. Published
+by Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p>Conquest, a Three-Act Play. Published by
+French. 1s. net.</p>
+
+<p>Gold in the Wood and The Race. Two
+Plays. Published by Fifield. 2s. net.</p>
+
+<p>With Prof J. Sakurai, Plays of old Japan,
+The Nō. Published by Heinemann.
+5s. net.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The author’s vivid and imaginative sympathy
+has really enabled her, in some degree,
+to communicate the incommunicable.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Athenæum.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>
+Radiant Motherhood<br />
+
+<span class="smaller">A Book for Those Who<br />
+are Creating the Future</span></h1>
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+By<br />
+<span class="large">
+Marie Carmichael Stopes</span>
+<br />
+Doctor of Science, London; Doctor of Philosophy,
+Munich; Fellow of University College, London;
+Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
+and the Linnean Society, London</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+LONDON<br />
+G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, LTD.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+TORONTO<br />
+THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="break p2 center">
+<i>First published August 9, 1920</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Copyright; translations and all other rights<br />
+reserved by the Author. Copyright in U.S.A.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span><br /></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="break p2 center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><i>Dedicated to young husbands and
+all who are creating the future</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="right"></td><td colspan="2" class="right"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right"></td><td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right"><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">I.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Lover’s Dream</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">II.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Conceived in Beauty</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">III.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Gateway of Pain</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">IV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Young Mother-to-be</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right"></td><td><span class="smcap">Her Amazements</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">V.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Her Delights</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Her Distresses</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Young Father-to-be</span>:</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right"></td><td><span class="smcap">His Amazements</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">His Delights</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">IX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">His Distresses</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">X.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Mother</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Father</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Union of Three</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>XIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Procession of the Months</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XIV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Prenatal Influence</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Evolving Types of Women</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Birth and Beauty</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Baby’s Rights</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Weakest Link in the Human Chain</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XIX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Cost of Coffins</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Creation of a New and Irradiated Race</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="center">APPENDICES</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">A.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Physical Signs of Coming Motherhood</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">B.</td><td> <span class="smcap">On Birth</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">C.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Suggestions for Calculating the Date of Anticipated Birth</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>This book is written for the same young
+people who inspired <cite>Married Love</cite>.
+Many of my readers have asked me to
+write such a book as this, and I sincerely hope
+that it will not disappoint them. Many, many
+people have contributed facts which have helped
+me to write it. The book, however, is pre-eminently
+the work of my baby son and his
+father, whose beautiful spirits have been, and
+will be, through all eternity united with me in
+a burning desire to bring light into dark places.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+M. C. S.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span><br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="break p4 center x-large">Radiant Motherhood</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I<br />
+
+The Lover’s Dream</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So every spirit, as it is most pure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And hath in it the more of heauenly light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So it the fairer bodie doth procure<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To habit in, and it more fairely dight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With chearefull grace and amiable sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For of the soule the bodie forme doth take:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Spencer</span>: <cite>An Hymne in honour of Beautie</cite>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>Every lover desires a child. Those who
+imagine the contrary, and maintain that
+love is purely selfish, know only of the
+lesser types of love. The supreme love of
+true mates always carries with it the yearning to
+perpetuate the exquisite quality of its own being,
+and to record, through the glory of its mutual
+creation, other lives yet more beautiful and
+perfect.</p>
+
+<p>Existence being such a difficult compromise
+between our dreams and the material facts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+the world, this desire may sometimes be thwarted
+by factors outside itself; may even be so suppressed
+as to be invisible in the conduct and
+unsuspected in the wishes of the lover. Yet
+the desire to link their lives with the future is
+deeply woven into the love of all sound and
+healthy people who love supremely.</p>
+
+<p>It is commonly said that most women marry
+for children, and not out of a personal love,
+and there is more truth in this saying than is
+good for the race. To-day, alas, many women
+cannot find the perfect and sensitive mate their
+hearts desire and they hope in <em>any</em> marriage
+to get children which will mitigate the consequent
+loneliness of their lives. Sometimes they
+may, to some extent, succeed, but far less often
+than they imagine, for that strange and still but
+little understood force “heredity” steps in,
+and the son of the tolerated father may grow
+infinitely more like his physical father than he
+is like the dear delight his mother dreamed he
+might be.</p>
+
+<p>Few girls have not pictured in day dreams
+the joy of holding in their arms their own
+beautiful babies. No man of their acquaintance,
+however, may seem fine enough to be their
+father. Until she has been crushed by experience,
+or, unless she listens with absolute belief
+to the depressing information of her elders,
+each girl believes that her own intense desire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+for perfection will be the principal factor in
+creating the beautiful babies of her dreams.
+Often it seems as though this power were granted,
+for women sometimes bear lovely children by
+fathers in whom one may seek in vain for any
+bodily grace or charm.</p>
+
+<p>The century long working of economic laws
+based on physical force, the remnants of which
+still affect us, has resulted in man generally
+having the selective power and tending to
+choose for his wife the most beautiful or charming
+woman that his means allow; hence hitherto
+on the whole, the race has been bred from the
+better and more beautiful women. This has
+undoubtedly tended to keep the standard of
+physical form from sinking to the utter degradation
+which we see in the worst of the slums,
+and in institutions where live the feeble-minded
+offspring of inferior mothers who have wantonly
+borne children of fathers devoid of any realization
+of what they were doing.</p>
+
+<p>From these avenues of shame and misery,
+however, I must steer my line of thought, for
+this book is written pre-eminently for the young,
+happy and physically well-conditioned pair who
+mating beautifully on all the planes of their
+existence, are living in married love.</p>
+
+<p>Whether early in the days of their marriage
+or postponed for some months or more out of
+regard for his wife’s body and beauty, the hour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+will come when the young husband yearning
+above her, sees in his wife’s eyes the reflection
+of the future, and when their mutual longing
+springs up to initiate the chain of lives which
+shall repeat throughout the ages the bodily,
+mental and spiritual beauties of each other,
+which each holds so dear. Perhaps in lovers’
+talk and exquisite whispers they have spoken
+of this great deed on which they are embarking,
+and each has voiced that intense yearning which
+filled them to see another “with your eyes,
+your hair, your smile,” living and radiant.
+The lovers dream that they will be repeated
+in others of their own creation, always young,
+running through the ages which culminate in
+the golden glories of the millenium.</p>
+
+<p>The dream is so wonderful, the thought that
+it pictures in the mind so full of vernal beauty,
+light and vigour that, were facts commensurate
+with it, its result should spring all ready formed
+from between the lips of those who breathed
+its possibilities like Minerva from the head of
+Jove.</p>
+
+<p>It seems incredible that such splendid dominant
+designs to fulfil God’s purpose should be
+hindered, and made to bend and toil through
+the hard material facts of the molecular structure
+of the world, and that it is only many months
+afterwards that the first outward body is given
+to this dream, and that then it is in a form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+not strong and dancing in lightness and beauty
+but weak and helpless with many intensely
+physical necessities which for months and years
+will require the utmost fostering care or it will
+be destroyed by material effects, hostile and
+too strong for it. Yet such is the limitation
+of our powers of creation. And underneath
+the intense passion of love and all its rich dreams
+of beauty is the slow building, chemically molecule
+by molecule, biologically cell by cell, against
+obstacles the surmounting of which seems a
+superhuman feat.</p>
+
+<p>Lovers who are parents give to each other
+the supremest material gift in the world, a
+material embodiment of celestial dreams which
+itself has the further power of vital creation.</p>
+
+<p>In this and all my work, I speak to the
+normal, healthy and loving in an endeavour to
+help them to remain normal, healthy and loving,
+and thus to perfect their lives. So in this book
+I do not intend to deal with those whose marriages
+are mistaken ones, or with those who do not
+know true love. I write for those who having
+made a love match are passing together through
+the ensuing and surprising years, and incidentally
+doing one of the greatest pieces of work
+which human beings can do during their progress
+through this world, and that is creating the
+next generation.</p>
+
+<p>In nature, the consummation of the physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+act of union between lovers generally results
+in the conception of a new life. We share
+this physical aspect of mating and the resulting
+parenthood with most of the woodland creatures.
+How far many of the lowlier lives are conscious
+of the future results of their mating unions
+is a problem in elementary psychology beyond
+the realm of present knowledge. But that
+parenthood is the natural result of their union
+is to-day known, one must suppose, by almost
+all young couples who wed. I am still uncertain
+how far the two are <em>conscious</em> of this in the early
+days of their union, when every circumstance
+encourages that supreme self-centredness of
+happy youth. Much must depend on the age,
+and on the previous experience and education
+of the two; much also on their relative natures.
+A profoundly introspective and thoughtful man
+and woman are more liable than others to be
+speedily aware of the many interwoven strands
+of their joint lives, and to live consciously on
+several planes of existence simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>The supreme act of physical union as I have
+shown in my book, <cite>Married Love</cite>, consists
+fundamentally of three essential and widely
+differing reactions, having effects in correspondingly
+different regions. There is (<i>a</i>) the intimately
+personal effect on the internal secretions
+and general vitality of the individual partaking
+of that sacrament; (<i>b</i>) there is the social effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+of the union of the two in a mutual act in which
+they must so perfectly blend and harmonize;
+and (<i>c</i>) there is the racial result which may
+lead to the procreation of a new life.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days of the honeymoon, personal
+passion and the concentrated delight of each
+in the mate is probably more than sufficient
+in all its rich complexity to fill the consciousness
+of the two who are thus united in a life-long
+comradeship to form that highest unit, the
+pair. But as education and the conscious
+control of our lives grow, the young pair who
+are so blissfully self-centred as not to remember
+or not to be aware of the racial effects of their
+acts are probably decreasing in numbers. Among
+the best of those who marry to-day, the majority
+only enter upon parenthood or the possibility
+of parenthood when they feel justified in so
+doing. The young man who profoundly loves
+his wife and who considers the future benefit
+of their child, protects her from accidental
+conception or from becoming a mother at times
+when the strain upon her would be too great,
+or when he is unable to give her and the coming
+child the necessary care and support. That
+myriads of children are born without this consideration
+on the part of their parents applies
+to the commonalty of mankind, but not to the
+best.</p>
+
+<p>Often to-day the betrothed young couple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+will speak openly and beautifully of the children
+they hope to have, while others equally full
+of the creative dream feel it too tender a subject
+to put into words, and may marry without
+ever having given expression to the possibility
+that they will generate through their love yet
+other lovers.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br />
+
+Conceived in Beauty</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Here in close recess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With flowers, garlands and sweet smelling herbs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Espousèd Eve deck’d first her nuptial bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heav’nly choirs the Hymenæan sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What day the genial angel to our sire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought her in naked beauty more adorn’d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endow’d with all their gifts....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">... Into their inmost bower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Handed they went; and, eased the putting off<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those troublesome disguises which we wear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straight side by side were laid; nor turn’d, I ween,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adam from his fair spouse; nor Eve the rites<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mysterious of connubial love refused:<br /></span>
+</div>
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">These, lull’d by nightingales, embracing slept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on their naked limbs the flowery roof<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shower’d roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest pair, and O! yet happiest if ye seek<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No happier state, and know to know no more.<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="sig"><span class="smcap">Milton</span>: <cite>Paradise Lost</cite>.
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>In ancient Sanskrit, there is a work dealing
+minutely with love and with the different
+forms its expression takes in different
+types of people. This has been modified,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+added to and re-written by many later authors,
+and under various names works based on this
+are to be found in Sanskrit and translated into
+various Indian dialects.</p>
+
+<p>In these volumes much that is curious, and
+to Western nations, absurd, is to be found, but
+also several profound observations which appear
+to be based on truths generally ignored by us.
+One of the interesting themes of these very
+early writers is a recognition and a description
+of the characteristics of the best and most
+perfect type of woman, the “Padmini.” In
+addition to describing fully her physical appearance
+and characteristics, it is observed that she
+being a child of light and not of darkness,
+prefers the supreme act of love to take place
+in the daylight rather than the dark.</p>
+
+<p>In this country, owing to our artificial, over-burdened
+and over-strained lives, the physical
+union of lovers is almost always confined to
+the night time. Crowded as we are in cities
+and suburban districts, solitude in Nature
+is almost impossible; for most, seclusion is
+only known in a closed room after dark. The
+Sanskrit writer of the sixth century, however,
+takes love more seriously than we do, and he
+describes how for the sacred union serious
+preparation of beauty should be made&mdash;a room
+or natural arbour decked with flowers; and for
+the supreme expression of love (that is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+love between a pair each of the highest and
+most perfect type), this should take place in
+the light of day and not the darkness of the
+night. Even in our present degraded civilization
+there are some who do realize the
+sacredness and the value of the bodily embrace
+in the fresh beauty of nature and sunlight.
+There must be many beautiful children who
+were conceived from unions which took place
+under natural conditions of light and open
+air radiance. The most spontaneous time for
+conception is the summer when our air is mild
+and sweet enough for true love in Nature’s way.</p>
+
+<p>In an empire where woodland or seaside
+solitude is not obtainable by lovers for this
+their most sacred function, the distribution of
+the population is gravely wrong. It will, however,
+probably for some time to come be difficult
+for those who desire such a profound return
+to natural rectitude, to obtain the necessary
+security of seclusion amid beautiful surroundings.
+Therefore, alas, it will in all probability
+long remain only possible to most lovers to
+ramble together in nature, and then later to
+follow the usual course of uniting within their
+room.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know enough about ourselves or
+the results of our actions, under our present
+conditions, to realize to what extent the hour
+of conception modifies the quality of the offspring.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+We only know that the child of lovers
+beautiful in mind and body, the child ardently
+desired by them, whose coming is prepared
+with every beauty which it is in their power
+to obtain, is often well worth all the outlay of
+love and thought. Certainly among those personally
+known to me who have followed the
+rather exceptional course I indicate, the children
+are remarkable for both physical beauty and
+exquisite vitality, balanced with sweetness and
+strength of mental and spiritual qualities.</p>
+
+<p>There is an old and in my opinion valuable
+view (although it has not been “scientifically
+proved”) that the actual hour of conception,
+the condition of the parents at the moment
+when the germs fuse is one of vital consequences
+to the child-to-be. Scientific proof of this will
+be, of course, extraordinarily difficult to discover,
+but indirectly there do appear to be
+some actual data in favour of the converse,
+namely that temporary unhealthy states of the
+parents result in the conception of children so
+inferior as to be markedly and seriously anti-social.
+Forel (<cite>Sexual Question</cite>, 1908) <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The recent researches of Bezzola seem to prove that the
+old belief in the bad quality of children conceived during
+drunkenness is not without foundation. Relying on the Swiss
+census of 1900, in which there figure nine thousand idiots
+... this author has proved that there are two acute annual
+maximum periods for the conception of idiots (calculated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+from nine months before birth) the periods of carnival and
+vintage, when the people drink most. In the wine-growing
+districts, the maximum conception of idiots at the time of
+vintage is enormous, while it is almost <em>nil</em> at other periods.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is, of course, not always possible to arrange
+the hour of the union which will lead to conception.
+And further even when the hour of
+the union is arranged, nature, to some extent,
+controls and may modify conditions before
+conception. Sometimes the fertilization of the
+egg cell by the sperm cell takes place in the
+hour of the bodily union of the lovers, sometimes
+this inner process is delayed by hours
+or days (see overleaf). Conception is possible
+in most women at almost any time during the
+years of potential motherhood, yet there do
+appear to be several factors which lead to the
+potential fertility of a woman varying very
+much from time to time. Some women, for
+instance, appear to be liable to conceive only
+for a certain number of days in each month,
+and these are in general the two or three days
+immediately following the monthly period and
+the day or two immediately before. With
+other women, however, unions on any day of
+the month may lead to conception, but this
+depends, possibly, not only on the woman herself
+but on the vitality and probable length of
+life of the sperm cells of her husband. This
+also varies very greatly in individuals. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+longest time which the individual sperm has
+been observed to remain vital after entry into
+the woman is seventeen days (see Bossi, <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">N.
+Arch. d’Obstetr. Gynocol.</cite>, April 1891).</p>
+
+<p>Hence it will be realized that a union arranged
+to take place under ideal and perfect
+conditions, perhaps on a holiday into wild and
+inspiring solitudes, may result as desired in
+the entry of the sperm into the womb of the
+woman, and yet the actual fusion of the sperm
+and egg cell, and the consequent conception may
+not come to pass until some days later.</p>
+
+<p>Strange it is indeed in this world, in which
+so much scientific and laborious observation
+has been devoted to all sorts of irrelevant and
+trivial subjects, that knowledge of the actual
+processes of our own fertilization and conception
+and of the extent of the significance to the
+future generations of the mode and condition
+of the union of the parents are almost totally
+unknown to scientists or doctors, and are disregarded
+by the majority of the public.</p>
+
+<p>A recent memoir in the French Academy of
+Science<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> dealing with statistical figures (going
+back in France, at any rate, so far as 1853)
+proves that there does seem to be a definite
+seasonal influence on the power of conception.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+Taking the births for the whole year, it is found
+they are not equally divided throughout the
+months, but that a notable maximum of births
+is found in February and March for most of
+the countries in the northern hemisphere, the
+actual maximum of births being from the 15th
+February to the 15th March, and thus indicating
+that the maximum of conceptions took place
+between the 5th May and the 5th June. Richet
+quotes Bertillon as having established the fact
+that this maximum of conceptions does not
+depend on the chance that brides like to be
+married in the spring, because an identical
+maximum is found in the illegitimate birthrate.
+Richet gives many tables of figures, and maintains
+that the maximum corresponds both in
+the town and in the country, among the rich
+and the poor, and among the married and the
+unmarried, and is, therefore, in his opinion,
+an actual physiological <span class="lock">function:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est que les conditions physiologiques de la maturation
+de l’ovule et de sa fécondation ne sont pas également favorables
+dans toutes les periodes de l’année. Par suite d’une ancestrale
+prédisposition, au moment du printemps, chez la femme,
+comme chez la plupart des animaux, mais moins nettement
+que chez eux, la maturation, la chute et la fécondation de
+l’ovule se font dans des conditions meilleures et plus assurées.</p></div>
+
+<p>The corresponding maximum for the southern
+hemisphere arises between August and October.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+This natural tendency to produce children according
+to the season is, to some extent, altered
+by the conscious and deliberate control of
+parenthood, which all the more highly civilized
+countries now find that their better citizens are
+exerting.</p>
+
+<p>This natural time for conception will, however,
+tend not to be thwarted by those who are consciously
+regulating their lives, because from
+almost every point of view, the summer is the
+best time in which to experience the joys of
+love. As the verdant spring is the best time
+for a baby to be born, the thoughtful mother-to-be
+will try, other things being equal, to
+arrange that its birth should take place then,
+both for her own sake and for that of the child.
+The weeks of recovery after the strain of the
+birth are more easily and happily spent lying
+in the warm sunshine of a spring or summer
+garden than in the chill of the winter
+months, and even the actual expense of the
+birth is reduced when it takes place in the
+warmth of the spring or early summer when
+fires and the labour they involve will be
+saved.</p>
+
+<p>The child too has warm air to surround it
+on its first introduction to the outer world after
+its long period of warmth and protection within
+its mother, and when in a month or two it is
+able to kick about on the grass, it benefits<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+directly from the rays of the sun and also from
+the sun-warmed earth.</p>
+
+<p>Various notable men and women, and, in
+particular, the famous Dr. Trall of America,
+have held that the actual hour of conception
+is the one of fate, and that the moods, feelings
+and conditions of the parents in that hour work
+more vital magic then than they can do in any
+succeeding days or weeks. Instinctively, one
+would like to feel that this is so. Indeed it
+will take much to <em>disprove</em> it, although it is a
+theme which it is at present impossible to prove,
+and it must remain always only a personal bias,
+until thousands of people who view marriage
+aright will consciously observe and record many
+things and contribute them to some thinker
+who will tabulate, correlate and understand them.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the hour of conception affects the
+child directly or not, the memory of an ardent
+and wonderful experience in which the pair
+of lovers consciously surround themselves with
+beautiful conditions, and deliberately place themselves
+through their love at the service of God
+and humanity in the creation of the next generation,
+must give a vitalizing and joyous memory
+to both throughout all their lives. This memory
+being especially connected with the dear child
+of that union must, therefore, have in this
+indirect way at any rate a positive racial value.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br />
+
+The Gateway of Pain</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and firs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mother looks upon the newborn child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs’d.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">D. G. Rossetti.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The price of every beauty in this world is
+in proportion to its quality, even although
+the payment of the price exacted may be
+long deferred or may be made in such an intricate
+and remote form that its connection
+with the result is overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>As the greatest thing which lovers can give
+each other is a child, and as none in the world
+are so great as lovers, the price exacted by
+Nature for the child of loving and sensitive
+people is correspondingly heavy.</p>
+
+<p>This statement may apparently conflict with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+the idea that the joy of bearing a child to the
+beloved is a woman’s consummation of happiness;
+yet it does not conflict, because of the
+deeper truth that the supremest happiness is
+mysteriously intermingled with self-sacrifice. A
+young woman whose character is sufficiently
+beautiful and sensitive to know the highest
+joys of motherhood&mdash;the full delights of human
+existence and love&mdash;will also be sensitive to the
+varied pains which motherhood will bring. Indeed,
+in this respect, the poet’s saying that
+“the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
+is always the first to be pricked by the thorn”
+is essentially true.</p>
+
+<p>The radiance of the highest form of motherhood
+is that of the transfigured saint, hallowed
+by suffering comprehended and endured, transmuted
+into a service beyond and above the
+lower desires of self.</p>
+
+<p>For long, indeed for the many millions of
+years during which she has shown a motherhood
+comparable with that of human beings,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Nature
+has essentially trapped and tricked the mother
+into her motherhood. All the woodland and
+jungle creatures, the deer or the tiger, the
+rabbit or the squirrel, grow up through their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+brief adolescence into a partial consciousness
+of delight in themselves and reach the phase
+of their development in which their own desires
+urge them to unite with each other. One can
+scarcely believe that they are conscious of the
+resulting parenthood which will become a
+physical fact at a later date, although the training
+of her cubs by a woodland mother undoubtedly
+does include handing on, through
+some speechless communication, of some actual
+instruction. A similar blind parenthood, but
+in addition <em>coerced</em>, has for many thousands of
+years been characteristic of a large portion of
+the human race. Even to-day motherhood is
+too often blind: the young girl delighting in
+herself and the fairness of her own body, conscious
+of the power she wields in social life as
+a beautiful and attractive creature whom older
+people pet and please and young men place
+upon a pedestal, is urged by this natural self-centred
+delight into accepting through flattery
+the enjoyment of herself by some chosen mate;
+and the later consequences of motherhood are
+then faced either in amazed astonishment or
+in open revolt.</p>
+
+<p>Earlier civilizations often dealt with the excessive
+births resulting from blind or coerced
+parenthood by destroying the children as infants
+after birth. This was done directly, and often
+by her leading citizens, in Greece (one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+highest forms of civilization ever attained) and
+<em>still</em> infanticide direct or indirect goes on among
+all the populous races of the world. Where the
+value placed on the mother’s mental and physical
+suffering is low, one may still see motherhood,
+not as a fine, voluntary and glorious act of self-sacrifice
+from the highest possible motives of
+love and service directly to the beloved, and
+indirectly to the race, but as the exploitation
+of a trapped and helpless sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>Mothers will say that their babies are their
+greatest joys; one may ask, therefore, how I
+can use the word “sacrifice” in connection
+with motherhood. The use of the word is
+just, and based on truths too generally concealed
+by those who know them, and far too
+generally unknown by those who ought to know
+them. Ignorance of their extent has made men
+callous, indifferent or ribald towards the profound
+sacrifices of motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>Few there be, however, who do not know
+of the agonizing torments of actual birth. The
+Bible is read aloud in churches, and in its
+wording there is some recognition of the existence
+of this agony, although based upon earlier
+and simpler civilizations in which the women
+were probably better cared for and better fitted
+for motherhood than the majority of women are
+to-day. Following biblical tradition, the memory
+of the agony of birth is generally portrayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+as being wiped out by the supreme joy in the
+child which follows. To-day, however, this
+effacement of the anguish is by no means universal,
+and the abiding horror of the birth is
+so great that not a few women refuse to bear
+another child. Then men, who cannot even
+imagine the experience of child-bearing, denounce
+such a mother, rate her and hold her
+up to derision. How little do they realize
+that in her they may see Nature’s working of
+the laws of evolution (see p. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>).</p>
+
+<p>The torturing agony of birth might so easily
+have been averted by Nature had the construction
+of our bodies differed but very slightly
+from those which we to-day possess in common
+with most of the higher animals. The human
+baby when the hour comes for it to sever its
+connection from its mother, and as an independent
+individual to venture into the open
+air of the world, has to make its way through
+the arched gateway of bone fixed and set by
+the mother’s own requirements as a frame to
+her own structure. The encircling archway of
+bone through which the infant has to pass is
+but three or four inches in diameter. It would
+have been possible had our evolution taken a
+different turn for the infant to have made its
+exit through the soft wall of the mother’s body
+instead of through this fixed and hardened
+circle of her bone. But for some causes too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+remote for us at present to discover this was
+not so, and the essential fact faces us to-day
+that every infant born naturally must be born
+through this circle of bone. Moreover if the
+infant is a well-developed and healthy one, as
+the ordinary baby of a healthy and beautiful
+young couple should naturally and rightly be,
+that infant’s head is larger in diameter than the
+circle of bone through which it has to pass.
+Its tissues have, therefore, to be squeezed and
+pressed to mould their shape in order to allow
+its exit through the orifice, and this must be
+a slow process, and one which almost always
+entails great pressure and consequent agony to
+the mother. Dr. Mary Scharlieb says in <cite>The
+Welfare of the Expectant Mother</cite>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>It is, however, scarcely possible that either the public or
+the profession realizes that one woman dies in child birth for
+every 250 children born alive. In addition to this we have
+to remember that the same accidents and diseases which kill
+the mothers and the babies inevitably cause a still heavier
+percentage of crippling and invaliding (p. 43).</p></div>
+
+<p>Twenty-five per cent. and more of the babies
+conceived and borne die before they reach normal
+birth. Often they find the journey through
+the bony archway into the outer world so difficult
+and arduous a task that they perish in
+the process of birth, although probably had
+they been born by Cesarean section, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+would have survived and grown into healthy
+children.</p>
+
+<p>We do not consider what the infant itself in
+birth may be enduring. The infant is “unconscious,”
+that is to say it carries no memory of
+these earlier months in its conscious memory
+as it grows up, but the excessive moulding,
+particularly of its head, which often has to take
+place and sometimes takes weeks to right itself,
+must, one thinks, greatly disturb the little
+brain, and in my opinion may have a lifelong
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>I have never heard this aspect of our present
+problem duly considered. The fact that the
+increasing brain capacity of civilized man tends
+ever to give the new born infant a larger head,
+and tends proportionately to increase the size
+of the head out of relation to the size of the
+circle of its mother’s bone, has been commented
+on, and appears to some far seeing thinkers
+as the possible cause of the ultimate extinction
+of the human race. Because if we go on
+developing in the way we are at present doing,
+ever depending more and more on our brains,
+and the head of the new born infant tends to
+increase with the natural development of the
+brain, the day will come when the birth of a
+child is absolutely blocked by the relative diameter
+of its head and of its mother’s pelvic bones.
+If the higher races maintain a dominant place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+in the world, the day may come when with nearly
+all women such an incompatible relation will
+arise. Of what avail then would be the ratings
+and peevish fury of callous men? What scheme
+the race may have devised before that date
+to relieve this cruel deadlock we cannot here
+discuss. The perfecting of the method of
+birth by Cesarean section offers much promise.
+It may become a racial necessity. This possibility,
+on which to-day we are beginning to
+impinge, indicates one great cause of the torturing
+agony of the actual hours of birth which the
+young mother and father-to-be may have to
+face before they can see the child of their love.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunate women are even still so constructed
+that the circle of bone has a relatively large
+orifice which allows the infant comparatively
+easily to pass through it, and the difficulty and
+danger of birth for them is minimized. With
+them the birth pangs may be so trivial in
+comparison with the result, that they are truly
+“almost negligible” as most men would like
+to believe of most women.</p>
+
+<p>Such women, when outward circumstances
+allow it, are those whom every impulse should
+encourage to be the mothers of the large families,
+which are, under proper conditions, still desirable
+for a portion of our people.</p>
+
+<p>Such a woman as the one who wrote me
+the following letter is indeed the standard which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+all women and would-be mothers would gladly
+reach were it possible in any degree to control
+the formation of a growing girl’s body so that
+as a woman she might retain such a primitive
+adaptation to <span class="lock">motherhood:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>On the exact right day the babe arrived ... in a quarter
+of an hour he was there, without nurse, doctor or any one and
+with no pain to myself. This little party has grown into a
+splendid specimen, very large (he was 8&frac12; lbs. at birth) and
+firm and muscular. He is the whole day long laughing and
+kicking or sleeping.</p></div>
+
+<p>Such women, however, so far as records go,
+are few. Much might be done by science to
+discover what are the causes of the reverse
+condition, and if possible to attempt to eliminate
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In view of the agony which myriads of women
+throughout the ages of civilization have endured,
+it seems strange indeed that no effort should
+apparently have been made by the learned to
+understand the causes which control the individual
+formation of the growing structure, with
+a view possibly to securing some such development.
+In recent years, however, a little has
+been done in the recognition of the causes of
+the converse, that is to say the excessive narrowing
+of the pelvis to the degree where child birth
+is not only torment but a life and death agony.
+And it is now well known that this condition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+is associated with malnutrition and rickets in
+infancy and early girlhood.</p>
+
+<p>The little baby girl who has rickety bones
+(which result from being improperly fed as
+an infant) is, in extreme cases certain, and in
+many cases very likely, to have such contracted
+pelvic bones that when her turn comes for
+motherhood, the birth of a living child may be
+impossible by the ordinary processes of Nature.
+Here again, as so often is inevitable, in the
+course of any consideration of the profound
+truths of mated existence, we impinge upon
+the treatment of the unsound and the diseased.
+This <em>under</em> development of the mother’s pelvic
+bones is a different problem from that evolutionary
+one touched on in the paragraphs above.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, that it should be true that the great
+majority of city dwellers come into the category
+of the spoilt and the tainted in some respect
+or another. But with the vision of true health
+and beauty as a standard before our eyes, many
+might escape the incipient weaknesses by consciously
+pursuing a standard of health, beauty
+and normality. It is this standard, this ideal
+picture, which may yet be reproduced in the
+lives of millions, which I desire to present in
+this book, so that in telling young married people
+some of the great facts which are ahead of them
+I will present only those difficulties which are
+inevitable, and leave to others the handling of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+disease. As things are to-day among British
+stock,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> it is the very exceptional women who
+find birth an entirely easy process of which the
+pain is trivial, and this is chiefly due to the bony
+structure fixed and limited in size, which stands
+as a gateway of pain between the infant and the
+outer world, between the young wife and her
+motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>Before the hour of birth is reached, however,
+the young mother-to-be, if she is neither instructed
+nor helped by the wisdom of her elders,
+may have already endured much that it will
+distress and dismay her lover and husband to
+observe, and much more which she, being a
+woman, will endure without allowing him to
+perceive, although she may be so frightened
+that it may be hard indeed for her not to cry
+out in her bewildered pain. How much of
+this distress and pain is essentially “natural,”
+how much is the artificial result of our mode
+of living and our ignorance of Nature’s laws?
+What are the things which a healthy, finely-built
+young woman mated to a healthy young man
+must endure, those experiences which she <em>cannot</em><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+escape and those which she may with proper
+help avoid altogether or in part? It is the
+object of several chapters in this book to answer
+these questions more truthfully and I hope
+more helpfully than they have yet been answered.
+The things I deal with specially, because they
+will face nearly every <em>healthy</em> girl, are in most
+books ignored.</p>
+
+<p>My chapters may appear superfluous to those
+who view the long list of books purporting to
+give advice to the young wife and expectant
+mother on how to treat herself and the coming
+child. I have read the majority of those books,
+and I write this one because of their failure to
+touch on the profoundest essentials in a way
+which will truly help the healthy and sensitive
+type of young people. The healthy, normal
+and happy in my mind’s vision are the
+standard of the race: those who to-day to
+some extent foreshadow the strength and beauty
+of bodily and mental equipment which will
+become a commonplace when all have risen to
+their standard, and it is for them that I feel
+it imperative to add this one more book to the
+long list of books advising the young mother.
+With the young mother I also consider and
+try to help the young father who has been so
+strangely neglected and ignored and who also
+needs help.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of the writers on cognate sub<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>jects,
+like the majority of the minds of those
+who are concerned at all with the problems
+of the young mother, really though perhaps unconsciously
+present studies in disease, pictures
+of aberrations from the normal, accounts or
+innuendos dealing with illness and handicaps,
+with abnormal conditions which should never
+arise, and the knowledge of which should not
+be brought before the sensitive mind as if they
+were a usual and general thing. The acquiescence
+in a low standard of health, the discussion
+of diseased conditions as though they were
+normal, or even as though they were unavoidable,
+are intensive in their result and harmful to all
+who come under their influence. The race
+sickens ever more and more profoundly because
+of such influences.</p>
+
+<p>We have to-day in our community a new
+conception in the Government Department of
+the Ministry of Health, but alas, that Ministry
+is engrossed in the contemplation of disease.
+In the present state of our civilization this is
+perhaps unavoidable, because there are not
+enough people in the country of standing and
+experience in scientific research who have concerned
+themselves with the problems of the
+healthy and beautiful, and with the needs and
+requirements in the way of instruction and
+outward conditions and environment of those
+who by nature are healthy and normal, and who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+desire to remain healthy and normal. Even
+these need instruction to compensate for that
+which Nature cannot give to those who toil
+apart from her bosom in the cities, where
+they cannot hear her voice for the roaring of
+the traffic. This is the piteous plight of the
+majority of our citizens to-day, for so many
+live in towns.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, that there are physical facts which
+all must face of a type which makes one feel
+that Nature is cruel in her treatment of us.
+When two young, beautiful and ardently happy
+beings are embarking upon the greatest work
+for the community which they can do, with a
+desire to create further beautiful and happy
+lives, it seems indeed an ironic and wanton
+mistake that there should be distressing physical
+experiences for both of them to endure. But
+“As gold is tried by the fire, so the heart is tried
+by pain,” and if they are given a conscious
+knowledge of what they must face and what
+they may avoid, there will then be a firm foundation
+and a triumphant consummation to the visions
+and ideals of splendour and perfection which
+they can secure unimpaired through the trials
+which they conquer.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br />
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:<br />
+
+Her Amazements</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Together tread at last the immortal strand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With eyes where burning memory lights love home?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leaped to them and in their faces yearned&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">“I am your child: O parents, ye have come.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Rossetti</span>: <cite>The House of Life</cite>.
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The intermingling of the physical, the
+mental and the spiritual is so subtle,
+intricate and inexplicable that, in describing
+the states of the bride who is about
+to be a mother, it is difficult to know with which
+first to deal.</p>
+
+<p>In an Appendix, p. <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, I put in compact form
+one or two of the obvious physical phenomena
+with which it may be necessary for the bride
+and bridegroom to acquaint themselves. Although
+generally known to their elders, my many correspondents
+have shown me that even such simple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+and direct facts are often unknown to young
+people, who are frequently so shy that they do
+not like to consult a medical practitioner or
+an older friend. Assuming then that the simple
+physical facts are known, there still remain
+innumerable subtleties which may cause heart
+searching, perhaps to both bride and bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>It is almost as though the bearing of a child
+were a function so primitive in its origin that
+it tends, to some extent, to dissociate the ordinary
+coherence of the mother’s life, and to result
+in a weakening of the sub-conscious control
+over her emotions to which she had all her life
+grown accustomed. Thus she enters upon a
+complex state in which primitive instincts and
+feelings may be at variance with the conscious
+thoughts and aspirations of highly civilized and
+sensitive humanity.</p>
+
+<p>This complexity of her instincts and her
+conscious feelings may lead the young wife to
+find an apparently inexplicable conflict in her
+attitude towards her husband. Consciously she
+desires ardently, with all that is best in her
+nature, to bear the child of their love. She
+adores her husband and is full of tender emotions
+towards him as the coming father, and
+experiences a form of gratitude that he should
+be the means of fulfilling her dreams; but
+possibly, at the same time, she may be amazed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+find in herself an intense and active antagonism
+to his personal presence, an antagonism which
+she has to fight against revealing. She may
+realize that it is utterly at variance with her
+real feelings, and she may know that it would
+be the acme of cruelty to allow him to become
+aware of it, particularly when he is full of deep
+concern and love for her, and is doing all that
+a loving consideration can do for her happiness
+and welfare.</p>
+
+<p>Such a complex diversity of mental states
+existing perhaps co-incidently at the same hour
+in the mind of a girl may, if acute, lead to an
+outwardly recognizable form of hysteria and
+even to an unbalanced mind. Of such, however,
+I am not speaking, but am now describing
+the outwardly controllable, but nevertheless inwardly
+felt effervescing conflict of instinctive
+emotions, which is far more frequent than is
+generally recognized, and which the best
+balanced and most loving women are amazed
+to experience in themselves.</p>
+
+<p>From women whom I know to be exceptionally
+happy wives and mothers, I have evidence on
+this theme. With, of course, personal variations,
+they tell me that they have never confided
+this bewildering experience to their husbands,
+their doctors or their relatives, but, in essence,
+they say what is said in the following words
+by one of my <span class="lock">correspondents:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the first few months of coming motherhood
+she had a feeling of antagonism so strong
+“that it amounted to actual dislike of my husband’s
+presence, and a desire to be right away
+from him. This distressed me very much at
+first as I thought I must be losing my love for
+my husband, and could not understand such a
+sudden reversal of feeling as I loved him very
+deeply.... At the end of the first three
+months, I found that my feeling of love
+returned in full strength, and with it a feeling
+of intense devotion and tenderness towards
+my husband as the father of my coming
+child.”</p>
+
+<p>Some such experience, generally and fortunately
+limited to comparatively short though
+different periods, is not infrequently felt and is
+often a source of secret distress and anguish
+to the young wife whose sense of loyalty to
+the man she loves and married bars her from
+the relief of talking of these feelings. As is
+now beginning to be realized, emotions deeply
+experienced which are deliberately suppressed,
+may have far reaching effects even on the health.
+It is, therefore, well that she should know what
+is, I am sure, the truth, that this physical repugnance,
+which sometimes even amounts to a
+detestation of sharing the same house with the
+husband, and a desire to escape even from the
+superficial contact of eating in the same room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+with him, is a temporary phase, possibly phylogenetic<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+in its origin.</p>
+
+<p>This passing phase, whether it lasts a few days
+or months, is neither necessary nor absolutely
+universal, but so far as I can ascertain it appears
+to be a common occurrence in the lives of the
+more sensitive and tenderly loving of wives.
+Where the coming child has not been desired
+by both parents, and where the mother resents
+her coming maternity, there is, of course, a totally
+different problem for which there is a very
+obvious reason. I am speaking now only of
+the mother-to-be who deeply desires her child,
+who is physically healthy and well formed,
+living under comfortable, protected and happy
+conditions, and who ardently loves and is loved
+by her husband; it is she who may and most
+frequently does feel this passing phase of intense
+physical antagonism. That she loves, and consciously
+loves, gives her an outward control so
+that this under-current of inherent antagonism
+is not allowed to show, and is gallantly concealed
+from the whole world. She would feel it an
+intense disloyalty to speak of it to any living
+soul, but it is there and it is so often a source<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+of distress and strain upon the nervous system
+that it should be openly faced instead of being
+as it now is a repressed feeling. This repression
+tends to result in one of the greatest difficulties
+of the <em>healthy</em> woman who is carrying a child,
+namely sleeplessness. The complex balance of
+her nervous control is strained by her surprise
+at herself, and perhaps by her self-reproaches,
+and thus she has an unnecessary burden in
+addition to the one of the coming child. This
+phase, therefore, is not a fact to be ignored or
+treated too lightly, and while it lasts it should
+be respected so far as is compatible with the
+circumstances of the two and with due regard
+for the mother. It is not a thing either to fear
+or to be ashamed of. It is perhaps best openly
+faced as a fact of rather curious interest as an
+ancient survival in oneself of racial history. If
+possible it should form the object of innocently
+playful laughter between the girl and her husband;
+this would do much to prevent its suppression
+taking a serious root.</p>
+
+<p>Aware of the existence of this phase and its
+probable meaning and treating it in this simple
+sensible way, neither the young mother nor
+the father-to-be need fear this brief physical
+antagonism. Where its danger lies, however,
+is in the possibility that unrecognized, it will,
+with those who live a shade less perfectly, result
+in the beginning of a habit of irritation, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+perhaps in the setting up of some form of verbal
+bickering on the part of those who cannot lead
+as secluded and separate lives as would be possible
+in a spacious country or in a large establishment.
+When once the pair have broken the
+sweet custom of speaking only in love to each
+other, then, even after the temporary phase of
+antagonism has passed, they may find themselves
+with a habit of verbal bickering which is intensely
+corrosive, ultimately perhaps more than any
+other thing tending to destroy the outward
+beauty of a mutual life.</p>
+
+<p>There is another and reverse aspect of the
+mental phases through which a young mother-to-be
+may pass, in which she has an intense
+and added passion for her husband, and, as
+this leads to a subject of great importance, and
+a subject which has never been adequately
+handled, I will defer its consideration to
+Chapter <a href="#Page_99">XII</a>.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br />
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:<br />
+
+Her Delights</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby’s limbs&mdash;does
+anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes,
+when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her
+heart in tender and silent mystery of love&mdash;the sweet, soft
+freshness that has bloomed on baby’s limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Tagore</span>: <cite>Gitanjali</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In a happy and desired motherhood, every
+hour of the day and night may bring
+its intense delight, both in the dreams
+of contemplation, wherein the experience of
+love sinks deep into the heart, and of the linking
+up of the present with the future. All natural
+functions rightly performed give a deep satisfaction
+and content, but this, the greatest function
+of all, now so specialized and intimately interwoven
+with every highest racial impulse and
+every dearest personal desire of the loving pair,
+yields a wealth and profundity of experience
+surpassing all else.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In my opinion, undoubtedly the ideal way
+of spending the earlier months of coming parenthood
+is in the form of an extended honeymoon,
+in which the couple travelling slowly should
+follow the guide of seasonal beauty or should
+visit place after place of historic interest or
+natural charm so that the mother’s mind should
+be fed and stimulated by historic memories,
+by the exquisite freshness of nature, and the
+grandeur of man’s artistic achievements. This,
+of course, would not be possible in its fullest
+extent to many, until, in the future, society
+recognizes the supreme importance to the race
+of the expectant mother. Some such course,
+however, might be possible to a larger number
+than it is at present were they to realize not
+only their personal good but the racial benefit
+of this procedure. In our country, owing to
+our artificial and unclean attitude, the mother-to-be,
+particularly during the later months,
+stays at home so far as possible, and does not
+go from place to place. When going about
+entails battling with crowds on public conveyances,
+this is wise. But the easy effort of walking
+or of riding in the old fashioned horse
+carriage from place to place on an extended
+journey, is ideal, and sometimes appears to
+have beneficial reactions on the character and
+quality of the child that is coming. But, even
+if such a mode of life is impossible, yet the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+mother by reading and conversation can, if
+she has a mind of trained imagination, vary
+and enrich the mental environment of her child
+while it is developing.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, the mother-to-be can count among
+her delights all the intimate personal enjoyment
+of the little physical things which contribute
+to the great anticipations of the future. She
+can, if she has the skill herself, sew the little
+clothes, stitching into them sunny thoughts
+and beautiful hopes, making them links between
+the present delightful <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">solitude à deux</i> and
+another beautiful time which the little one who
+is coming cannot comprehend till, many years
+hence, he or she will experience its charm in
+turn.</p>
+
+<p>Little things intensely loved undoubtedly bring
+a greater reward in human happiness than
+great and numerous possessions, the joy of
+which can be but partly grasped. Within a
+tiny home, a mother whose heart vibrates with
+love can find a thousand sources wherewith to
+enrich the coming life.</p>
+
+<p>But of all her delights, the greatest must
+always be the thought of the wonderful gift,
+which, at some ever nearing date, she will be
+able to give to the man whom she adores. Some
+men are negligent of the charms and enravishments
+of children, but I think in every man
+who fully loves and is fully loved by his wife,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+the thought of the child of them both must
+always be a stimulant to everything most
+ardently beautiful and profound in their
+natures.</p>
+
+<p>Pictures of the child in after life filling brightly
+and beautifully some big position in the world
+may flit past the mother’s mind during this
+time, but, if the mother is wise, she will not
+too intimately visualize the outward form of
+her child as a maturing girl or boy. By so
+doing she may indirectly wrong it. (See Chapter
+<a href="#Page_130">XIV</a>).</p>
+
+<p>Her delight should be to picture a tiny
+laughing messenger from God, thinly veiled so
+that its sex is hidden; the figure of a child a
+few years old, still full of divine innocence and
+radiant possibilities. Happy hours of bodily
+rest may be spent picturing it in a thousand
+beautiful actions dancing in the sunlight, a
+contagious centre of joy in the whole world
+around them. On such an idea of delight she
+may lavish every day invigorating thoughts and
+wonderful dreams; none will be wasted, of
+that she may be assured. If, at the same time,
+she is securing the coming child’s bodily well-being
+through the proper material channels,
+then she can feel that these dreams of higher
+than material beauty are being built into reality.
+The secret sacred wonder of the process of
+which she is the active centre casts its spell of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+magic and delight around the willing mother.
+“A Garden enclosed is my Beloved,” and she
+feels within her own existence the mystic sense
+of divine beauty, which one feels in another
+form in a walled garden in the summer twilight.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br />
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:<br />
+
+Her Distresses</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The amount of suffering that has been and is borne by
+women is utterly beyond imagination.</p>
+
+<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Herbert Spencer</span>: <cite>Principles of Ethics</cite>, II.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The bodily changes which at first almost
+imperceptibly steal upon the mother, if
+she be a girl who has enjoyed her own
+physical beauty, and has taken that care of
+herself which so delightful a thing as a young
+woman’s body merits, will be at first a series
+of amazements and perhaps of delights as her
+body rounds itself and becomes more perfect.
+At this time the husband should fill his memory
+with her exquisiteness, for though she will,
+in the end, return perhaps to her normal strength
+and a re-awakened and different beauty, she
+will never again in her life reach such a point
+of bodily perfection as she does during the
+first three months or so of her coming motherhood,
+culminating at about the close of the
+third month.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the years pass, hallowed and sanctified
+by love which is understood, even when grey
+with age, her face may gain an ever increasing
+beauty and power, but the perfection of her
+body is reached in the early days when she is
+first about to become a mother.</p>
+
+<p>To one who cares for the outward form of
+her body, changes will occur inevitably as the
+months pass, which may give rise to deep distresses,
+principally because they feel at the
+time so permanent and it is difficult to believe
+that the disfigurements will ever pass. For a
+time she must inevitably become less and less
+beautiful; she may indeed become, even to
+herself, repugnant. Perhaps to her as to so
+many thousands of women the sight of themselves
+then is a torment, and the conquest of
+this feeling is a great and increasingly difficult
+mental exercise. As this time approaches and
+is upon her, the young mother-to-be must
+concentrate all her conscious thought on the
+beauty of the future. She must forget the
+present and its cruel distortions and live in the
+months and years that are to come when she
+will have with her another life and lovely form
+to which she has given origin.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is at present gained for our civilization
+by the obstinate blindness on the part
+of some, and the wilful deception on the part of
+others, which together encourage the conceal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>ment
+from the bride of what she has to
+face.</p>
+
+<p>On the one hand stand these prudes, but
+on the other the too eager and explicit, even
+lewd and profane and soiled minds who delight
+in lugubrious warnings.</p>
+
+<p>The result has been that many a woman
+enters upon her motherhood gaily and eagerly,
+totally unprepared for what is to follow, totally
+unaware that, by the first act of motherhood,
+she gives up something essential to herself and
+something which is irreplacable in all the after
+years. So great a gift should be made not only
+voluntarily, but consciously, and with full knowledge
+of what it entails.</p>
+
+<p>Cruel indeed is the callous hardness of the
+older mind that can see without desiring to
+help the proud and sensitive young spirit embarking
+upon a course which cannot but entail
+subtle difficulties at the best and extreme physical
+anguish at the worst, yet help of the kind the
+modern sensitive girl needs is almost unobtainable.
+Rare indeed is the mother of the last
+generation who has the power and the knowledge
+to meet the unvoiced demands of this.</p>
+
+<p>Acquainted as I am with all sorts and conditions
+of men and women, I am nevertheless
+frequently amazed and filled with burning indignation
+at the well-nigh inhuman cruelty,
+stupidity and hypocrisy of the older generation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+towards young potential parents. It is not an
+uncommon thing to hear a man who is unfaithful
+to his wife because she has lost her
+physical beauty, at the same time haranguing
+the public on the compulsory duties of parenthood
+on the part of all young married women,
+and coupling his denunciations with sneers at
+the young girl who fears to embark on motherhood,
+reviling her as selfish. Yet the cause of
+her shrinking may be that from all the weltering
+confusion of contradictory and scrappy information
+which may have been allowed to reach her,
+the one which has fixed itself in her mind most
+vividly, is that which promised her loss of her
+bodily charm and that of all she possesses which
+is most valuable to her as a bond which binds
+her husband’s affection to her. The woman
+who is perfectly sure of the continuance of
+her husband’s spiritual and romantic love does
+not fear the risks of motherhood. All who
+truly and deeply love, desire parenthood. But
+can a woman who was married by a shallow
+man only for her beauty dare to risk the thing
+which holds him to her?</p>
+
+<p>There is indeed a diabolical malignity in the
+older man who is himself unfaithful because of
+the very things in his wife which he denounces
+the younger girl for fearing.</p>
+
+<p>This must not be misunderstood by my
+readers as indicating that I think a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+should shrink in any way or that her husband
+should grudge the sacrifice of all the fragrance
+and beauty which they possess towards making
+the child of their love the citizen of the future.
+But with fervent intensity, I feel that to keep
+the young woman ignorant of facts, and, at
+the same time, on the one hand to upbraid and
+bully her and on the other to terrorize her with
+evil minded tales and tragic sights, is conduct
+which would be laughable in its absurdity did
+it not touch the spring of tears.</p>
+
+<p>As the months of expectant motherhood
+succeed one another the girl will find her power
+to walk and run, to keep up with her husband
+in his pleasure, his out-door exertions, or even
+to do the usual standing involved in the course
+of her house work, increasingly curtailed. This
+is perhaps the inevitable consequence of the
+burden of actual weight which results from
+the later growth of the child within her as it
+increases and approaches the size of a living
+baby.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the fortunate mother finds that
+she is still capable of the same amount of exertion
+to which she is generally accustomed, but,
+under modern conditions, this is but seldom.
+The stories of Kaffir women on the trek who
+bear their children and follow on with the rest,
+and savages whose activity is in no way curtailed,
+are neither applicable to modern condi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>tions,
+nor are they fair standards to set, because
+such women do not live as the modern woman
+is forced to, nor is their bodily organization
+really comparable with that of our highly sensitive
+brain-evolved race.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, with the exception of heavy
+exertion, the girl who is carrying her child
+should be able to indulge in a much greater
+amount of healthful exercise, without undue
+fatigue, than she is generally able to enjoy.
+(See also Chapter <a href="#Page_71">X</a>).</p>
+
+<p>Most women have heard rumours of others
+who have been able to follow out almost all
+their usual occupations, and have felt little or
+no handicap from child bearing. Such an
+exceptional woman is my correspondent who
+<span class="lock">wrote:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I lived exactly as usual; I played golf up to the middle
+of the seventh month and bicycled up to my very last. On
+the afternoon of the day my second child was born (weighing
+8&frac34; lb.) I was shopping with a woman acquaintance, who had
+no idea there was anything on the way.</p></div>
+
+<p>Such women, although not very many, do
+exist among us. Their existence is perhaps
+the source of the hope which always animates
+every girl first embarking on her parenthood
+that she, by the sheer force of the longing for
+health which is within her, will prove also to be
+such an exception. Sometimes this desire may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+be apparently fulfilled, but generally, unless it
+is coupled with much greater knowledge than
+most girls possess, as the months pass one by
+one, her proud spirit will bend, she will give
+up and give up and give up. Humbled,
+weakened, humiliated before herself, through the
+fact that she is not strong enough to fight what
+she now is inclined acquiescently to call “Nature,”
+she too goes down the stream with all the myriads
+of other happy hearted girls, whose gallant
+endeavours have equally failed. Then she creeps,
+wearily resting by the way, where she had hoped
+to tread with a firm and lightsome step.</p>
+
+<p>There grows in her mind, and this is stronger
+the more she loves her husband, the added
+distress that she feels that she is failing him.
+He married a mate, an equal, who lighter of
+step could yet cover the ground as well as he,
+and who could share his amusements, his work
+to some extent perhaps, and his pleasures. She
+feels that she must, so far as she possibly can,
+maintain this position. This hope impels her
+particularly if they have been married but a
+short time, and hence their days of delightful
+untramelled companionship have been so few.</p>
+
+<p>In this unselfish distress, which is primarily
+for him, she is tempted to conceal her effort
+and tends to overstrain herself in an endeavour
+to act as completely as she can the part, as
+reported, of the early Greek or Roman matron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+or of the proud and savage mother who could
+bear her children as lightly as a woodland creature.
+Finding sooner or later that she <em>cannot</em> do so,
+she suddenly gives in. Her strength, undermined
+by the series of distresses, the subtle
+shocks and blows to which she is secretly subjected,
+she yields and takes on that air of semi-invalidism,
+demanding constant care and consideration
+from her husband and those about
+her, which in a way represents the hauling
+down of her gallant flag. Her dreams of an
+easy motherhood are vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>She will at times be dimly conscious that
+she is no longer able to feel so acutely. This,
+in a way perhaps, is Nature’s provision against
+the too intense experiencing of emotion, which
+would otherwise come with sensitive motherhood.
+The sensation can be described, as one
+woman put it, as though each one of her powers
+of feeling were wrapped round in cotton wool,
+deadened and clogged so that they no longer
+gave contact. This may be well, but it adds
+in a dim way to the various distresses, a sense
+of unreality and apartness, which, if it coincides
+with that temporary antipathy to her husband,
+which was noted on page <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, may make the
+mother-to-be, for the time at any rate, indeed
+a wanderer in the valley of the shadow.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br />
+
+The Young Father-to-be:<br />
+
+His Amazements</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Till from some wonder of new woods and streams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He woke, and wondered more; for there she lay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">D. G. Rossetti.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The young father-to-be, though a real and
+very important person, has been curiously
+neglected by all and sundry who concern
+themselves with the affairs of the “expectant
+mother,” “child welfare,” and the other social
+and semi-eugenic matters about which well-meaning
+people have so voluminously written
+and so sedulously talked.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes jesting reference is made to the
+rather strange fact that, in some savage races,
+it is the father and not the mother who lies in
+bed for weeks after the birth of the child, but
+of the material and very real psychological
+experiences and physical difficulties which the
+young father is encountering and living through
+during the months before the advent of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+first-born, few have any knowledge. Fewer
+still have offered the father-to-be any sympathy
+or help. Nevertheless with the increasingly
+perceptive and specialized individuals comprising
+our civilization, there arises an increasing number
+of young men capable of feeling and suffering
+in some degree corresponding to the great
+realities of which, for each, his home is the
+centre. And, moreover, it must not be forgotten
+that among our thoughtful classes
+are now growing up the young men whose
+mothers were among the pioneers of women’s
+emancipation, whose mothers, therefore, were
+<em>voluntary</em> mothers who have trained their sons
+consciously and unconsciously, directly and
+indirectly, to be more in harmony with the
+true and natural attitude of a sensitive human
+being to its mate than are the average gross
+and over-bearing males, sons of enslaved and
+involuntary mothers. The sensitiveness of the
+modern young man towards his duties as a
+father, towards his wife as the mother of his
+child is, in my experience, very remarkable
+in its extent and its beauty. I have direct and
+indirect evidence from thousands that among
+the young Army men in various messes on the
+continent in recent years, an unexpected racial
+seriousness of attitude was shown when the
+necessary key that unlocked the secret chamber
+was available. Although it is a most deplorable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+truth, that there has been an increase in the
+racial diseases and an outward levity towards
+women, this is less an inherent baseness
+on the part of the young men than the result
+of the existence of the false conditions in
+which they have been placed, due to the
+criminal mishandling the whole racial problem
+has received from those older and in a position
+of authority.</p>
+
+<p>In the nature of things, at first the young
+man can scarcely avoid taking fatherhood much
+more lightly than the girl takes motherhood.
+In normal, sweet, and healthy men, a desire
+for children of their own is very strong. Yet,
+however sympathetic their dispositions, however
+observant they may be of others, the unmarried
+young men cannot, under present conditions,
+have a full comprehension of what the attainment
+of motherhood involves in sacrifice for
+the mother. Hence the ideally mated young
+couple embarking upon parenthood set about
+it gaily, but before many months have passed,
+the young father-to-be must also be filled
+with amazements. For, control her impulse
+to be alone as she may (see Chapter <a href="#Page_18">III</a>), curb
+her induced fretfulness as she may, the general
+psychological attraction between the man and
+the woman must be affected by the physiological
+state of the mother. The young man should
+find himself, if not actually repelled as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+months progress, at least much more able to
+give his wife an impersonal tenderness in place
+of an active desire for physical union than he
+would have imagined possible. However sweet
+their love, if they are average human beings
+and not exceptional, he will perhaps, from time
+to time, be amazed and pained by unexpected
+peevishness and fretfulness, perhaps by what
+appear to be quite irrational and unjustifiable
+complaints from his wife. He should be made
+acquainted with the facts on page <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, and should
+apply them to himself and his wife. Knowing
+of the liability of such a temporary development,
+he can guard against any permanent injuries to
+love arising from the experience, such as often do
+result when it is unexpected and misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>I remember once being told by a nurse who
+had been at a large maternity home that of
+those who came there for the birth of their
+child she had only seen one couple between
+whom there was no bickering, not even infinitesimal
+criticisms and gusts of temper to ruffle
+the surface of their intense and romantic devotion.
+“Generally the women at this time,”
+she said, “lead their husbands an awful dance,
+and are always snapping at them, but they do
+not really mean it, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>Men, on the whole, I think (although it is
+difficult and dangerous to generalize) are less
+tolerant of “superficial snappiness” than women,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+and the ruffling of the surface which comes
+with a few angry words enters probably deeper
+into the life of a sensitive man than it does in
+the life of a girl of corresponding type, although,
+on the other hand, a man may very quickly
+acclimatize himself to ignoring such comparative
+trivialities. Yet at first, at any rate, they not
+only amaze but distress, and when they appear
+irrational and swiftly pass, they may, although
+a trifle in themselves, be the cause of much
+misunderstanding and may be the foundation
+of more serious later disharmonies.</p>
+
+<p>To the man who has any biological knowledge,
+all the wonderful processes of the growth of
+the unseen embryo, leading up to birth, are
+full of amazed wonder. If a man knows, as
+all should in these days (see my book, <cite>Married
+Love</cite>, for information about the fundamental
+processes of mating) how minute is the single
+sperm cell from which his growing child takes
+its rise, the immensity of the results of the
+activity of that tiny cell appear indeed stupendous.
+His flower-like bride is changed, her whole
+body is permeated, altered and impressed by
+the activities of this particle of himself united
+with its counterpart within her.</p>
+
+<p>Only for the utterly callous can the experience
+of the months of waiting be anything but full
+of continual reminders of the amazing complexity
+of life. Long ago Tennyson <span class="lock">felt:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flower in the crannied wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pluck you out of the crannies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Little flower&mdash;but <em>if</em> I could understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What you are, root and all, and all in all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I should know what God and man is.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even more filled with humble and profound
+amazement must be the future father, who
+feels that his wife is now the very centre of the
+greatest mystery and wonder of the universe.
+Looking at her, brooding in her dreams, his
+mind must be continually filled with the consciousness
+of the eager active growth that is in
+progress, and the intense desire to take part in
+the mystical processes.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+
+The Young Father-to-be:<br />
+
+His Delights</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>A Garden enclosed is my spouse, a spring shut up, a
+fountain sealed.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<cite>Song of Solomon.</cite>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is said that men naturally have a more
+casual interest in fatherhood than women
+have in motherhood. It is sometimes
+even definitely said that men do not have a
+passion for fatherhood or care profoundly for
+young children. This is not my experience.
+A much larger number of men than are credited
+with it feel an intense desire for fatherhood,
+and take a great delight in young children.
+Though they should share the joy equally, yet
+the father often has a larger proportion of the
+pleasure of the little child, while to the mother
+comes a larger proportion of the burden and the
+difficulties. To the child itself, too, the father
+is often more precious than the mother. An
+accidental testimony to this effect was given by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+the little daughter of one of those “devoted
+wives and mothers” who thought woman’s
+place was only the home, and a mother’s duty
+only to care for her children. The child and
+I were chatting and the little one misunderstood
+something I said, and thought that I
+asked which of its parents it loved most. The
+child quickly answered, “Oh, I like father
+best, <em>of course</em>&mdash;mother is there every day and
+she washes us.” The privilege of being a
+child’s favourite is no small one, and, as this
+child shows us, a father may win it with unfair
+facility.</p>
+
+<p>The conscious dream of parenthood, a parenthood
+which shall give the children the best
+possible chance in life undoubtedly lies behind
+the majority of marriages. Hence when the
+young man who has married with the desire,
+perhaps not for immediate, but for ultimate fatherhood,
+first learns the definite fact that he has
+already inaugurated the beginnings of his child’s
+development he must experience an intense and
+unique wave of feeling, which, as in the early
+days of marriage, with all its freshness, and with
+the actual physical difficulties yet unfaced, must
+be one primarily of buoyant delight.</p>
+
+<p>There is also in the earlier months, for the
+man of artistic perceptions, an unique experience
+in the appreciation of his wife’s enhanced beauty.
+It is perhaps known that the most critical artistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+view of woman claims the highest point of
+perfection in her form about the third month
+of her first period of motherhood. To a pair
+of lovers who have delighted in their bodily
+beauty, as all natural and healthy and well
+formed young people should do, this period,
+when the loveliness of the woman is at its very
+height, and when the man can feel that he has
+contributed to its perfection, must be a time
+of very special entrancement. That it is something
+from within his most sacred being that
+has added this glow and radiance in perfecting
+the rounded form of the body that he adored
+in its virginal grace, must give a man with
+artistic and poetic potentialities an all too brief
+but never to be forgotten experience. The
+young father-to-be should not lose a day of
+these swiftly passing weeks, for this phase, like
+all human developments, but even more intensely
+so than most, is passing and transient, only to
+be immortalized in the permanence of a perceptive
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>When, as is inevitable, it has passed, and is
+followed within another month or two by a phase
+so acutely, perhaps agonizingly its reverse, the
+crucifixion of the mother’s sensitive feelings
+which is entailed should be hallowed and elevated
+in both their minds by that deeper, less personal,
+and more profoundly racial delight, the picturing
+with each other of the radiance, the strength,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+the power, the purpose and passion of the life
+which they are creating. So tragically soon
+after the days when he has feasted his eyes and
+filled his memory with her beauty, she will,
+she must withdraw her body from him and for
+months to come he will be shut out entirely
+from all sight of her. The reward will be an
+inner experience of the mind.</p>
+
+<p>A day will come when, for the first time,
+the father-to-be may lay his hand upon his
+wife below her waist and feel the sturdy little
+kicks of his future son or daughter, and can
+know that, though hidden from him, still there
+is beside him a vital and independent being
+whom he has wakened to life. The presence
+of this little creature whom he has not seen
+colours and permeates every hour of their joint
+existence, and links the family in an extraordinary
+unity, the full significance of which I
+will consider in Chapter <a href="#Page_99">XII</a>.</p>
+
+<p>When the later months pass, the father-to-be
+will have lost one of his most exquisite memories
+if he has not already talked and laughed with
+his future child, and if he and his wife and
+child together have not united in that most
+mystical union possible to human flesh.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br />
+
+The Young Father-to-be:<br />
+
+His Distresses</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no
+door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never
+lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the
+many.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Tagore</span>: <cite>Gitanjali</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>With all the passion for children, with
+the protective chivalrous feeling towards
+his wife which a well born and
+well knit man instinctively feels, through all
+the joy of fatherhood that is coming and the
+delight in its accomplishment, there must run
+a thread of intense distress at his own helplessness
+to help. With every consideration that
+the most resourceful man can think of towards
+his wife, with every helpful, tender, encouraging,
+supporting thing that he can do, how little is
+his share during all these months in the burden
+of the coming parenthood. If, through sympathy,
+he feels each pang his wife may feel;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+if, through sympathy, he curtails his activity to
+rest with her, nevertheless it is a voluntary
+abnegation, and if it became intolerable at any
+moment he could escape; he could run over
+the hills; he could go for a day’s fierce solitude
+and activity wherever his feet desired to lead
+him; but he knows that his wife <em>cannot</em>, that
+she is chained, that not for a moment of the
+day or night for nine months can she lay down
+the burden for a brief rest&mdash;that there is no
+exit for her from this imprisonment of so many
+of her potentialities but through the gateway of
+agonizing pain.</p>
+
+<p>The instinct behind marriage is often a feeling
+of chivalrous devotion towards a tender
+and confiding girl, and the desire to give her
+every protection. The man finds, however,
+that his act has placed the one whom he desired
+to <em>protect</em> in such a position that she must bear
+the greatest burden possible for a human being
+to bear, and must bear it alone. This must
+be a deep distress to an imaginative man of
+integrity, although the distress be mingled with
+other and joyous feelings. To pretend that it
+is not so, to say that the joy of coming parenthood
+should and does wipe out all such under-currents
+of thought is merely to be callous or
+silly. To repress an intense feeling, to pretend
+that it is not there, may give an apparent surface
+bravery or brightness. But such repression is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+ultimately destructive to the consciousness and
+whole physique of the one who, thus gallantly
+to himself, endeavours to deny the truth, and
+is often apt to lead to deeper disorders. The
+modern school of psycho-analysts who endeavour
+to set right the effects of mental strain often
+discover that throughout life, perhaps dating
+from childhood, a personality has been handicapped
+and weakened by some deep suppression
+of an intensely experienced emotion.</p>
+
+<p>In my opinion, the pretence that a sensitive
+man does not feel, and does not endeavour to
+conceal his feeling about his relation to his
+wife, particularly at the time of their first coming
+parenthood is to dishonour man’s capacity and
+his imagination. Why imply that a rational
+man does not experience what surely all but
+a brute must feel. It impoverishes our life of
+emotional expression, and it tends to injure
+the man himself, to increase the strain by the
+pretence that the strain is not there. I know,
+for instance, one man who fainted at the time
+his wife gave birth to their child, and who,
+under no consideration, would allow her to have
+a second child, although he had intensely desired
+and looked forward to the fatherhood of a large
+family before he knew the actual physical experiences
+which it entailed. Such a man, in my
+opinion, was a good father wasted by an excess
+of emotion made all the more intensely des<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>tructive
+to himself by the endeavour to maintain
+the totally artificial and indeed the crude
+attitude which is supposed to be “correct” for
+a man, namely a sort of dissociation of himself
+from his wife’s experiences and a hardened lack
+of recognition of all that is involved. It is
+surely better to recognize that there is that
+intense and poignant sense of helplessness, that
+the sensitive and developed young man should
+and does feel it, but that it should be recognized
+as the compensating price which he pays for
+fatherhood.</p>
+
+<p>If we are ever to raise our race to the point
+when every child is so precious that no child
+can be hungry, neglected or unwanted, the
+conscious price which the <em>father</em> pays for his
+children will be one of the assets in valuing
+the children of the nation. It is, therefore,
+better to acknowledge and encourage such sensitiveness
+in the father by allowing the open
+and honourable expression of such feeling, and
+thus to avoid that almost neurotic and destructive
+effect of the suppression of such intense feeling
+as warped the father mentioned above. Because,
+if the wife avails herself of the advice I give
+in this book, and if the time for parenthood is
+chosen rightly and wisely in relation to her
+general health, and it is ascertained before she
+embarks upon potential motherhood that her
+bodily and bony structure is fit for motherhood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+then though the experiences of both will be
+difficult and profound in their testing of the
+quality of each other, motherhood should not
+result in any excessive strain, and should
+indeed be a time of wonderful life activity.</p>
+
+<p>With all needless ill-health, and wanton
+ugliness and wasteful distress which at present
+are artificially involved in it, once swept away,
+potential motherhood should not be an unendurable
+burden. Though the father’s feelings
+should be intense and poignant on behalf of
+his wife and though she may go through searching
+experiences, yet the gladness should so
+preponderatingly weigh in the balance in excess
+of the troubles and difficulties that no normally
+healthy and well endowed young couple should
+ever suffer so much that they dare not face a
+second maternity, as happens alas only too
+often to-day.</p>
+
+<p>On quite a lower plane, but nevertheless on
+the one so essential that it greatly affects all
+the rest of life, is the too frequent distress of
+the young father-to-be about the more material
+provision of all that is necessary for his wife.
+In counting the cost of the coming parenthood,
+too often quite heavy expenses are unforeseen,
+and, with a fixed income, the young man may
+have the intense distress of being unable to
+provide all that his wife not only wishes but
+really ought to have. Recent years, for instance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+were times of extraordinary difficulty for all
+women who bore children, and who had a
+naturally healthy and proper desire to eat fruit.
+With oranges at a shilling each, as they were
+in the winter of 1918-19, how could an ordinary
+young couple afford a glassful of orange juice
+a day, which I recommend as profoundly valuable
+(see p. <a href="#Page_80">80</a>). It was obviously impossible.
+Such a time, of course, one hopes will never
+be repeated. It was a period of undue strain,
+when none, considering the future of the race,
+should have borne a child unless private reasons
+made it specially advisable.</p>
+
+<p>But apart from such excessive and unprecedented
+difficulties, there are, and probably
+always will be, difficulties for the young man
+who desires to provide everything that can
+benefit his wife. Not long ago in the newspapers,
+a budget of the cost of the baby in an
+ordinary lower middle class home was given,
+and there was an item: “Dentist’s bill for
+the mother, twenty pounds.” A wise comment
+was made on this that, alas, it is by no means
+an unusual, indeed it is a usual experience that
+the coming child adversely affects the mother’s
+teeth, and both for the health of the baby and
+the mother they should be attended to. Possibly,
+even her very life may depend on her
+teeth being thoroughly free from decay after
+the birth. A heavy dentist’s bill is too often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+an unexpected anxiety to the young husband,
+so that the teeth are neglected. Neglected teeth
+either weaken, or may actually result in the
+death of the mother from their decay, causing
+internal poisoning, to which she is peculiarly
+liable after bearing a child.</p>
+
+<p>Then too, there are unexpected and heavy
+expenses which are unforeseen through a variety
+of circumstances, such, for instance, as the
+uncertainty of the date of the birth. Those
+who go to nursing homes, as many are now
+doing owing to housing and service difficulties,
+experience this trial more acutely than others.
+They expect and plan, perhaps, for the birth
+within a given week, and the baby may delay
+two or three or even more weeks beyond the
+calculated time. Young couples, scarcely able to
+afford the heavy expenses of a good nursing
+home, who yet had saved sufficient to allow the
+wife three weeks there, may have their plans
+quite dislocated by a delay of three weeks in
+the infant’s appearance, resulting in the mother
+unexpectedly having to remain double the length
+of time for which they had saved the money
+for the nursing home. The young father is
+then faced by the sordid difficulty of finding
+the necessary money, and unless he is gifted
+in such a way as to make extra earning a possibility,
+is under a condition of strain. Just
+when all his free energy and time should be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+devoted to companionship with his wife and
+infant, he has to spend extra hours working at
+high pressure in order to meet unexpected expenses.
+The young father-to-be who wishes
+to maintain the right and beautiful atmosphere
+around his coming child should inform himself
+of all certain and likely contingencies of expense,
+and should make due provision for these before
+the great act of calling into being one for
+whom he is primarily responsible.</p>
+
+<p>To a healthy man, also, there may be a period
+of chastening experience in sharing daily life
+with one who is out of health. Though the
+prospective mother <em>ought</em> not to be in any way
+invalided, yet, alas, as things are, too often she
+is, and only an unselfish man will fail to resent
+the personal sacrifice which he endures as a
+result.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain self-centred type of man
+who may, with the most model intentions and
+in order to lead a self-respecting life, marry,
+and who may find the resulting pregnancy of
+his wife very disconcerting to himself and very
+thwarting to his own requirements. With a
+certain bitter selfishness, this attitude was unconsciously
+expressed by one of my correspondents
+in the following words: “Something must
+be done to prevent any more children; imagine
+what a wretched time I have with my wife sick
+every day for nine months.” Perhaps the reader<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+can scarcely restrain a smile at so callously
+self-centred an attitude on the part of a husband,
+but, nevertheless, that man does have a real
+and difficult physical problem before him. One
+way, of course, in which to help such a man
+would be to place such help and knowledge
+before his wife that her motherhood should be
+more normal, and not so terrible an experience
+for her.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br />
+
+Physical Difficulties of the
+Expectant Mother</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>We cannot reason with our cells, for they know so
+much more than we do that they cannot understand us;
+but though we cannot reason with them, we can find out
+what they have been most accustomed to, and what therefore
+they are most likely to expect; and we can see that
+they get this, as far as it is in our power to give it them,
+and may then generally leave the rest to them.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Samuel Butler.</span>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>To far too many women the time when they
+are carrying a child is a period of strain
+and semi-invalidism, a time filled not
+only with surprises and difficulties, but too
+often coloured with actual distress and ill-health.
+<em>This should not be.</em> The time of prospective
+motherhood should be one of buoyancy, health,
+physical activity and mental vitality. The low
+standard of health which the modern woman
+tolerates is deplorable.</p>
+
+<p>But to whom can the young mother-to-be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+turn for advice and assistance? Such healthy,
+happy, prospective motherhood does not come
+by instinct in our city life. Those around her,
+older than she, who have had children of their
+own may perhaps be able to give her a hint
+here and a little piece of advice there, which to
+some extent may alleviate her difficulty or pierce
+with a faint shadow of light the gloom of perplexity
+in the ever deepening unknown into
+which she is entering for the first time; but
+nearly all such women have themselves gone
+blindly and individually through this period of
+immense significance and mystery without having
+had any rational help from one devoted to the
+maintenance of <em>health</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every book written to advise the
+coming mother is written by a doctor of disease,
+with very few exceptions by doctors who tolerate
+what is, in my opinion, a disgracefully low
+standard of general health in women. A distinguished
+gynecologist who, in cross-examination
+before a commission persisted in maintaining
+that the “daily morning sickness”
+which is so prevalent in women who are carrying
+a child is “physiologically right and natural”
+(indeed, he implied almost that it was necessary)
+represents an attitude of mind very general and
+capable of far-reaching hypnotic injury to the
+community as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>By far the best and sanest book available for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+healthy women is one to which I have already
+referred, namely <cite>Tokology</cite>, by Dr. Alice Stockham,
+but this book has its inaccuracies and its drawbacks,
+and even its pages are too much occupied
+with the wretched and handicapping troubles
+which women do experience in large numbers,
+but <em>which should not be</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, to allow a young girl or woman
+to enter upon these months of trial without
+making clear to her what she has to face, is cruel
+indeed. For a sensitive woman the experience,
+even at its best, and when most free from incapacities, is yet
+incredibly and penetratingly
+more terrible than she anticipated. The more
+sensitive and more conscious she is, the deeper
+and profounder may be her joy in her coming
+motherhood, but, at the same time, the more
+intense the physical experiences through which
+she must pass.</p>
+
+<p>The modern sensitive young woman does
+not take things blindly and patiently and with
+resignation, with a pious belief in her own
+inferiority, which may have helped to dull and
+moderate the sensations of her grandmothers.
+The more evolved she is, the more she may be
+willing to bow to natural law, but the less is
+she content to suffer wanton cruelties imposed
+upon her by ignorance, stupidity or coercion.</p>
+
+<p>Many are the midwives, maternity nurses
+and medical practitioners with whom I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+discussed such matters, and from whom, often
+incognito, I have asked advice. I may say
+that <em>none</em> gave <em>all the necessary</em> advice, not one
+gave one-tenth of what is in this book, only
+one or two gave any necessary simple advice
+in the sympathetic and understanding fashion
+desirable, and only one or two appeared to have
+any clear <em>generalizations</em> or scientific understanding
+of the facts about which I asked. The
+resignation, the shrugging of the shoulders in
+the face of things which would otherwise make
+one weep, or the cheerful braving out or pretending
+that things are not as bad as they are,
+which is the general attitude of mind of the
+maternity nurse is little more helpful than that
+of the practitioner. Concerning many of the
+practical facts of the later months of pregnancy
+and actual birth, and the succeeding weeks of
+recovery, the properly trained midwife seems
+on the whole wiser than the average general
+practitioner, wiser even than the specialist who
+may come at a crisis, but who does not watch
+his patient through the succeeding weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Many young women who have recently been
+mothers have told me of the mental and physical
+horror which they then experienced, and of the
+added horror that they should feel horror. They
+have asked me to generalize, if it is possible,
+from their cases in such a way as to help others
+who enter upon maternity’s difficulties for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+first time, so that they may at least be spared that
+terrible sense of isolation and of exceptional
+failure when they experience one by one the
+things which are inevitable, or the things
+which are, by our artificial lives, so frequently
+imposed.</p>
+
+<p>The bearing of a child very often may be
+complicated by actual disease, and then requires,
+of course, expert medical attention. With those
+who are in any sense actually ill, and who should
+be in the hands of a doctor, I am not here dealing,
+for, in this respect, as throughout my other
+books, I desire only to write of health for the
+healthy so that they may have sufficient knowledge
+to maintain their health and raise the
+vitality of the race.</p>
+
+<p>I may say here that, even for the healthiest,
+it is very advisable, not only for her first, but
+for every succeeding pregnancy, that a woman
+should be examined and measured by some
+wise and healthy-minded medical practitioner
+or midwife at least once during the first three
+months and twice again during the last three
+months, but that, for the first baby, it would
+be better to go at least every month for examination.
+In that way, the various insidious disturbances
+of the excretory system, and other
+fundamental things which <em>may</em> go a little wrong,
+even in an otherwise healthy woman, can be
+detected immediately and dealt with. Many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+however, find a great difficulty in bringing
+themselves to do this.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly it is much better for the prospective
+mother to go to a specialist, old enough
+to be wise and experienced and mellow, and yet
+young and virile and active enough to be acquainted
+with modern knowledge, and healthy
+and clean enough to look for and to desire health
+and normality in those who come for advice.</p>
+
+<p>This should pre-eminently be the special
+field for women doctors, but there is not nearly
+a sufficient body of them with the necessary
+qualifications to meet the requirements of the
+community, and I should like to see a new
+profession created for women who, to the
+experience and the training of first-class midwives,
+have added a sufficient training in general
+medicine to be specialized to advise the <em>healthy</em>
+prospective mother, and to be able to detect at
+once anything which should necessitate handing
+her on to the doctor of disease. Such practitioners
+should rank in status somewhere between
+the cultivated midwife of gentle birth (such as
+a Queen Charlotte’s Hospital nurse) and the
+medical woman. Thus the prospective mother
+would be spared that hard and bitter contact
+with one who has become myopic in the observation
+of disease, and would be able to go to
+someone specially trained to encourage health.
+Meanwhile, as this is but a bright picture of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+what may come in the future (and that <em>will</em>
+come if women make a sufficient demand for
+it) it may spare many women distress if I set
+out the physical difficulties and peculiarities
+which are most liable to occur with a <em>healthy</em>
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>From the welter of accounts of the effects of
+pregnancy, I have disentangled into three groups
+those which normal women may have to face.
+The difficulties <span class="lock">are:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>(1) Those nature-imposed; these are essential;
+they cannot be avoided by the healthiest
+woman. They can be perhaps, to some extent,
+mitigated. They are things which the coming
+mother must be helped through and over; she
+cannot be saved from them.</p>
+
+<p>(2) Those entirely artificial; these are quite
+needless and are the results of either ignorance
+or our gross disregard of known facts, and can
+be entirely eradicated.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Those which are to-day very usual, but
+which knowledge and a better mode of life may
+entirely conquer.</p>
+
+<p>Now to consider first the third group: those
+which are general, but which a knowledge could
+or should conquer.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first signs that she is to become
+a mother, and one of the most usual experiences
+of a young woman when this time begins, is
+the daily recurrence of that penetrating nausea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+and sickness usually after she has risen in the
+morning, called “Morning Sickness.” This is
+so usual that medical practitioners rely on it
+to some extent as a sign of pregnancy. It is
+described in almost every book for the prospective
+mother, and, as I have mentioned (p. <a href="#Page_72">72</a>),
+it is sometimes even maintained by distinguished
+gynecologists as a physiological function, <i>i.e.</i>,
+a normal function.</p>
+
+<p>Now this is a very nauseating and wretched
+experience to the majority of women, and it
+is one which, I maintain, is entirely imposed
+by ignorance, wrong living and the general
+hypnotic effect of others’ perverted views on the
+woman’s system. In those women whose internal
+organs are improperly placed or somewhat malformed,
+it occurs as a physiological result of
+pressure or other disturbance. <em>In true health
+there is no physiological reason whatever for the
+morning sickness</em>, and a woman who lives as she
+should live during the time of her coming
+motherhood need not experience it. This should,
+in the next generation, be entirely conquered,
+because it is to a very large extent caused by
+allowing, even forcing to wear corsets, girls when
+they are still unformed and developing. Those
+women who have never worn corsets in the
+whole of their lives, and who dress as they
+should dress, and do as they should do during
+the months when they are becoming mothers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+seldom experience morning sickness. Though
+there are some who, when they know the child
+is coming, discard their corsets too late, and
+these may still experience this unpleasant feature.
+The extraordinary adaptability and vitality in a
+woman’s system, however, is a remarkable thing,
+and even those who begin later in life than
+they should to train for motherhood may yet
+accomplish much.</p>
+
+<p>Granted a healthy, well-formed body, a
+previous life of normal activity, sensible attention
+to the following points will insure complete
+freedom from morning sickness in all but the
+exceptional and pre-<span class="lock">disposed:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) Discard every scrap of heavy or constricting clothing,
+wearing only the lightest garments hung from the shoulders
+entirely.</p></div>
+
+<p>As I said in <cite>Married Love</cite> the standard of
+dressing for the prospective mother, whose
+garments should be of the lightest wool and
+silk if possible, and should be so lightly hung
+that a butterfly can walk the length of her body
+without tearing its wings.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) Discard all rich, heavy and over-cooked foods, such
+as pastries and hot cakes, dried peas and beans, rich game
+or highly seasoned dishes, and live as much as possible on
+uncooked foods and simple milk puddings, stewed fruit, lightly
+cooked meat and fish, with the largest obtainable quantity of
+very fresh ripe fruit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(<i>c</i>) Start the day not with tea, but with the juice of two
+or three oranges squeezed into a tumbler.</p></div>
+
+<p>If she does these things a normal woman
+may go through the whole nine months without
+experiencing one single moment of nausea,
+as many a woman has done.</p>
+
+<p>A retardation of the action of the bowels or
+constipation is very frequent, and is a cause of
+many other ill-effects. A right diet such as I
+advise, adding for this purpose honey and
+brown bread, does much to prevent it; if it
+exists in spite of this, take suitable bending
+exercises (see also page <a href="#Page_72">72</a>), even a warm
+hydrostatic douche (using a douche-can with
+a little common salt in the water), but do <em>not</em>
+take regular drugs or “aperients.”</p>
+
+<p>Another of the very frequent experiences of
+the mother who is carrying a child, particularly
+towards the later months, is the enlargement of
+the veins of the legs and ankles and the formation
+of varicose veins. These may become
+very serious if neglected, and even if the
+woman is being doctored, unless, at the same
+time, she regularly follows the proper healthy
+method of dieting and living. In addition to
+the dieting and clothing described above, which
+will make her almost certain to be immune
+from varicose veins, she should take warm
+comfortable sitz baths every evening, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+she should lie down for at least half an hour
+or an hour in the middle of the day or early
+evening with her feet raised a few inches above
+the level of her head.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most serious difficulties, felt even
+by those who avoid all other drawbacks, is
+sleeplessness, particularly in the last month or
+two when the activities of the child may be
+very disturbing. In this, much depends on
+the position in which the child is lying, and
+sometimes the position of the child can be
+improved by massage and manipulation by a
+trained midwife or doctor. Something also can
+be done by the mother herself through her
+mental attitude and hand touch on the child,
+and also by taking hot sitz baths nightly before
+going to bed. Still more, however, is accomplished
+by right diet, clothes, exercise and
+happiness (see also Chapter <a href="#Page_99">XII</a>).</p>
+
+<p>The habit of taking aspirin regularly or in
+large quantities, which too many women indulge
+in if sleepless during this time, is extremely
+bad both for the child and for the mother.
+Drugs of any sort should not be appealed to.
+If it is possible during these later months, sleep
+will be much more refreshing, and the advantage
+will be very great both to the coming child
+and the mother, if her bed can be arranged on
+a verandah or out of doors, but it must not
+be forgotten that towards the end of the period<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+the expectant mother ought not to be out of
+ear-shot of someone.</p>
+
+<p>Now to consider the second group of disabilities;
+those entirely the result of artificial
+outlook and condition. Among these must be
+classed the inability to walk any distance or to
+take part in active work of any sort. This is
+partly imposed by the hesitation of a woman
+to be seen at this time, and particularly to face
+the vulgar and leering attitude of the general
+public, and it is partly also due to the general
+heaviness or strain on the muscles or to the
+presence of varicose veins. If these have, by
+the methods just described, been almost or
+entirely avoided, she will find that her natural
+activity is much less reduced than it would
+otherwise be. To walk a mile or two, or even
+three miles the day before or even the day of
+the birth is not at all beyond what can be expected
+from an ordinary healthy woman who lives as
+she should.</p>
+
+<p>The necessity perpetually to be fussing, to
+be taking tonics or drugs or medicines, to be
+thinking only of herself and never of any general
+or greater theme, is also eliminated when the
+general health is improved, and any mental or
+bodily activity which the mother can indulge in
+without a sense of strain is advantageous to
+the child as well as to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The highly nervous condition and overstrained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+state of so many modern women during this
+time is due entirely to the artificial social lives,
+involving late hours, which they try to lead.
+The mother-to-be should give up almost all
+social engagements which keep her out of bed
+after 9 o’clock. Sleep, fresh air, exercise under
+the healthiest natural conditions she can command,
+coupled with the right diet, will
+secure her health and strength throughout the
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulties, however, about which help is
+most needed are the first group, those nature-imposed
+and inevitable difficulties which the
+woman <em>has</em> to face, and which, without instruction
+in the things she might do to mitigate them,
+often lead her to suffer intensely, though needlessly,
+and tend to have life-long effects on her
+health and appearance. Simple and sometimes
+obvious precautions are required, and yet these
+are almost unknown to the generality of advisers
+to whom the prospective mother can turn.</p>
+
+<p>The first and most obvious inmost change
+that affects her is that felt in the muscles below
+the waist, particularly those which run vertically,
+and which support, by their elasticity and strength,
+the whole front of the body. As the months
+pass and the child and its attendant tissues
+grow, there is a slowly increasing strain on these
+muscles. As the enlargement proceeds the
+skin will also stretch, and the under-skin and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+tissues beneath it are finally stretched almost
+to breaking-point, stretched sometimes so that
+they do break apart and leave ultimate permanent
+little scars under the skin of the mother. Few
+apparently know, but all <em>should</em> know, that this
+can be almost entirely avoided (by fortunate
+women entirely avoided), if the skin and tissues
+immediately below it are kept supple by daily
+rubbing with olive oil from the fifth month.
+Perhaps from the fourth month once a week,
+and certainly from the fifth month daily, the
+mother should rub the lower part of her body
+and her breasts with a little olive oil. This
+will not only have a soothing effect upon
+the skin, but will assist its elasticity in such
+a way that she may return to her virgin
+condition without leaving those tell-tale scars
+which so often mark a woman, and which
+many, even highly trained maternity nurses
+and doctors, seem to think are inevitable.
+Such scars <em>are not inevitable</em>, and this very
+simple precaution, coupled with exercise, will
+frequently be sufficient safeguard for the woman
+who desires to avoid them altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The same internal growth which enlarges the
+muscles and strains the skin will also sometimes
+press apart the two main vertical muscles
+in such a way that there is a tendency for
+inner tissues to project, and for the last month
+or two this may be very uncomfortable without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+in any way being dangerous. It is then advisable
+to wear a small stiff pad over this and
+fasten it in place with a narrow, soft elastic
+band. The use of a localized plaster very often
+strains the skin and leaves scars or makes it
+sore. It is wise to have the small hard central
+bandage wherever there is a tendency to localized
+projection as will be self-evident to anyone who
+experiences it.</p>
+
+<p>The natural darkening of the colour of the
+skin when it is strained and stretched as it must
+be is very displeasing to the eye and, particularly
+to a young girl whose beautiful body has been
+her delight, may be a cause of great distress
+and self-repugnance. It is well that she should
+be helped over this most anxious time of self-detestation
+by the reliable assurance that it is
+only a temporary phase, and that if she keeps
+in good health, and rubs herself with pure
+oil for two or three months after birth as
+well as before, the skin will be entirely freed
+from any stained or discoloured appearance,
+and will return to its normal condition.</p>
+
+<p>As the months pass, the actual physical
+weight of the body will increase, gradually
+becoming a greater burden, so that long distance
+walking and any acute activity such as running
+or tennis-playing must become impossible.
+Nevertheless if the diet and mode of living
+suggested above is followed out this will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+very much less embarrassing than is usually
+experienced.</p>
+
+<p>Many forms of support or maternity corsets
+are advertised or medically recommended to
+assist supporting the weight at such times, but,
+unless the woman has any actual slipping of
+the position of the organs or any deformity,
+she is very much better not to take such proffered
+assistance for they will form a broken reed,
+and, as one knows, “the broken reed pierces
+the hand.” It is much better for her to
+strengthen her own muscles by slow and careful
+exercise, bending forward until she touches the
+ground or as nearly touches the ground as
+possible; also lying on her back on the ground
+and rising without touching the floor with her
+hands and arms; also slowly raising the feet
+forward above the head while lying on the back,
+and then allowing them to drop slowly to the
+ground, this last exercise being very strengthening
+to the central muscles of the body wall
+(detailed accounts of other useful exercises will
+be found in Dr. Alice Stockham’s <cite>Tokology</cite>).
+So long as there is no strain upon her, she
+should exercise throughout the whole of the
+time. She would then not need any artificial
+support, and would be much better without it.</p>
+
+<p>I have never seen it elsewhere clearly stated,
+but I have discovered that one very important
+reason against corsets is that, however well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+shaped and loose they may be, they tend to
+touch and exert some slight pressure on the
+soft tissues at the back of the waist; they must
+do so, merely to remain upon the body without
+dropping off, and this amount of pressure is
+sufficient to induce morning sickness (see p. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>)
+for the following among other reasons. As
+the womb grows in the centre of the body it
+pushes aside and to the back the many yards
+of soft tubular alimentary canal which normally
+lie coiled in the front of the body, and, if there
+is no constriction or pressure, these tend to
+find room for themselves round the waist line
+and to the back, so that there appears what
+seems almost like a coil or roll of fat round
+the waist. This disposition is very advantageous,
+however, and should not be interfered
+with in the way any corset must interfere, and
+it greatly reduces the ungainly frontal size
+and helps to keep the body better balanced
+(see p. <a href="#Page_91">91</a>).</p>
+
+<p>At first the breasts will become firmer and
+larger and will support themselves more readily
+than at any time, but later on their shape
+somewhat changes and they tend to fall. They
+should then have carefully slung and properly
+arranged supports looped over the shoulder.
+Neglect of this often results in the final and
+lifelong loss of the beauty of the bosom, and it
+is indeed a cruel thing that the average doctor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+or nurse appears not to be capable of giving
+any useful advice on this point, so that hundreds
+of thousands of women have not only lost their
+beauty, but have been told that it is an inevitable
+and natural result of having borne a child.
+That it is well-nigh inevitable under modern
+unaided conditions, may be true. With proper
+support, proper massage and treatment afterwards,
+the ugly breasts need not have been, and
+need not be.</p>
+
+<p>A thing which often distresses girls, but
+which however unsightly it is while present
+is a temporary and passing phenomenon, is
+the sudden appearance of freckles, even large
+patches of brown colouring matter, on the skin
+during the time the baby is forming. So far
+as I am aware nothing can be done to prevent
+it, and if as sometimes happens these brown
+patches even appear on the face, it is a misfortune
+which must be endured as stoically as
+possible, encouraged with the knowledge that
+it will entirely pass.</p>
+
+<p>Another curious thing I know one woman
+experienced, and about which I am awaiting
+further evidence, was the apparent transplantation
+by the child in the mother of the strong
+black body hairs of the father. The result was
+that during the later months of carrying and
+for a few months after birth, the mother’s lower
+limbs and forearms had a thick growth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+masculine-like hair, which nearly all fell off
+within six months after the birth.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency that the coming child has to
+extract nutriment from the mother’s tissues
+often results in the loss or temporary spoiling
+of two of her beauties, the beauty of her nails
+and the beauty of her hair. These are apt to
+suffer unless she is warned in time and protects
+them. The injury to them probably depends on
+the withdrawal of the proper quantity of fat
+from the tissues. It is, therefore, advisable for
+the mother-to-be to rub her nails and hair with
+some suitable natural oil. Refined paraffin,
+almond oil or castor oil for the hair are by far
+the best, and for the nails some animal grease
+such as lanoline, or perhaps simple vaseline.
+Expensive concoctions, very much advertised
+and claiming wonderful properties, generally
+owe anything which they may contain to these
+ingredients, but more frequently contain little
+or nothing of any value, and are often harmful.</p>
+
+<p>The more fundamental, and, alas, almost
+inevitable result of bearing a child is that it
+extracts not only the fat from the system, but
+the hardening matter from the teeth. This
+indeed is, so far as I am aware, a theft from
+the mother by the next generation which no
+knowledge of its liability can prevent, and
+which can only be met by a careful supervision
+of the mother’s teeth both before and after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+birth. Women differ in the amount they lose,
+but it is, alas, one of the almost inevitable things
+that there shall be a certain weakening of the
+teeth. Sometimes this will right itself and
+teeth which shook in their sockets immediately
+after the birth may apparently harden again
+and refix themselves firmly, but if the weakening
+takes the form of actual decay, they must be
+attended to.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect the diet recommended by Dr.
+Stockham in <cite>Tokology</cite>, which advocates the
+elimination of all calcareous food is perhaps
+inadvisable if strictly followed out, because the
+growing child insists on mineral matter, and
+it simply takes it from the mother’s structure
+if it does not get it in other ways. I have,
+therefore, thought it advisable not entirely to
+eliminate the wheat and other bone making
+materials from the usual diet as Dr. Stockham
+recommends, but to maintain a certain proportion
+of wheat, especially whole wheat, in the
+food. Her advice to replace rich dishes by
+simple rice, stewed fruits, etc., is certainly wise,
+and still more important is it to follow her warm
+recommendation to eat large quantities of fresh
+fruit.</p>
+
+<p>One of the perfectly natural, but to the young
+mother rather unexpected, results of the changes
+of the later months is the alteration which
+gradually comes in the position of the centre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+of gravity of her whole body. She is of course
+scarcely conscious of this, and yet it is a point
+of some importance, because it results in a
+certain liability to slip and to fall, particularly
+coming downstairs. The danger of such a fall
+is less to the child, which is safely surrounded
+by a buffer of fluid and by the mother’s protective
+muscles, but more to the mother herself, who,
+in falling, may strain or injure herself. The
+growth which results in this change in the
+centre of gravity comes too rapidly for the
+system quite perfectly to adjust itself to it. It
+will be remembered how long it takes a baby
+to learn to balance itself upright upon its feet;
+the adult mother-to-be has had a whole lifetime
+knowing just how to balance, and every muscle
+has become adjusted to the centre of gravity
+in its accustomed place. The change in the
+distribution of weight changes the position of
+the centre of gravity to some extent, sufficiently
+at any rate to throw the co-ordination of many
+years somewhat out of gear, and it is, therefore,
+wise for the expectant mother to take particular
+care not to slip or stumble unexpectedly. The
+sudden and active movement of the child which
+may kick or turn with no warning may
+cause her quite to lose her balance, particularly
+if she is on a steep staircase. It is well, therefore,
+to make a special point of keeping guard
+against this possibility by always having a firm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+grip on the handrail when going up or down
+stairs during the later months of carrying a
+child.</p>
+
+<p>However well and full of a sense of power
+and creative vitality she may be, a woman
+should take long hours of rest: to bed at nine
+each evening and not up till eight o’clock in
+the morning and taking at least one hour lying
+down during the day. During the nine months
+of bearing the unborn child, she should remember
+she is providing it with <em>vitality</em> every
+second of the twenty-four hours of each day,
+and she should neither have forced upon her,
+nor should she desire to do, work which ever
+tires her, though she should live an active, full,
+healthy, happy existence and should be capable
+of nearly all her normal work and enjoyments.
+If she is wise she will work in direct contact
+with sun-lit earth. Gardening ensures the truest
+sense of physical well-being.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br />
+
+Physical Difficulties of the
+Expectant Father</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I was a child beneath her touch,&mdash;a man<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When breast to breast we clung, even I and <span class="lock">she,&mdash;</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A spirit when her spirit looked through <span class="lock">me,&mdash;</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A god when all our life-breath met to fan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fire within fire, desire in deity.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">D. G. Rossetti.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The higher the evolution of the creatures,
+the more is the parental responsibility
+shared by both parents. Among human
+beings the institution of monogamy, which is
+universally accepted as a higher form of human
+relation than polygamy, involves in the dual
+partnership a certain sharing of the actual physical
+difficulties of parenthood by the father which
+is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous
+establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy
+strictly maintained, does really affect the physical
+aspects of expectant fatherhood <em>more</em> than it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>The modern pair, being intensely and deeply
+united, the effects of the experiences and physical
+states of one have actual reverberations and
+physical effects on the other. In this respect the
+change in the girl’s attitude of mind towards the
+man, which is sometimes a result of the physical
+effect of motherhood (see Chapter <a href="#Page_18">III</a>), may have
+a very far reaching influence upon the man’s
+health and happiness if he does not comprehend
+the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension,
+know how to endure or overcome
+it. Undoubtedly a home which is disturbed
+by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed
+irritations has a physical effect on the general
+mental balance, and consequently on the whole
+health of the pair involved.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which these difficulties can be
+overcome is by a mutual comprehension, so
+far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and
+sometimes perhaps by the attitude of “bowing
+before the storm” until it has passed, recognizing
+that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate
+reverberations from his wife’s state.
+The actual physical fact has to be faced by the
+father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on
+the period when all his natural desires for a
+completed sex union with his wife were met<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+and consummated by equal desires in her, there
+comes a time when such impulses on his part
+are not only not responded to by his wife, but
+are perhaps antagonized and may be entirely
+thwarted by either her mental or her physical
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>In Chapter <a href="#Page_99">XII</a>, I will show how, to some
+extent, and at probably rather long intervals,
+his impulses may be not only satisfied but may
+be harmoniously responded to and may be
+profoundly valuable. Nevertheless, in almost
+every period of coming fatherhood, there will
+be at least some months when bodily union is
+actively repugnant and consequently actively
+harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive
+feeling of the mother against any act
+should be sufficient to bar it, because, even if
+the act itself should not be harmful, to force
+her will at such a time or to lure her into coercing
+herself against her own will is in itself harmful.
+A young husband, therefore, will be faced by
+periods in which it will be impossible for him
+to have any of the unions to which he may
+have become accustomed and which his natural
+virility may at first continue to demand.</p>
+
+<p>This difficulty is of very varying intensity
+for different types of men. Some feel it so
+acutely that, although they may do so with
+deep shame, they yield to the impulses and are
+unfaithful to their wives in a bodily sense just at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+the time when of all others they may be mentally
+and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such
+shameful conflict of will with deed must have
+blackened many a father’s memory, and, with
+due understanding of all the circumstances, it
+should be eliminated from our race: it should
+not take place. Nature has created a way out
+for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic
+rapport with his wife. While the wife
+on whom he centres all his desires and love
+is in a bodily condition which deprives her
+from such an experience as a complete union
+with him, this fact has a mental and consequently
+a physical reaction on the better type of man,
+and he finds, sometimes even to his surprise,
+that the instinctive impulses to which he has
+been accustomed die down. At first perhaps
+becoming only sufficiently dormant to be conquered
+by a deliberate exertion of the will,
+but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from
+his wife increases, its reaction stills his desire
+also, and his need for unions may temporarily
+cease.</p>
+
+<p>This is partly to be explained as a nervous
+reaction due to his anxiety and his concentration
+of nervous force on his wife, which tend to
+inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which
+would otherwise demand an outlet.</p>
+
+<p>The vitality, the physical state, the needs,
+however, of different men vary very greatly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+and there are those who really do require some
+physical assistance in addition to will power
+and even a religious determination to help them
+through this time of difficulty. For such I
+recommend daily thorough washing in cold
+water of the organs of generation, and when
+an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking
+of the whole body in as hot a full length bath
+as can be borne.</p>
+
+<p>It may perhaps sound fantastic because one
+has not yet scientific proof (neither had Leonardo
+da Vinci when he casually made the first announcement
+that our earth is a planet of the Sun),
+but I think, in addition to the physical presence
+of the secretions potentially demanding exit,
+that a very important factor in the desire for
+sex union is an electrical accumulation within
+the system, and undoubtedly the soaking in
+hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to
+allay the urgency for a desire for a sex union.</p>
+
+<p>These two simple physical assistances, combined
+with a definite will to maintain himself
+purely for his wife, and the definite concentration
+of his nervous energy to her support with
+the desire to contribute everything possible,
+mental and bodily, to the well-being of his
+child, should suffice to keep the body of a normal
+man in that condition which his best instincts
+will approve. Others more acutely handicapped
+by incorrigible physical requirements, may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+have a hard time; if it is insupportable, the
+explanation of that may be the existence of
+some slight physical abnormality for which
+they should and can get medical treatment.</p>
+
+<p>After the restraint of the time of betrothal,
+followed by the usage of the honeymoon, the
+strain of almost total deprivation again, due to
+the wife’s pregnancy, is greater on the husband
+than it need be; and this is another argument
+in favour of deferring conception for at least
+some months or a year after the wedding. (<i>Cf.</i>
+<cite>Married Love</cite>, Chapter IX).</p>
+
+<p>Even when, as is indicated later, there may
+come times when the impulse of the potential
+family is to unite, the physical condition of the
+mother may offer a hindrance to the customary
+form of union, but this with tact and intelligence
+may be surmounted.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br />
+
+The Union of Three</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the early days of our modern civilization,
+that is to say within the last couple of
+hundred years, the treatment of women
+in Western Europe sank to a terribly low ebb.
+Although the last few years have done much
+to restore woman to some of her ancient rights
+and privileges, there are still among us a distressing
+proportion of ignorant, coarse and consequently
+ruthless men who are not debarred
+from becoming husbands. Such men have been
+in the past in the habit of “using their wives”
+regardless of the desires or even the actual
+health requirements of the unfortunate women
+who are tied to them, and such men have made
+a practice of continuing to indulge in sex union
+even through the later stages of pregnancy. I
+have heard from midwives, to my amazed horror,
+that some such depraved men (not bestial, for
+no beast behaves in such a way) have even used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+their wives while they are still in bed after child
+birth. With such I have in this volume no
+concern beyond the mention that they are
+loathsome.</p>
+
+<p>Their existence, however, has had an effect
+on a better type and has given rise to reaction
+on the part of men infinitely their superiors.
+Women who have seen their sister women thus
+outraged have had the support of men of sensitive
+conscience and consideration when they
+have claimed that the mother who is carrying
+and nursing her child is sacred, and must not
+be approached by her husband at all during the
+whole of the child’s coming and nursing period.
+It has, therefore, come about that a large number
+of our best and most high-minded women
+(supported by correspondingly high-minded men,
+anxious to do the best that is within their power
+for their wives and children) hold the view that
+no sex union after the third month, or perhaps
+that no sex union at all is allowable during
+pregnancy.</p>
+
+<p>Now this is one more matter which has not
+begun to receive the consideration which it
+deserves. When I wrote <cite>Married Love</cite> I felt
+that I was not entitled to decide on this subject,
+and I tried to hold the balance between the
+various opinions, and drew attention to the
+fact that the prospective mother of the lower
+creatures is always set apart. This was appar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>ently
+misinterpreted by some of my readers as
+being a personal expression of opinion, and
+women wrote or spoke to me about the subject
+saying they were sure I was right <em>because their
+husbands held the same opinion as I did, <strong>BUT</strong>
+the women themselves were ashamed, almost humiliated,
+to confess that during the carrying of their
+child they most ardently desired unions</em>.</p>
+
+<p>To these, as individuals, I pointed out that
+I was very far from expressing a definite opinion
+in my book on this point, and that my actual
+opinion indeed inclined towards thinking that
+restricted unions should be advantageous. In
+a later edition (the 7th) of my book, I enlarged
+on what I had to say on this subject, concluding:
+“There is little doubt that in this particular,
+even more than in so many others, the health,
+needs, and mental condition of women who are
+bearing children vary profoundly.”</p>
+
+<p>Through evidences from very various types of
+women in the last year or two, I have now
+accumulated facts in sufficient numbers to begin
+to see something approaching a possible generalization
+on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking things I noticed
+concerning the evidences I received was that
+the women who confessed to a desire for sex
+union while they were carrying a child were,
+almost without exception, the <em>best</em> type. A
+hasty generalization would have predicted that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+those very women with their pure attitude,
+their high degree of culture, their intellectual
+attainments, and their gracious self-restraint in
+outer life were just exactly those women who
+would maintain a fierce chastity during the nine
+months. These quite remarkable corresponding
+experiences of similarly superior women forced
+the matter vividly upon my attention, and I
+am now prepared to make a tentative generalization,
+coupled with the generalization to be found
+in Chapter <a href="#Page_146">XV</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The attitude of one of the women who confessed
+her intimate feelings to me is typical of
+those of this type, and is illuminating. She is
+a woman of unusually gifted brain, well endowed
+physically and a normally healthy mother in
+every respect; she is noted for a peculiar beauty
+and sweetness of disposition, and an unusually
+high degree of sensitive appreciation of beauty
+and goodness. In conversation she said to
+me: “You know I feel so ashamed and degraded
+by myself, but just at the time when I felt I
+ought to be sacred from these things, I more
+ardently desired my husband than I had done
+throughout all my married life of fifteen years.”
+She then told me that her husband who had
+been truly devoted to her all his life was particularly
+considerate and thoughtful for her
+during her time of expectant motherhood, and
+that when she tentatively hinted at her wish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+for union with him he refused tenderly on the
+grounds that the higher standard for men was
+to share, however difficult it was, in the nine
+months of complete abstinence. He said that,
+for the sake of the child and herself, he must
+refuse. Her desire, however, again recurred,
+much to her own shame and mortification,
+because she felt that what her husband said
+really represented the highest accepted standard
+of pre-natal conduct. Quite a number of rather
+similar and also exceptionally endowed women
+have confessed to me in almost the same terms
+the same feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Before I indicate my conclusions, let us
+briefly consider some of the surrounding circumstances
+of this problem. As I said in the
+opening paragraphs of this chapter, the nobler
+and better men have been carried away by a
+certain type of woman into thinking that it is
+man’s share of the difficulties and self-sacrifice
+of parenthood that he should entirely sacrifice
+what is spoken of as “his desires.” In my
+opinion, this attitude involves two profound
+fallacies. The first fallacy is that the act of
+sex union is to meet only “his desires”; it
+is not. Completed union is something infinitely
+greater: it is a consummation jointly achieved
+by both the man and his wife. This attitude
+I make clear in my book, <cite>Married Love</cite> and in
+my new <cite>Gospel</cite> addressed to the Bishops at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+Lambeth. And I must postulate in this, my
+present book, the far reaching effects on the
+bodily, spiritual and mental health of a man and
+woman concerned in this complex sex union.
+The truth is that the husband who mutually and
+considerately unites with his wife when she can
+accept him is not merely gratifying his own
+desire, he is enriching her whole system as well
+as his own through this mutual alchemy.</p>
+
+<p>Before following up the logic of this paragraph,
+let us turn to the woman and her needs.
+The drain on her system of providing for another
+life out of her own tissues, and the substances
+which pass through her own body, must be
+very severe unless she is amply provided with
+all the subtle chemical compounds which are
+demanded of her. Now there is much evidence
+that in unmarried women, and in young wives
+who are debarred from sex union altogether,
+something approaching a subtle form of starvation
+occurs; conversely that women absorb from
+the seminal fluid of the man some substance,
+“hormone,” “vitamine” or stimulant which
+affects their internal economy in such a way
+as to benefit and nourish their whole systems.
+That semen is a stimulant to a woman was long
+ago recognized as probable, and is now the
+opinion of several leading doctors. Reference
+to this will be found in Havelock Ellis, vol. 5,
+1912. See also the paper by Toff in the <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Centralblatt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+Gynakologie</cite>, April, 1903. Incidentally
+the converse is true, and the man who conducts
+himself properly during the sex union, and
+remains for long in contact with his wife after the
+ejaculation is completed, also benefits through
+actual absorption from his wife. For this I
+have the testimony of a number of men.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, the woman who is becoming a
+mother, and who is supporting a second life,
+feels the need of union with her husband it
+is, I maintain, an indication that her nature
+is calling out for something not only legitimate
+but positively beneficial and required, and that
+it should be not only a man’s privilege, but his
+delight, to unite with his wife at such a time
+and under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The maintenance of the right balance of the
+internal secretions of the various glands which
+re-act on sex activity is important to women
+at all times, and particularly during the time
+when a woman is becoming a mother. One
+of the results of the growth of the child is the
+increased activity of the thyroid gland in the
+neck, which considerably increases in size.</p>
+
+<p>A general account of the relation of such
+glands to a woman’s mental and physical balance
+is found in Blair Bell’s book (<cite>The Sex Complex</cite>,
+1916), but he does not deal with the special
+aspect of a woman’s requirements which forms
+the subject of this chapter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is, even with the type of woman who
+does feel the need of, and ardently desires some
+sex unions with her husband during the long
+months, almost always a space of time, perhaps
+as much as two or three months consecutively,
+when she will have no such desires at all and
+there are also times of special liability to lose
+the child through premature birth, when unions
+should be avoided. Unexpected abortions most
+usually take place at the dates around the time
+which would have been a monthly period.</p>
+
+<p>When I consider the evidence which I have
+before me, which is almost exclusively from
+the very best type of women, and when I observe
+that the most generally perfected, and finest
+women of my acquaintance, and they in particular,
+desire occasional moderate intercourse
+during pregnancy, I feel that one has a guide
+to what is best for the race. In these women
+and the conduct which their needs inspire, we
+have an indication of the truest and highest
+standard of all. The deviations of conduct may
+at last return from both the grossness of
+abuse and the reaction from it, and settle in the
+right and middle path. After the excessively
+virtuous, and perhaps undersexed type of woman,
+in contrast to the totally base attitude of the
+earlier and coarser type of man, has made the
+thoughtful speed from baseness to an ascetic
+absence of unions, we should be led back by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+these well developed and well balanced and
+noble minded women to the right and middle
+way. In this the spontaneous impulse of the
+responsible mother will be the guide for her
+husband and will benefit all three concerned.</p>
+
+<p>For, let us realize what a profound mystical
+symbol is enacted when the union is not that
+of a single man and woman, but of that holy
+trinity the father, the mother and the unborn
+child. <em>Only</em> during these brief sacred months
+can the three be united in such exquisite intimacy,
+and during all these months when the child is
+forming, it is only in the few infrequent embraces
+of subdued passion that the husband and father-to-be
+can come truly close to his child, that
+he can, through additions to her system from
+his own, assist the mother in her otherwise
+solitary task of endowing it with everything its
+growth demands.</p>
+
+<p>Every woman who is bearing a child by a
+man whom she loves deeply, longs intensely
+that its father should influence it as much as
+it is possible for him to do: in this way <em>and
+in this way alone</em> can he give it of the actual
+substance of his body.</p>
+
+<p>This view of mine, in the present crude state
+of scientific knowledge must, of course, be
+stated as an hypothesis, but it will be proved
+later on when science is sufficiently subtle to
+detect the actual microscopic exchange of par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>ticles
+which takes place during proper and prolonged
+physical contact in the sex union.</p>
+
+<p>Light on my thesis is also shown by the converse:
+For instance, an interesting suggestion
+was made by a distinguished medical specialist
+as a result of his observation of two or three of
+his own patients, where the prospective mother
+had desired unions and the husband had denied
+them thinking it in her interest: the doctor
+observed that the children seemed to grow up
+restless and uncontrollable, with a marked tendency
+to self-abuse. To these two or three
+instances I have added some which have come
+under my own observation and, although as yet
+the evidence is insufficient to support a dogmatic
+attitude, I incline to think that not only the
+deprivation of the mother of proper union during
+pregnancy, but also the after effects of some
+years of the use of <i>coitus interruptus</i> tends to
+have a similar effect upon later children. That
+is to say that mothers whose natural desire for
+union has been denied, and mothers who are
+congenitally frigid rather tend to produce
+children with unbalanced sex-feeling liable to
+yield to self-abuse. Immoderate and excessive
+desire for sex union during pregnancy so far
+as I am aware is rare, and where it occurs it
+should of course be treated as an abnormality.</p>
+
+<p>The mother of the higher type, such as I
+have indicated in the paragraphs above who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+does desire unions, will probably only require
+them infrequently during these months.</p>
+
+<p>It should be obvious, but as the general public
+often lacks a visualizing imagination, I ought to
+add, that for the proper consummation of the act
+of union, particularly during the later months
+of coming parenthood, the ordinary position
+with the man above the woman is not suitable
+and may be harmful. The pair should either
+lie side by side, or should lie so that they are
+almost at right angles to each other, so that
+there is no pressure upon the woman. Or the
+man should lie on his side behind the woman,
+which makes penetration easy and safe and free
+from pressure. I might point out here a fact
+which is of general importance in all true consummations
+of the sex union, and that is that
+all the preliminaries and even the final act of
+ejaculation itself do not constitute the whole of
+the truest union. A truth on which I lay great
+stress, although I have not yet dealt with it
+fully in any publications, is the fact that an
+<em>extremely</em> important phase of each union is the
+close and prolonged contact after the culmination
+takes place. The benefit to both of the pair
+of remaining in the closest possible physical
+contact for as long a time as is possible after
+the crisis is almost incalculable.</p>
+
+<p>A whole chapter could be written upon this
+theme, and indeed it should be written. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+the union during pregnancy, a woman is by
+nature debarred from the complete and intense
+muscular orgasm and for her, indeed, the union
+must essentially consist almost solely of the
+close contact of skin with skin and of the absorption
+of molecular particles as well as the
+resolution of nervous tension as the result of
+so close and prolonged a contact.</p>
+
+<p>Among the children known to me personally,
+several of the most beautiful were the children
+of mothers and fathers who had unions during
+the months of their development. The following
+quotation from a young husband may be of
+interest in this <span class="lock">connection:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile
+walk over country ground, and I slept with my wife the
+very night before he was born.... We had unions, but
+not in the ordinary position; she would be on her side with
+her back to me, and after union would quietly go off to sleep
+in my arms, and in the morning would wake with a joyful
+and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the finest of
+babies from all points of view.</p></div>
+
+<p>As I have seen photographs of the child,
+I can endorse the parent’s opinions.</p>
+
+<p>Tolstoy’s condemnation of any sex contact
+while the wife was pregnant or nursing may
+have influenced some serious men, but, as in
+many other respects, Tolstoy’s teaching is
+so widely contradictory, and depends so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+upon his own age and state at the time, one
+cannot but regret the unbalanced influence his
+literary power has given him.</p>
+
+<p>While this chapter may be taken as an indication
+that sex union is, in my opinion, not only
+allowable but advisable for certain types during
+the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless
+I do not wish it to be misinterpreted in such
+a way that a single act of union which is repugnant
+to the prospective mother should be urged
+upon her “for her good.”</p>
+
+<p>There is undoubtedly a large body of most
+excellent women who are as individuals distinctly
+rather undersexed, but who are on the whole
+good mothers, profoundly well meaning and
+right minded and virtuous women to whom
+the time of prospective motherhood is an intensely
+individual period, during which they
+feel an active repugnance to any sex union.</p>
+
+<p>Women of this type are not able to give the
+<em>completest</em> dower to their children, but are immensely
+superior to the average and baser type
+which forms the majority. If such women do
+not spontaneously desire unions they should
+be left unharried by any suggestion that they
+would benefit by them, and the husbands of
+such women should, in their own interests,
+curb any natural impulses which may conflict
+with the intense feeling of the wife. Husbands,
+however, should also be aware that such women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+generally feel as they do because they have
+never been <em>wooed</em> with sufficient grace and
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>To sum up, I am convinced that unless there
+is any indication of a disease or abnormal appetite
+in any respect, that the natural wishes and
+desires of the mother-to-be who is bearing a
+child should be the absolute law to herself
+and her husband, for during these months
+she is on a different plane of existence from the
+usual one. She is swayed by impulses which
+science is as yet incapable of analysing or comprehending,
+and experience has again and again
+proved that she is wise to satisfy any reasonable
+desire, whether for the spiritual, bodily or mental
+contributions to her growing child’s requirements
+or those which would strengthen her own power
+of supporting that child.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunate indeed is the husband of the best,
+well-balanced and developed mother-to-be, who
+with intense emotion shares with him in the
+closest and most exquisite intimacy, the creating
+of a life which has every prospect of adding
+beauty and strength to the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br />
+
+The Procession of the Months</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“The mother is the child’s supreme parent.”</p>
+
+<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Havelock Ellis.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>At first invisible, with no outer changes to
+indicate the vital internal processes, from
+the moment of conception an intense
+activity has begun within the mother. Sometimes
+women are aware of the actual moment
+of conception, and faintly perceive for the first
+two or three days sensations too delicate to be
+called pain and yet intense and penetrating as
+though of the lightest touch upon the inward
+and most sensitive consciousness. I have read
+reports of women, and know one personally,
+who felt the process of conception, although
+this will probably be generally received with
+incredulity. The majority of people are less
+completely cognisant of the voices of their own
+organism, and perhaps for two or three months
+are almost unaware that anything different from
+the usual course of their life is taking place.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If, as seems to me unquestionably the best
+and happiest relation, the man and woman who
+are creating a child are doing so deliberately,
+consciously and with acute interest, a mutual
+knowledge of the principal stages through which
+their child passes should add greatly to their
+interest and the intensity of their feeling.</p>
+
+<p>From the first moment of its conception,
+indeed often for months before this has been
+possible, their child is to the loving pair a living
+entity of whom they may speak.</p>
+
+<p>The active egg cell, which is ready for fertilization,
+is produced in one or other of the two
+ovaries, which lie internally and cannot be
+touched or reached in any way without operating
+upon the mother; they have no direct contact
+with the outer world. These two ovaries each
+communicate with the central chamber, which
+is called the womb or uterus and this is a strong
+muscular organ, into the walls of which the
+attachment of the minute embryo fastens, and
+within this chamber the growing embryo
+gradually fills the space reserved for it. The
+womb or uterus has a connection with the outer
+world through the lower mouth called the os,
+which opens into the vaginal channel. This os
+or mouth with its rounded lip can just be felt
+at the end of the vaginal channel.</p>
+
+<p>Fertilization consists in the actual penetration
+of the egg cell by the male sperm, the nuclei<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+of which unite. As I have elsewhere described
+(<cite>Married Love</cite>, Chap. V) the numbers of male
+sperm provided in any act of union outnumber
+by millions those actually required, because for
+each single fertilization one egg cell combines
+with one sperm cell. The egg cell or ovum
+is very large in comparison with a single sperm;
+nevertheless it is itself a minute, almost invisible
+protoplasmic speck, measuring rather
+less than 1/120th of an inch in diameter, and
+roughly spherical in its shape&mdash;a minute pellet
+of jelly-like protoplasm with a concentrated
+centre or nucleus. The single sperm which
+unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is
+little more than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm
+round it, and a long cilium or hair-like
+continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus
+propels itself or swims towards the egg cell.
+Judging by analogy, it leaves this tail outside
+the egg cell on the mutual fusion. The nucleus
+of the sperm and of the egg unite in a very
+complex and precise manner. In other organisms,
+and probably also in human beings, the
+entry of a single sperm to the egg cell shuts
+out the possibility of other sperms fusing with
+them, because directly it has been fertilized,
+the egg cell exudes a film of substance which
+antagonizes the other sperms, and which ultimately
+forms a filmy skin around itself.</p>
+
+<p>From the moment of the fusion of the nuclei<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+of the male and female cells, active changes
+and nuclear divisions are in progress. The
+egg cell, which is free, travels slowly to the
+allotted place in the womb or uterus of the
+mother, and there it settles down in the tissue
+of the wall and attaches itself. Until it has
+attached itself firmly to the wall of the uterus,
+conception proper has not finally taken place,
+and a fertilized egg cell may be lost through
+want of a capacity to attach itself to the womb,
+or through some nervous or other disturbance
+of the walls of the womb, which throw it off
+after it has been attached. The distinction
+between the actual moment of fertilization (or
+union of the male and female nuclei) and of the
+final attachment which secures true conception
+is an important one, though frequently overlooked.
+Sometimes the failure to conceive a
+child may not at all be due to lack of fertility
+and readiness to unite on the part of the egg
+cell and sperm cell, but may be due to some
+nervous or other influence on the wall of the
+uterus, which consequently throws off the ovum
+before it has firmly settled into its place
+there.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after conception, and when the
+ovum has attached itself to the proper place, a
+definite zone of tissue begins to form which,
+growing and altering with the growth of the
+tiny developing child (which is now called the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+embryo), forms a medium of transmission between
+it and the mother through which pass the substances
+used and excreted by the embryo in its
+growth.</p>
+
+<p>After fertilization, intense and rapid activity
+takes place in the nuclei of the cells, first in the
+united nucleus of egg and sperm cell, and later
+in the nuclei of all the resulting division cells.
+The nucleus of the sperm cell is supposed to
+contain twelve chromosomes which go through a
+formal rearrangement and mingling with the
+corresponding chromosomes in the egg cell.
+As a result of the complete fusion and intermingling
+of the male and the female factors
+on fertilization, all the resulting divisions of
+cells which follow derive their nuclei partly
+from the male and partly from the female nucleus
+of the parents. Thus, if it were possible to
+trace the history of every tissue cell in the body
+of your child, we should see that each nucleus
+of all the myriads that compose its structure
+would ancestrally consist of part of the many
+sub-divisions of the nuclei of both father and
+mother. Thus to speak of one side of the
+body as being male in its inheritance and the
+other female, is the most unmitigated nonsense,
+though this idea formed the basis of a recent
+book.</p>
+
+<p>The rapidity with which the first cells grow
+to form tissues, once they have been stimulated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+by union is very great, and from the ovum,
+which on the day of fertilization is only 1/120th
+of an inch in size, the growth is so rapid that
+it is ten times as big at the end of fourteen days.
+By that time the length is one-twelfth of an
+inch, and it weighs one grain. By the thirtieth
+day the tiny embryo is already one-third of an inch
+big, and were it practicable, which, of course,
+it is not, to remove it living from its bed of
+tissue in the mother’s womb and examine it,
+even with the naked eye, and still more with
+a magnifying glass, it would be possible to see
+the rudiments of the legs, head and arms which
+are to be.</p>
+
+<p>By the fortieth day the embryo is about one
+inch in length, and the shape of the child, which
+it is to be, is quite clearly visible. Dark points
+are to be seen where later it will have eyes,
+nose and mouth, and there is already a hint of
+its backbone.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, as may be realized, although to
+have grown in forty days to the size of an inch
+from a minute speck 1/120th part of an inch
+is a great and rapid achievement, nevertheless
+the existence of a thing one inch big within her
+makes little outer difference to the mother,
+and all the earlier weeks and months of the
+growth of this tiny organism do not yet take
+more visible effect on the mother’s body than
+to enhance its contour. After the first child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+this effect is less noticeable, and a woman may
+be unaware that she is about to become a mother.
+The first sign in a really healthy woman generally
+is in the form of her breasts, which sometimes
+begin to enlarge by the second or third week.
+It is said that the more healthy and perfectly
+fitted for motherhood a woman is, the sooner
+her breasts show signs of the effect of the
+developing embryo but, particularly with a
+woman who has already borne a child, there
+may be no external sign until at least three
+months have passed.</p>
+
+<p>By the sixth week, the limbs and most essential
+parts of the child are apparent, and there are
+the minute indications of the beginning of its
+future sex organs. It is evident, therefore,
+that if there is any desire to control the sex of
+the coming child, it is already too late by the
+sixth week to do anything, were it ever possible
+reliably to control sex at any time. It is, therefore,
+apparent that any passionate desire for a
+child of one or the other sex which the mother
+may indulge in when she knows she is about
+to be a mother, say by the third or fourth month,
+is futile. It may also be injurious (see Chapter
+<a href="#Page_130">XIV</a>).</p>
+
+<p>By the second month, nearly all the parts
+are fully apparent, even the eyelids are visible
+in the embryo and a tiny nose begins to project;
+fingers and toes can be seen, and some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+centres of bone begin to harden, as for instance,
+in the ribs.</p>
+
+<p>By the third month the embryo reaches an
+average length of three or more inches, and
+weighs on an average about 2&frac12; ounces. In
+this month the sex organs of the future baby
+are rapidly developing, and indeed are rather
+unduly prominent in proportion to the other
+parts which enlarge relatively later.</p>
+
+<p>Between the third and the fourth month,
+or often not till a little after the fourth month, the
+active muscular movements of the embryo’s limbs
+can be felt by the mother. The experience of
+this, like the consciousness of the moment of
+conception, depends very much upon the sensitiveness
+and delicate balance of the mother’s
+conscious control of herself.</p>
+
+<p>Some are insensitively, though perhaps comfortably,
+unaware of what is going on in their
+systems; others are conscious, not of what is
+properly going on, but of what is going wrong
+in their systems owing to disease or maladjustment;
+but there are others who, in perfect health,
+are yet so acutely sensitive and conscious that
+they can at will detect, as it were, the condition
+of their whole organs. Such women as these
+will sooner feel the active movements of the
+embryo than those who are less perceptive.
+As a rule, medical practitioners estimate that
+about half-way between the date of conception<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+and the date of birth, which should be a full
+nine calendar months, that is to say about 4&frac12;
+months from the date of conception, muscular
+movements of the child are detectable and
+distinct.</p>
+
+<p>In the third month, however, some women
+are conscious of the most delicate fluttering
+sensation.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the third month, a definite
+enlargement of the mother’s body becomes
+visible, because not only the actual child within
+her has to be accounted for in the space among
+her organs, but all the accessory growth of the
+chamber which accommodates the child in the
+womb has to find its place, the womb growing
+rapidly and containing not only the child, but
+the large amount of fluid by which the child
+is surrounded, and in which it partly floats.
+The visible changes in the mother to some
+extent depend on the proportion of this fluid
+which develops, some having much more than
+others, and it is to this rather than to the actual
+size of the child for the first four or five months
+that any outward change is due.</p>
+
+<p>About the end of the third month the soft
+and cartilaginous beginnings of the vertebral
+column begin to harden in various centres, and
+afterwards the hardening of the bones (or ossification)
+slowly spreads throughout the whole skeletal
+system. For some other bones in the body,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+however, the hardening is not fully completed
+by the time of birth.</p>
+
+<p>By the fifth month, the child weighs six to
+eight ounces, and is from seven to nine inches
+long. By this time its movements are very
+active and almost continuous except when it
+sleeps. It should be trained to sleep at the
+same time as its mother, and thus give her rest.
+My phrase “it should be trained to sleep”
+may arouse incredulous smiles from medical
+men, even from mothers who have borne children,
+but it is not impossible to train a child even
+so young as an unborn embryo, strange as it
+may sound. From about this month (the fifth)
+to the time of birth, the child appears to have
+a strong and definite personality, and sometimes,
+in some strange and subtle way, it seems
+possible to communicate with it. If there is
+that sweet and intense intimacy between mother
+and father which there should be if the full
+beauty of parenthood is to be realized, the
+child is apparently to some extent conscious
+of the nearness of its father, and I know at
+least of one or two couples who spoke to their
+coming child as though it were present, and who,
+by a touch of the hand could to some extent
+control and soothe it so that it would sleep
+during the night when the mother desired to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>About the fifth month the actual nails begin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+to grow, although the local preparations for
+their growth took place much earlier.</p>
+
+<p>After the fifth month, the child grows rapidly
+in weight, in the sixth month weighing nearly
+two pounds and during the seventh nearly three.</p>
+
+<p>If it is placed in the best possible position,
+its head would be directed downwards, and it
+should be lying so that its arms and legs are
+tucked in much as a kitten curls up when it is
+asleep. It will move, however, sometimes completely
+round, entirely altering its position.</p>
+
+<p>By the eighth month it weighs about four
+pounds and averages perhaps sixteen inches or
+so long. It should by this time be very active,
+so that its movements are not only strongly
+felt by the mother, but are externally quite
+perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>By the ninth month, at birth, the child weighs
+between six and eight or more pounds. It is
+better for the mother that it should not be too
+heavy, as, unless she is a large and strongly
+built woman, the actual weight of the child
+becomes a great strain upon her, however strong
+she may be.</p>
+
+<p>A child may be born during the seventh month,
+and children born during the seventh month
+live and have sometimes even grown up learned
+and important men. Sir Isaac Newton is an
+illustration of a premature child. Usually,
+however, a seventh month infant is terribly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+handicapped; its skin is not yet fully developed,
+and in many respects it is quite unfitted to face
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Many claims are made that a child is seven
+months at birth which are based on the mis-counting
+of the date of conception or a desire
+to conceal a pre-marital conception. When one
+is shown, as one sometimes is, a bouncing,
+healthy, ordinary baby, and told that it was
+“a very forward seven months child,” those
+who know can only smile or sigh, according to
+the circumstances, for an ordinary, healthy,
+bouncing baby with nails and well formed skin
+has never yet been generated in seven months.</p>
+
+<p>The seventh month is the time of greatest
+danger for a late miscarriage, and many have
+been the disappointments of parents who ardently
+desired a child, but who lost it through premature
+birth at the seventh month. I have often
+wished to know why this should be so, and have
+found no satisfactory answer or indication of
+any scientific reason for this, but when revolving
+all the possibilities of ancestral reminiscence, it
+occurred to me that possibly our earlier ancestors,
+ancestors in fact so early as to be scarcely
+human, were born at the seventh month. I
+was, therefore, interested to find that for some
+of the monkeys seven months is the date
+of normal birth. Possibly some such ancestral
+characteristic may make the seventh month a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+critical time in the development of the human
+embryo, a time when it inherits the reminiscence
+of the possibility of separating itself from its
+mother and coming into the outer world.</p>
+
+<p>The times, moreover, when birth is most
+liable are those few days in each month which
+correspond to the regular menstrual flow in
+the woman, the periods which would have
+taken place at each twenty-eight days had not
+the child been developing. It is, therefore,
+often desirable, particularly for the later months,
+for the woman to take one or two days of complete
+rest, or even to remain in bed during that
+dangerous day or two, so as to minimize the
+possibility of a miscarriage.</p>
+
+<p>The same applies of course to some extent
+to the eighth month, but curiously enough,
+miscarriages in the eighth month appear to
+be less frequent. It is also popularly said that
+it is more difficult to rear a child born in the
+eighth month than one born in the seventh,
+though this does not appear to be true.</p>
+
+<p>The last week or two of the child’s antenatal
+existence are used by it in finishing itself off;
+growing its tiny shell-like nails, losing the
+downy hair which covered its body earlier in
+its existence, and in a sense preparing itself,
+and particularly its skin, for contact with the
+outer world which is to come. Its movements
+are very active, and if it is in the most perfect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+position, the head tends to sink deep down
+towards the canal approaching the circle of
+bone through which it will have to pass (see
+Chapter <a href="#Page_9">II</a>).</p>
+
+<p>The question is often asked as to which is
+the time when the embryo is most sensitive to
+outward impressions, but as yet there is no
+sufficient body of evidence to show that at any
+particular time more than another (unless it be
+on the actual day of conception, see Chapter <a href="#Page_9">II</a>)
+is the power of influence greater than any other.</p>
+
+<p>Is it possible to pre-arrange, to determine
+the sex of the child which is voluntarily conceived?
+Since earliest human experiences have
+been recorded, this has formed the theme of
+some writers and thinkers, and a variety of
+opinions have been expressed, theories propounded,
+and rules for the production of a girl
+or boy at will have been given. Each of the
+views, however, still remains far from being
+established, and damaging exceptions may be
+found to every theoretic rule. The impartial
+observer must feel that we are still unable to
+control the sex of the child.</p>
+
+<p>There are three main theories on this subject:
+(<i>a</i>) one is that the nature of the child which will
+be produced is already pre-determined in the
+ovum and sperm cell before they have united;
+(<i>b</i>) the second theory is that the critical moment
+which settles the sex of the future offspring is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+the moment of fertilization and the changes in
+the nucleus immediately resulting from it;
+(<i>c</i>) and the third theory is based on the view
+that the differentiation of the organs, which
+makes the difference in sex, take place at some
+stage in the embryo’s development after it is
+already a many-celled organism.</p>
+
+<p>The first named theory lies behind the advice
+which varies around the theme that according
+to whether the conception takes place from the
+egg cell grown in the right or the left ovary
+and testicle so will the child be a boy or a girl.
+Instances of the desired child proving to be of
+the sex “arranged for” by following out some
+such methods are of comparatively frequent
+occurrence, but to the scientist are completely
+counter-balanced by other and negative results.</p>
+
+<p>The second and third theories do not offer
+the same explicit application in practical advice.
+But all the practical advice, on whatever basis
+it is builded, appears to me to be laid on insecure
+foundations. In my opinion, the complexities
+of the factors which determine sex are such
+that it depends much less on the outward
+and visible nutrition of the mother, than on the
+inner and almost inscrutable quality of the
+nutrition of the ovum and spermatozoon before
+and immediately after fertilization has taken
+place.</p>
+
+<p>That sex, even in some vertebrate creatures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+is actually controllable through nutrition can be
+easily demonstrated with a batch of frogs’ eggs.
+These can be divided into two portions and by
+simple differences in the feeding of the young
+tadpoles male or female frogs can be obtained;
+the richly nourished ones produce the female
+frogs, those on sparser diet the male. The human
+embryo, however, developing in and through
+its mother, will depend to some extent on her
+diet, but in a much less direct way, for, as all
+know, the actual nutrition of the system does
+not depend merely on the quantity and valuable
+nature of the food taken into the mouth; it
+depends equally or even more on the digestive
+power, on the circulatory system, even on the
+mentality of the person who eats, and to add
+still further to the complexity, the tissues and
+organs of one part of the body may be receiving
+fully sufficient nutriment, while owing to some
+hindrance or difficulty some other tissues may
+be wasting and under-nourished. It is consequently
+necessary before we can theorize, to
+determine, even in the healthiest woman, whether
+or no a very rich and abundant nutriment is
+reaching the developing embryo in its earliest
+and most critical days, for, on the other hand,
+just in this critical time, a woman relatively
+ill-fed and in relatively poorer health may be
+digesting her simple diet well and may be so
+stimulated as to provide for the minute develop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>ing
+embryo a richer and more nutritious environment
+than her better fed sister. Consequently,
+even if, as I incline to believe, the pre-determination
+of sex depends on the nutriment procurable
+by the early dividing cells of the embryo, it is
+still almost beyond the realm of scientific investigation
+or of human control to determine
+whether or not the embryo is surrounded with
+such stimulating food as will produce a girl,
+or the rather sparser diet which will produce
+a boy.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br />
+
+Prenatal Influence</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“To leave in the world a creature better than its
+parent: this is the purpose of right motherhood.”</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Charlotte Gilman</span>: <cite>Women and Economics</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>On the power of the mother directly to
+influence her child while it is still unborn,
+diametrically opposite opinions
+have been expressed, and without exaggeration
+I think one may safely say that the tendency
+of biological science has been to scout the idea
+as “old wives’ tales” and incredible superstition.
+Fortunate indeed it is that though
+our immature and often blundering science has
+in many ways permeated and influenced our
+lives, yet this denial of profound truth by those
+incapable of handling it in the true terms of
+science, has not entirely barred this avenue of
+power to the mother. Fortunately there are
+innumerable children who owe their physical
+and spiritual well-being to the profound racial
+knowledge still dormant in the true woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+As I said when I touched upon this question
+in <cite>Married Love</cite>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Yet all the wisest mothers whom I know vary only in the
+degree of their belief in this power of the mother. All are
+agreed in believing that the spiritual and mental condition
+and environment of the mother does profoundly affect the
+character and spiritual powers of the child.</p></div>
+
+<p>Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist
+and co-discoverer with Darwin of the principle
+of Evolution, was in many respects a pioneer of
+unusual foresight and penetrating observation,
+who thought that the transmission of mental
+influence from the mother to the child was
+neither impossible nor even very improbable.
+In 1893 he published a long letter detailing
+cases, which he prefaced by <span class="lock">saying:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother
+affect the offspring physically, producing moles and other
+birth-marks, and even malformations of a more or less serious
+character, is said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy
+facts, and it is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical
+grounds. But I am not aware that the question of purely
+mental effects arising from prenatal mental influences on the
+mother has been separately studied. Our ignorance of the
+causes, or at least of the whole series of causes, that determine
+individual character is so great, that such transmission of mental
+influences will hardly be held to be impossible or even very
+improbable. It is one of those questions on which our minds
+should remain open, and on which we should be ready to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+receive and discuss whatever evidence is available; and should
+a <i>primâ facie</i> case be made out, seek for confirmation by some
+form of experiment or observation, which is perhaps less
+difficult than at first sight it may appear to be.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the works of George or Andrew Combe, I
+remember a reference to a case in which the character of a
+child appeared to have been modified by the prenatal reading
+of its mother, and the author, if I mistake not, accepted the
+result as probable, if not demonstrated. I think, therefore,
+that it will be advisable to make public some interesting cases
+of such modification of character which have been sent me
+by an Australian lady in consequence of reading my recent
+articles on the question whether acquired characters are inherited.
+The value of these cases depends on their differential
+character. Two mothers state that in each of their children
+(three in one case and four in the other) the character of the
+child very distinctly indicated the prenatal occupations and
+mental interests of the mother, though at the time they were
+manifested in the child they had ceased to occupy the parent,
+so that the result cannot be explained by imitation. The
+second mother referred to by my correspondent only gives
+cases observed in other families which do not go beyond ordinary
+heredity.</p>
+
+<p>... Changes in mode of life and in intellectual occupation
+are so frequent among all classes that materials must exist
+for determining whether such changes during the prenatal
+period have any influence on the character of the offspring.
+The present communication may perhaps induce ladies who
+have undergone such changes, and who have large families,
+to state whether they can trace any corresponding effect on
+the character of their children.&mdash;<cite>Nature</cite>, August 24 1893,
+pp. 389, 390.</p></div>
+
+<p>Yet this suggestive pronouncement of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+world-famous naturalist has never been seriously
+followed up by scientists.</p>
+
+<p>I think the time is now ripe for a definite
+statement that: <em>The view that the pregnant
+woman can and does influence the mental states of the
+future child is to-day a scientific hypothesis which
+may be shortly proved</em>. I make this definite statement,
+in conjunction with the cognate and
+illuminating facts from other fields of research,
+a few of which are discussed in the following
+pages.</p>
+
+<p>That our mental states can affect, not only
+our spirits and our points of view, but actually
+the physical structure of our bodies, is demonstrable
+in a hundred different ways, and appears
+either to be proved or merely suggested according
+to the bias and temperament of the one to
+whom the demonstration is made. But there
+is one at least of these physical correlations
+which can be demonstrated with scientific
+thoroughness, and which proves beyond doubt
+that the mental state of the mother <em>has</em> a reaction
+upon her infant even after it has severed
+its physical connection with her, and is a baby
+of a few months old. This fact is that a nursing
+mother who is subjected to a violent shock
+which results in a paroxysm of temper or of terror
+in her own mind, conveys the physical result
+of this to her infant when next she nurses it,
+so that the child has either an attack of indi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>gestion
+or a fit. The effect of the mother’s
+mental state is transmitted by the influence
+on the milk, the chemical composition of which
+is subtly altered by her nervous paroxysm,
+and which thus acts as a poison to the infant.</p>
+
+<p>A much more subtle and closer correlation
+must exist between the mother’s mental states
+and the child when it is still not yet free and
+independent in the outer environment of the
+world but while it finds in her body its entire
+environment, its protection and the resources
+out of which it is building its own structure,
+while the blood and the tissues of her body
+form its whole world, while through them and
+through them alone can it obtain all its nourishment.</p>
+
+<p>True, the result of the mental state of the
+mother which we can see is, apparently, merely
+the physical result on the child’s digestion of
+the milk which has become poisoned: but to
+stop at this point like a jibbing mule, and to
+refuse to take the further step in the argument
+because the child is yet too young for us to
+understand its resulting mental states, which
+reason indicates must be correlated with its
+poisoned digestive system, is to defraud the
+mind of the logical conclusion of a sequence
+of ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The argument is as <span class="lock">follows:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) The mother’s intense <em>mental</em> experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+and consequent nervous paroxysm has a physical
+result upon the composition of her milk
+(presumably, therefore, upon other portions
+of her body, though this is irrelevant for the
+moment);</p>
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) This physically altered milk has a physical
+effect upon the infant who shows other and
+more extreme forms of physical distress;</p>
+
+<p>(<i>c</i>) This physical distress must obviously to
+some greater or lesser degree, affect the child’s
+nervous system; and (which is the point where
+the old-fashioned will break off);</p>
+
+<p>(<i>d</i>) Consequently the child’s mental state will
+be affected&mdash;although it is too young to translate
+this into conscious forms.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Were I to make this the main thesis of my
+book, examples of the effect of mental states on
+bodily functions could be readily multiplied,
+and illustrations drawn from facts quoted in other
+connections could be found in a great number
+of medical works. I here bring together a few
+which when placed in juxtaposition offer if
+not proof, yet such strong support of my theme
+as to place it in the realm of the scientifically
+ascertainable. For instance, Blair Bell in <cite>The
+Sex Complex</cite>, 1916, <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Religious manias may lead to ideas which fill the patient
+with abhorrence of sexual intercourse, and in this way directly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+interfere with the genital functions. There is indeed no doubt
+whatsoever that the mind influences function just as function
+influences the mind; for example, it has been shown that
+fright leads to an immediate increase in the output of
+suprarenin, and we know well from constant clinical observations
+that hypothyroidism leads to mental depression (pp. 209
+and 210).</p></div>
+
+<p>and Havelock Ellis in <cite>The Psychology of Sex</cite>,
+vol. 5, 1912, <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>We can, again, as suggested by Féré, very well believe that
+the maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various
+kinds and degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the
+apparently active movements of the <i>fœtus</i> may be really consecutive
+on unconscious maternal excitations. We may also
+believe that, as suggested by John Thomson, there are slight
+incoördinations <i>in utero</i>, a kind of developmental neurosis,
+produced by some slight lack of harmony of whatever origin
+and leading to the production of malformations. We know,
+finally, that, as Féré and others have repeatedly demonstrated
+during recent years by experiments on chickens, etc., very
+subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly affect embryonic
+development and produce deformity. But how the mother’s
+psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect specifically
+the physical conformation or even the psychic disposition of
+the child within her womb must remain for the present an
+insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude that
+in some cases such action seems to be indicated.</p></div>
+
+<p>Direct evidence of the physical aspect of my
+thesis is found in the fact quoted by Marshall
+in <cite>The Physiology of Reproduction</cite>, 1910, p. <span class="lock">566:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>So also it has been found that immunity from disease may
+be acquired by young animals being suckled by a female which
+had previously become immune, the antibody to the disease
+being absorbed in the ingested milk.</p></div>
+
+<p>Further argument upon these lines might
+well be brought forward in favour of the view
+that the potential mother, during the months
+whilst she is acting as the child’s total environment
+in all physical ways, is also through her
+mental states and conditions affecting the child’s
+ultimate mentality and artistic and spiritual
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>This subtle control exerted over the formation
+of the child may be visualized as more
+like some effect parallel to the remote influences
+of the internal secretions in controlling the
+other organs of the body than the more mechanical
+picture of things visualized by the Mendelians
+and those who concentrate on the purely physical
+and material aspects of heredity as related to
+chromosome structure.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency in recent years in biological
+work has been far too much to lay stress upon
+the curiously mathematical laws Mendel discovered,
+and consequently to concentrate attention
+upon the physical chromosomes as containing
+the factors which carry hereditary
+qualities. Physiologists are now making an
+attempt to bring back into the treatment of life
+a more rational outlook, and nothing has con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>tributed
+more to the scientific basis of this than
+the recent following up of the suggestions made
+so long ago as 1869 by Brown-Séquard. Since
+Starling named the internal secretions Hormones
+(see the Croonian Lecture, 1905) they have been
+much discussed by physiologists and some
+medical men (see for instance the recent work of
+Blair Bell, <cite>The Sex Complex</cite>, 1916 already quoted).</p>
+
+<p>To form a rough mental picture of what
+is happening one must combine the physiological
+and the mechanical outlooks. One then
+obtains the idea that the mother is, through
+her mental states, affecting and to some extent
+controlling the production of the various
+internal secretions, and other more subtle
+and still undetected influences from various
+organs upon other organs, and that, in so doing
+she is making the environment for the various
+hereditary factors, in which their potentialities
+find it possible to develop or to be suppressed
+according to the circumstances which she thus
+creates. As is now beginning to be realized,
+we all have an immense number of latent potentialities,
+which may lie dormant and develop
+only under suitable circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in my view the mother may actually
+and in every sense fundamentally influence and
+control the character of her child, working
+through the remote effects of internal secretions
+which play on the complex material factors of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+hereditary qualities which form the material
+basis of the child’s potentialities.</p>
+
+<p>Thus both heredity and environment have a
+vital part to play in building character, <em>but
+greater than either is the subtler environment within
+the prospective mother created by her during the
+nine antenatal months</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes people who would otherwise like
+to believe that a mother has this power, are
+deterred by their own experience or that of others,
+who have, under conditions of distress and unfavourable
+circumstances, had children whose
+dispositions seem not to have suffered, but
+appear as sunny and happy as a child apparently
+conceived under more favourable circumstances.
+Here, however, one is immediately
+faced by the difficulties of accurate observation
+entailing a large number of data which tend
+to cancel out; for the mother who may personally
+have been below her usual standard of
+health and spirits while bearing the child may,
+nevertheless, actually be in such a good physical
+condition, or be a member of such a sound,
+healthy stock that the child’s heredity was better
+than that of the average human being, and
+consequently that the child itself was provided
+with a healthy well-run body.</p>
+
+<p>While to contrast with it and apparently to
+refute my thesis, there may be a mother full
+of the most ardent hopes and buoyant spirit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+looking forward with supreme joy to the advent
+of her baby, doing all she can to give it every
+beautiful mental impression and physical health,
+whose work may yet be undone by some cruel
+chance, such as venereal infection, or some local
+malformation which has resulted in weakness
+in, let us say, the child’s digestion. We all
+know how peevish mere indigestion will make
+anybody. Or she, the well-intentioned and outwardly
+well-circumstanced mother may, unknown
+to herself, have been battling against the cruel
+handicap in some racial, heritable defect in her
+husband; the child, therefore, may, with all
+her efforts, yet fail to be joyous owing to the
+too strong physical bias which chance or
+heritable disease has given it.</p>
+
+<p>The existence of such apparently conflicting
+and contradictory individual instances in no way
+refutes my main thesis, which is that granted
+equal conditions of clean and wholesome ancestry,
+granted equally favourable conditions of health
+and nutrition for the mother during her period
+of carrying the child, that that child benefits
+and is superior to the other who has had the
+advantage of a happy mother’s conscious effort
+to transmit to it a wide and generally intellectual
+and spiritual interest in the great and
+beautiful things of the world.</p>
+
+<p>This fact is often illustrated in the different
+children of the same parents. Of children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+born under as nearly identical circumstances
+as may be possible within a year or two of time,
+the one may have a totally different disposition
+with totally different qualities from the other.
+The chance of birth, the inheritance of the innumerable
+possible characteristics latent in both
+parents might be sufficient to account for this
+were chance alone at work, but very often information
+may be obtained from the observant
+mother which correlates her own state while
+carrying the child with the after condition of
+the child itself.</p>
+
+<p>One rather striking instance of such a correlation
+is by a curious chance known to me,
+and should be of general interest. Oscar Wilde,
+whose genius was sullied by terrible sex crimes,
+which he expiated in prison, is known to all
+the world as a type whose distressing perversion
+is a racial loss. His mother once confided to
+an old friend that all the time she was carrying
+her son Oscar, she was intensely and passionately
+desiring a daughter, visualizing a girl, and, so
+far as was possible, using all the intensity of
+purpose which she possessed to have a girl,
+and that she often in after years blamed herself
+bitterly, because she felt that possibly his perverted
+proclivities were due to some influence
+she might have had upon him while his tiny
+body was being moulded.</p>
+
+<p>Evidence upon this subject of the power or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+otherwise of the mother to influence her coming
+child is wanted, and it is very difficult to obtain,
+partly because of the reticence of those who
+have been through the dim and secret mysteries
+of motherhood, and partly because their accuracy
+cannot well be tested until after the child has
+reached maturity. In these after years the
+mother is likely to be swayed by the course the
+child’s life has taken, into unconsciously laying
+stress upon one or other point which may seem
+correlated with its after achievements.</p>
+
+<p>Evidence, however, in the form of notes
+kept during the time the mother is carrying
+the child which may be compared with the
+child’s life in later years are very valuable, and,
+if any readers have such with which they would
+entrust me, a sufficient body of such evidence
+might possibly be accumulated to assist materially
+in the formation of a strong spiritual asset in
+the creation of the best possible human
+beings.</p>
+
+<p>The father who desires to influence his child
+must do so through the mother: had clever
+men more generally realized this we should
+have heard less of the lament that clever men
+so often have stupid sons.</p>
+
+<p>Of the more physical aspects of the mother’s
+power to influence the form of the development
+of her growing child we have abundant evidence.
+If the mother is starved, and by starved I mean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+less the actual starvation from want of food
+than the subtler starvation of improper food or
+food lacking in the truly vital elements, then
+the child visibly suffers. For instance, rickets,
+a disease of grave racial significance to which
+reference has already been made (see Chapter
+<a href="#Page_9">II</a>), is due to the lack of certain necessary
+elements in the food.</p>
+
+<p>A simple diet, the simpler the better, is sufficient
+adequately to provide all the essentials of nourishment
+for the mother and her coming child,
+and much indeed may be done for the general
+health and beauty of the child by providing the
+mother with the best form of material from
+which the embryo may build itself. The use
+of foods containing large quantities of vitamine
+(real butter and oranges, for instance, are specially
+good) is very advisable. They are not only
+enriching in their action in assisting true assimilation
+of other foods, but they probably tend to
+make good the general drain on the mother’s
+vitality which would naturally take place were
+she not amply provided with these most subtle
+ingredients, which, though present in such
+minute quantities in fresh food, are yet of incalculable
+value. The effect of proper and
+specially adapted dieting, not only on the health
+of the mother, but also on the beauty and general
+vigour of the child, is a thing which is particularly
+expressed by various writers who have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+followed up the early experiments on diet made
+by Dr. Trall.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is also Dr. Alice Stockham’s book,
+<cite>Tokology</cite>, to which I have previously drawn
+attention. Although, as I then said, it contains
+errors of a comparatively trivial nature such as
+calling carbonaceous material “carbonates,”
+which may have been sufficient to prejudice the
+scientific mind against the rest of her work, it
+contains the profound and valuable message Mr.
+Rowbotham published in England in 1841,
+amplified, and to some extent enriched by this
+woman doctor’s experience.</p>
+
+<p>Those lovers who ardently desire their child
+and have a mental picture of it long before its
+birth may delight in speaking of it to each other
+as though it were, as indeed it is, alive. For
+this a name is required, but in order to avoid
+the danger suggested on page <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, it is wiser
+perhaps to choose the name of both a girl and
+a boy, the name which the child would be called
+by according to its sex after birth, and, while it
+is still unseen, to link the two together in
+speaking of the coming child.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes for private reasons a girl in par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>ticular
+or a boy in particular may be desired,
+but the well-balanced mind of a parent, particularly
+of the first child, should welcome either a
+son or a daughter, each of whom has its peculiar
+charms, and neither of whom can be described
+as more valuable than the other. Our false
+estimate of boys as superior is largely due to
+economic conditions and the custom of male
+entail. This should, and of course will, be
+altered. It is the first <em>child</em>, whether boy or
+girl is no matter, who is “the first-born” with
+all that that connotes in rapture and wonder to
+its parents.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the fact that more boys are born
+than girls, there is always the greater chance
+of the birth of a boy than a girl. From this
+point of view it would appear that girls are
+more precious, but boys are oftener ailing and
+feeble and difficult to rear, so that it is perhaps
+well that more of them should be born than
+of their stronger sisters.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout its coming, the little one should
+be thought of in such a way that it will be
+equally welcome whichever its sex, and thus be
+given the best chance of developing fully and
+naturally in its own way.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br />
+
+Evolving Types of Women</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the
+embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.</p>
+
+<p>Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine
+of various colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel
+to the brim.</p>
+
+<p>No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The
+delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination or
+joy, and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Tagore</span>: <cite>Gitanjali</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>One of the great sources of disharmony in
+our social life is the extent of the extraordinary
+ignorance about ourselves which
+still persists. From this spring our conflicting
+opinions and diametrically opposed views, and
+also the apparently self-contradictory evidence
+on almost any point of fundamental importance
+which is brought before the public.</p>
+
+<p>In no respect is there more conflict of opinion
+than concerning the age at which a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+should marry and become a mother. On the
+one hand, we have advocates of very early
+motherhood, and they point to the fact that a
+girl of seventeen is often already a woman and
+strongly sexed; they point to the hackneyed
+statement “that a girl matures sooner than a
+boy”; they point to the fine and healthy babies
+which very young mothers may bear and to the
+greater pliability and ease of birth, and these
+facts and their arguments may appear conclusive.
+On the other hand, the actual experience
+of many people conflicts with these
+apparently justified conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>All the highly evolved races tend to prolong
+childhood and youth. All tend to replace early
+marriage by later marriage and parenthood to
+the obvious advantage of the race.</p>
+
+<p>Marriage and parenthood at fourteen, fifteen
+and sixteen, which once were common in almost
+every country, are being replaced by later marriage
+and parenthood. As Finot 1913 <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>A mystic chain appears to attach the age for love to the
+consideration enjoyed by women. In the Far East, woman
+is offered very young to the passion of man, and disappears
+from existence at the time her contemporaries are just beginning
+to live. Love, for this very reason, has a purely sensual stamp,
+degrading to man and to woman. The lengthening of the
+age of love elevates the dignity, and at the same time increases
+the longevity, of woman. Beyond the age of thirty or forty
+the woman, dead to love, was fit only for religion or witchcraft.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+Her life was shattered. Prematurely aged she went
+out of the living world. The prolonged summer of Saint-Martin
+in women will doubtless have consequences which we
+should be wrong to fear. There is a solidarity of ages. The
+cares bestowed on the child benefit the old man. The enlargement
+of the age of maturity allows the child longer to enjoy the
+years of life that are intended to form bodies and souls....
+The sentimental life of the country has undergone similar
+results. Balzac, in proclaiming the right to love on the part
+of the woman of thirty, aroused in his contemporaries astonishment
+bordering on indignation. In his day, was not a man of
+forty-four considered an old man?<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Let us not forget that
+forty or fifty years before Balzac, a philosopher like Charles
+Fourier, despairing of the sentimental fate of young girls who
+had not found a husband before the age of ... eighteen years,
+claimed for them the right to throw propriety to the winds.
+According to the author of the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Théorie des Quatre-Mouvements</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+this was almost the critical age (<cite>Problems of the Sexes</cite>,
+transl. Jean Finot 1913).</p></div>
+
+<p>The relative ages of husband and wife also
+have their influence, but should, to some extent,
+depend more on their <em>physiological</em> age than on
+their actual years. They should, however, not
+be widely different. As Saleeby <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The greater the seniority of the husband, the more widowhood
+will there be in a society. Every economic tendency,
+every demand for a higher standard of life, every aggravation
+for the struggle for existence, every increment of the burden
+of the defective-minded, tending to increase the man’s age<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+at marriage, which, on the whole, involves also increasing his
+seniority&mdash;contributes to the amount of widowhood in a nation.</p>
+
+<p>We, therefore, see that, as might have been expected, this
+question of the age ratio in marriage, though first to be considered
+from the average point of view of the girl, has a far
+wider social significance. First, for herself, the greater her
+husband’s seniority, the greater are her chances of widowhood,
+which is in any case the destiny of an enormous preponderance
+of married women. But further, the existence
+of widowhood is a fact of great social importance because it
+so often means unaided motherhood, and because, even when
+it does not, the abominable economic position of women in
+modern society bears hardly upon her. It is not necessary
+to pursue this subject further at the present time. But it
+is well to insist that this seniority of the husband has remoter
+consequences far too important to be so commonly overlooked
+(<cite>Woman and Womanhood</cite>, 1912).</p></div>
+
+<p>I have observed many girls, who were in every
+true sense of the word girls (that is unconscious
+of personal sex feeling, still growing in bodily
+stature and still developing in internal organization)
+until they were nearly thirty years of age.
+In my opinion, the girl who is thoroughly well-balanced,
+with an active brain, a well-developed
+normally sexed body, natural artistic and social
+instincts is not more than a child at seventeen,
+and to marry her at that age or anything like
+it is to force her artificially, and to wither off
+her potentialities.</p>
+
+<p>The type of woman who really counts in our
+modern civilization is, as a rule, not of age<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+until she is nearly thirty. Not only does she
+<em>not</em> mature sooner than a boy; she matures
+actually later than a large number of men. I
+have now accumulated a wide and varied amount
+of evidence in favour of the view which I here
+propound, namely, that there is a most highly
+evolved type of woman in our midst. This
+type, which it will be agreed is the most valuable
+we possess, encompasses women of a wide range
+of potentialities; they have beautiful entirely
+feminine bodies, with all feminine and womanly
+instincts well developed, with a normal, indeed
+a rather strong, sex instinct and acute personal
+desires which tend to be concentrated on one
+man and one man alone. I will provisionally
+call this the late maturing type, for such a woman
+is generally incapable of real sex experience
+till she is about twenty-seven or thirty. I think
+that she is in line with the highest branch of
+our evolution, that she represents the present
+flower of human development, and that through
+her and her children the human race has the
+best hope of evolving on to still higher planes&mdash;but,
+and this is very important, she is not fitted
+for marriage until she is at least twenty-seven,
+probably later, her best child-bearing years may
+be after she is thirty-five, and her most brilliant
+and gifted children are likely to be born when
+she is about forty.</p>
+
+<p>Personal evidence, and also facts in the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>teresting
+letters sent me by my readers have
+brought to my knowledge the existence of an
+important proportion of women who are absolutely
+unconscious of personal localized sex
+feeling until they are nearly or over thirty&mdash;one
+woman was nearly fifty before she felt and
+knew the real meaning of sex union though many
+years married.</p>
+
+<p>From outward observation of the general
+physique of such of these women as I have
+seen face to face, I may say that, as a rule, they
+retain their youth long; they retain also a buoyancy
+and vitality which, if they are properly
+treated, and have the good fortune to be married
+at the right time to the right man, may remain
+with them almost throughout their lives. Such
+women not only prolong their girlhood, they
+defer their age. Such women have, of course,
+throughout the centuries appeared from time to
+time, and I fancy have generally in the past,
+and still often in the present, suffered acutely
+through marrying too young. When they marry
+too young they tend, by the forcing of their
+feelings, by the deadening through habit of
+their potentialities, by the trampling on the
+unfolded possibilities within them, to be turned
+artificially into a “cold type of woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Women now older tell me of the fact that
+for the first years of their married life they
+could give no response, but when they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+respectively twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one or
+more, they began first to feel they were truly
+women. Young husbands have written to me
+of their distress that their wives (aged about
+twenty to twenty-three), delightful girls in every
+respect, seemed utterly incapable of any response
+in the marital orgasm. Sometimes this depends
+on her conformation, but such an incapacity I
+often attribute to the girl’s marriage being
+premature. When she is twenty-seven or twenty-eight
+perhaps her internal development will be
+complete, and she will then be ripe for the full
+enjoyment of marriage: but if instead of a
+considerate husband she marries one who merely
+uses her, she stands little chance ever of knowing
+the proper relation of wifehood and motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>These facts which I could vary with details
+from individual experiences, in my opinion, indicate
+a profound truth in the development of
+the human race. It is this: not only do the
+higher races of human beings have a prolonged
+childhood and youth, but the most highly
+evolved, mentally, physically and racially, of
+our girls have not finished their potential growth
+into maturity until they are in the neighbourhood
+of thirty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Does this then mean that all marriage should
+be deferred till so late? By no means, nor is
+the above conclusion any reflection on the type
+of girl who ripens much more quickly. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+fully recognize that from the point of view of
+their sex potentialities some girls are complete
+women at seventeen or eighteen, and that they
+may then be very strongly sexed indeed. Such
+women should marry young.</p>
+
+<p>The marked differentiation of type of these
+very notably different women can be traced
+through many other aspects of their lives.
+I consider, for instance, the type of whom I
+spoke in Chapter <a href="#Page_99">XII</a> (who has a natural desire
+for union, representing the highest and most
+complex human union, the union of three)
+belongs very frequently to the late maturing
+and the most highly evolved form of femininity.</p>
+
+<p>It should be recognized that there are among
+us not only different races, but that in the same
+stock, sometimes in the same family of apparently
+no specially mixed ancestry, we may find
+one or more members of the late maturing,
+others of the early maturing type. Sometimes
+of two sisters, the elder may perhaps be still
+in mind a girl while her younger sister is a
+woman, as can be observed by any one with a
+large circle of acquaintances. It would be
+well, I think, if humanity, whose proper study
+is mankind, were at least to know themselves
+sufficiently well to realize the existence of such
+different types, and their possible potential
+value as well as their differing needs. The
+energy at present wasted in the acrid statement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+of conflicting views would be so much better
+spent on the careful recording and recognizing
+of varying types.</p>
+
+<p>The advice to marry young, which is in every
+respect socially wise and physiologically correct
+for some, should not be hurled indiscriminately
+at all women, because for the late maturing
+such advice is socially disadvantageous and
+physiologically wrong.</p>
+
+<p>I am now ready to consider the question of
+the proper age for motherhood about which an
+immense variety of opinion is expressed. The
+general tendency has been, even in the last
+few years, to raise the age at which a girl may
+marry, and to raise the age which the medical
+profession advises as the earliest suitable for
+motherhood. But still one often hears of elders,
+whom one would in other respects like to follow,
+advising the early bearing of children.</p>
+
+<p>Now I should like every potential parent to
+consider what type of child they want. Do
+they want to secure healthy, jolly little animals
+with no more brains than are sufficient to see
+them creditably through life? If so, let them
+have their children very early. Such healthy
+sound people with no special gifts are valuable,
+and there is much work in the world for them to
+do. On the other hand, do they want to
+take the risk for their child of a possibly less
+robust body, but with the possibility, indeed, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+healthy families, almost the certainty, of an
+immensely greater brain power, and a more
+strongly developed temperament? Then let
+them have their children late. And if a man
+desires to have a child who may become one
+of the <em>master</em> minds whose discoveries, whose
+artistic creations, whose ruling power stamps
+itself upon the memory of our race, whose name
+is handed down the ages, then let the father
+who desires such a child mate himself with the
+long-young late-maturing type of woman I
+have just described, and let her bear that child
+some time between the age of thirty-five and
+forty-five.</p>
+
+<p>How often one hears some version of the
+phrase: “Yes, it is so sad, poor, dear Lord
+So-and-So, a charming man, but no brains at
+all; his younger brother such a brilliant man;
+but that is always the way, the eldest sons in
+the aristocracy do seem to get the gift of property
+balanced by the lack of brains.” Now I enquire,
+and I should like my readers to enquire, into
+the secret of this phenomenon, which is by no
+means universal, but is sufficiently common to
+be endorsed. In my opinion, the interpretation
+of this fact is that the earlier children were born
+when the mother was still too young to endow
+them with brains, particularly if the mother
+was one of the gifted and cultivated women of
+the late-maturing type.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This also leads me to consider another generality
+which is frequently used as an argument
+by those who oppose conscious and deliberate
+parenthood. Some people say that by the direct
+control of the size of the family to a small
+limited number which the parents definitely
+desire, we would be eliminating genius from
+our midst, and their argument runs: Look at
+Nelson, he was a fifth son; look at Sir Walter
+Scott, he was a third son; and so on. This to
+the uncritical seems conclusive, and many people
+of great capacity, ideals and heart, who otherwise
+would be wholly on my side in my claim
+that every child born shall be deliberately desired,
+and that all other conceptions shall be consciously
+prevented, are swayed by this argument and
+say: “Yes, your position would be obviously
+the right one for the race if it were not that
+later children are so often the better.” I turn,
+therefore, to a consideration of the life histories
+of these men’s mothers. Why was Nelson the
+genius of his family? Because his mother
+was too young to bear geniuses at the time
+she was bearing her elder children. But this
+is not yet a sufficiently accurate consideration of
+the subject; I want to know also of which type
+the mother was, for, in my opinion, the right
+age for the parenthood of a woman depends
+also on the type to which she belongs, whether
+the early maturing or the late maturing. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+she knows herself to be the latter, after it is
+patent, as it must become patent to every one
+once the idea is placed before them, that such
+women are in our midst, then that woman and
+her husband should usually defer parenthood until
+she has reached at least thirty years of age.
+If this were done, then not the fourth, fifth or
+seventh but the first child would stand a very
+great chance of being a world leader, a powerful
+mind, perhaps even a genius. First children
+have been geniuses (Sir Isaac Newton was an
+only child); all depends on the age, the conscious
+desire, the general type and the surrounding
+conditions during prenatal state of her infant,
+of the mother who bears him and the father
+from whom he also inherits potentialities.</p>
+
+<p>A few investigations bearing on the effect
+of the parent’s age have been published by the
+Eugenics Society and some individuals, but
+none of these appear to me to be of any value,
+for none take into account the necessary data
+concerning the type of the mother which I
+here point out, and in all the calculations
+crude errors occur.</p>
+
+<p>The best woman, with comparatively few
+exceptions, is already and will still more in the
+future be the woman who, out of a long, healthy
+and vitally active life, is called upon to spend
+but a comparatively small proportion of her
+years in an <em>exclusive</em> subservience to motherhood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+A woman should have eighty to ninety active
+years of life; if she bears three or perhaps
+four children, she will, even if she gives up all
+her normal activities during the later months
+of pregnancy and the earlier of nursing, still
+have cut out of her life but a very small proportion
+of its total. She should, indeed, after she once
+is a mother, always devote a proportion of her
+energies to the necessary supervision of her
+children’s growth and education, but with the
+increasing number of schools and specialists,
+nurses, teachers and instructors of all sorts,
+the individual mother has much less of the
+purely physical labour of her children than
+formerly. That this is not only so, but is
+<em>approved</em> by the State can be seen at once by
+imagining a working class mother insisting on
+keeping her child at home all day under her
+personal supervision&mdash;the School Inspector would
+step in and take the child from her for a certain
+number of hours every day. But this book is
+primarily for middle and upper class women,
+and for them motherhood increasingly should
+mean a <em>widening</em> of their interests and occupations.</p>
+
+<p>The counter-idea still expressed, even by
+leading doctors and others, is that the whole
+capability of the individual mother should be
+devoted solely to contributing to her children.
+This is exemplified in the recent statement of
+Blair Bell: “A normal woman, therefore, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+not exploit her capabilities for individual gain,
+but for the benefit of her descendants.” This
+view is a false one and is based on a narrow
+vision.</p>
+
+<p>This pictures an endless chain of fruitless
+lives all looking ever to some supreme future
+consummation which never materializes. By
+means of this perpetual sinking of woman’s
+personality in a mistaken interpretation of her
+duty to the race, every generation is sacrificed
+in turn. The result has not been productive
+of good, happiness or beauty for the majority.
+No; the individual woman, normal or better
+than the average, <em>should</em> use her intellect for her
+individual gain in creative work; not only because
+of its value to the age and community in which
+she lives, but also for the inheritance she may
+thus give her children and so that when her
+children are grown up they may find in their
+mother not only the kind attendant of their
+youth, but their equal in achievement. With a
+woman of capacities perhaps still exceptional,
+but by no means so rare as some men writers
+would like to pretend, the pursuit of her work
+or profession and honourable achievement in
+it is not at all incompatible with but is highly
+beneficial to her motherhood. As Charlotte
+Gilman <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p><div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>No, the maternal sacrifice theory will not bear examination.
+As a sex specialized to reproduction, giving up all personal
+activity, all honest independence, all useful and progressive
+economic service for her glorious consecration to the uses of
+maternity, the human female has little to show in the way
+of results which can justify her position. Neither by the
+enormous percentage of children lost by death nor the low
+average health of those who survive, neither physical nor mental
+progress, give any proof to race advantage from the maternal
+sacrifice.&mdash;<cite>Women and Economics.</cite></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br />
+
+Birth and Beauty</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like
+flowers. Thou knowest how to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small
+wild flower.”</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Tagore</span>: <cite>Gitanjali</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>When all goes well and there is no accidental
+hastening of the birth by shock
+or jar which dislodges the child too
+soon, the birthday finds its place in the ordinary
+rhythm of the woman’s existence. We speak
+generally of the “nine months” during which
+the child is borne by its mother, but this nine
+months is a fictitious number depending on our
+calendar months, and the developing child is
+actually ten lunar months within its mother.
+Just as the average almost universal period of
+the woman’s rhythm has twenty-eight days
+cycle, so on this number of days does the circle
+of months leading to birth depend. Ten months
+of twenty-eight days each is the full period of
+development, at the close of which the child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+seeks its exit through birth. As a rule the day
+of birth corresponds to some extent, if not
+quite accurately, to the former rhythm of her
+menstrual waves.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting paper containing various scientific
+data (not all of which are universally accepted)
+is to be found in the <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Anat Anzeiger</cite> of
+1897 by Beard. What is actually the spring
+behind this rhythm is as yet largely unknown,
+but recent work on the internal secretions from
+the ovary such as was described by Starling
+in the <cite>Croonian Lecture</cite>, 1905 (who quotes
+Marshall and Jolly and other workers), appears
+to indicate that this function like so many others
+in our system is due to the activities of certain
+glands yielding internal secretions. These,
+penetrating the whole system, have a controlling
+influence upon activities remote from their source.</p>
+
+<p>For the birth itself, the mother should be
+in experienced hands, preferably those of a
+highly trained and certified midwife or maternity
+nurse such as Queen Charlotte’s or the
+London Hospital supplies, one who is experienced
+in all that has to be done in normal, healthy
+circumstances, and who can detect at once any
+necessity for specialized help. If the mother
+has lived rightly and wisely, dieted as I suggest
+and is properly formed (as, of course, should be
+assured through examination some time before
+the birth is expected), the birth should be, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>ever
+terrible an experience, yet one which is
+safely passed.</p>
+
+<p>In the days which follow she will have much
+to endure, and instead of the peace and quietness
+which she expected, she will find that she has
+constant disturbances incidental to the nursing
+of one who is, in essentials, a surgical case.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly due to the inconveniences involved
+in staying in bed, there is a tendency at present
+to encourage the mother to get up and at least
+walk about the room and be up for an hour or
+two within ten days or less of the date of the
+birth. Almost every one with whom I have
+come in contact, advises this, and in a certain
+school, particularly those who go in for what
+is called “Twilight Sleep,” there is not only
+an effort to get the mother up early, but a pride
+on the part of the mother and her advisers
+when she gets up perhaps within two or three
+days of the birth.</p>
+
+<p>Some women who have had a good many
+children boast of how they are up and about
+in ten days. I glance critically at all who tell
+me that, examining both their figures and their
+general appearance. <em>Only one woman of all
+who have ever discussed this matter with me urged
+the entirely old-fashioned month in bed following
+the birth. But</em>, and this is <em>very</em> important, <em>she
+was the only one who, having had many children,
+at the same time had done most notable and arduous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+brain work, and also retained her youthful figure
+and general appearance</em>.</p>
+
+<p>This quite exceptional and old-fashioned advice
+is what I would hand on to women to-day.
+The modern craze for getting up quickly is
+absolutely wrong, and has a fundamentally deleterious
+effect on the general health of our women.
+I should go so far as to say that not only should
+a woman stay in bed the entire month, but that
+she should for two weeks longer scarcely put
+her foot to the ground. She may lie out of
+doors or on sofas, but, after a birth, <em>she should
+lie about for the whole of six weeks</em>.</p>
+
+<p>This may startle my readers. I, who look
+so keenly into the future, who am so progressive,
+so modern and so desirous of the great and
+rapid evolution of women, to return to the old
+custom of our grandmothers, and demand, not
+only the month in bed, to ask even more, that
+there should be six weeks spent practically lying
+about all the time! Is this not an anachronism?
+No. It will be observed that throughout
+this and my other books, my advice always has
+a biological basis, depending on the actual
+structure or the history of our bodies, and there
+is a very profound and physiological basis for
+the advice I now give. It is this&mdash;that not
+only during the birth is the whole system of
+the mother to some extent jarred and shaken;
+she suffers in all her nerves the sudden relief from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+the strain upon her muscles and in the whole
+readjustment of her system an extremely profound
+shock, and the treatment for shock entails
+rest. More than that, the womb which lies
+centrally and is so important an organ in her
+body, so enormously enlarged during the last
+months through which the child inhabited it,
+returns to its permanent size slowly; its strong,
+muscular walls tensely contract, but this contraction
+which reduces its size very much in
+the first day or two does not complete itself,
+does not bring the tissues back to the size which
+they will afterwards permanently maintain, <em>until
+six weeks have elapsed</em>. For the whole of six
+weeks, therefore, the womb will be larger and
+heavier than normal and with a tendency to
+get out of place, while all the muscles of the
+body wall are weakened and out of condition
+by being so long stretched. A woman, therefore,
+should not put any strain on her muscles
+like standing or walking or taking any active
+exercise before the six weeks has elapsed, though
+she should, lying both on her back and on her
+face, do exercises calculated to restore the strength
+of these muscles and fit them to take on their
+work directly she rises. One exercise, particularly
+valuable and but little known, is to raise
+the diaphragm without breathing. This can
+be done during the six weeks in bed, but is
+particularly valuable on first rising and standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+or walking. This internal pull upwards of all
+the organs strengthens both the internal and
+the outer body wall muscles. Such control
+deliberately and frequently exerted throughout
+the day does more perhaps than any one other
+thing to retain a slender well-formed trunk.
+It has also a curiously bracing and exhilarating
+mental effect, and as the action can be done
+at any time unobserved, its effect can be utilized
+at will. The ancient Greeks laid great stress
+on the value of control of the diaphragm.</p>
+
+<p>It may be argued that during the time the
+child was within it the womb was very much
+larger than it is after birth, and nevertheless
+then active walking exercise was recommended.
+Yes: but during that time the womb was
+supported by the increased tension on the front
+muscles of the body wall against which it pressed
+and was thus assisted in maintaining its position;
+but after birth, while it is so very much smaller
+than quite recently it has been, and, at the same
+time, while still much larger than normal, and more
+than the weakened internal muscles are prepared
+to support, it is no longer held firm by the tense
+body wall, for the body wall is now limp, crumpled
+and almost incapable of supporting any strain.
+If, therefore, the woman stands too soon, the
+inner organs which are again beginning to find
+their natural place&mdash;the long digestive tract
+and other organs&mdash;tend to flop downwards, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+bulge out the still loose and strained abdominal
+muscles, and press the still too heavy womb
+out of its normal position, the position to which
+it must return, and must permanently take up
+if the woman is to have her general health maintained
+throughout the rest of her life. Hence,
+before she sets foot to the ground she must
+lie the nature-decreed six weeks, and meanwhile
+<em>exercise</em> the abdominal muscles so as to prepare
+them to act properly.</p>
+
+<p>When I see and hear of women either forced
+or lured or eagerly getting out of bed in ten
+days or a week after child birth, I wonder
+what will happen to all those women ten or
+fifteen years hence. They will be fortunate if
+they do not have what is now so increasingly
+prevalent, namely some form of displacement
+of the womb with all its attendant miseries of
+handicapped motherhood and wifehood. I maintain
+that it is nothing short of cruelty and
+criminality to allow the modern woman to get
+up quickly in the way she does. It may possibly
+be claimed by some of the foolish and hardy
+pioneers of getting up rapidly, that when she
+is a middle-aged or elderly woman she will not
+be suffering from the slow relaxations and displacements
+which result from putting pressure
+too soon on abdominal muscles unprepared to
+bear the strain. This will not make things
+safe for the average woman however. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+not realized how appalling is the prevalence of
+womb displacements among the lower working-class
+women, those who are forced by circumstances
+to get up in a week or ten days and go
+back to work. I think the modern increase in
+displacements in middle and upper class women
+is partly to be traced to the tendency to get up
+too soon, and also to the impatient practitioner’s
+use of instruments to hasten a birth
+which would come naturally in good time.
+When once the perineal and inner supporting
+muscles have been torn, they are too often
+mended superficially, but inner tears are left
+which make the perineum an insufficient support
+for the womb, of which the result is its slow
+and gradual dropping out of place, which some
+years afterwards may acutely handicap the unfortunate
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>In the name of all the fond and happy mothers
+that I hope the future may contain, I would
+urge every one who possibly can to <em>insist</em> on
+having six weeks of “lying in.” This is not
+only in the interests of general health but of
+beauty. Too long have we become tolerant of
+the hideous formation of the body which is
+common in older women. We have domesticated
+some animals<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> solely for our own purposes,
+and they are hideous indeed. Why should we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+women permit a comparable standard for ourselves?
+Why not insist on at least as much
+care as is devoted to the race-horse? Why
+not take a period of rest after the great effort
+of maternity proportionately as long as a she-wolf
+or tigress takes in her cave, fed by her
+mate while she lies about and plays with her
+cubs?<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The standard of beauty of the racing
+mare, of the wild tigress or she-wolf is slender
+and not markedly different from that of its
+virgin state. Such a standard, and not that of
+the over-taxed, man-used, domesticated animals
+should be that on which we women should insist.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection should be mentioned one
+other way in which the following of Nature
+and obedience to her law works for good. In
+the next chapter I mention the baby’s right
+to be fed by nature’s food, and while the
+infant is nursing from its mother it stimulates
+contractions in the womb which very much
+assist in bringing it to its right size and position,
+and so the act of nursing benefits not only the
+infant but its mother.</p>
+
+<p>A number of researches by various experts
+have been made, which proves that the womb
+reacts to the stimulus of suckling by the child.
+Pfister (<cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Beit. z. Geb. u. Gyn.</cite>, 1901, vol. v, p. 421),
+for instance, found that very definite contrac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>tions
+took place during the baby’s suckling,
+particularly for the first eight days after its
+birth; also Temesváry (<cite>Journ. Obstet. and Gyn.
+Brit. Emp.</cite>, 1903, vol. iii, p. 511) found that
+the natural involution of the womb after birth
+was distinctly more rapid in those who nursed
+their babies than in those who did not.</p>
+
+<p>Prolonging the nursing period does undoubtedly
+not tend to increase the beauty of
+the woman’s bosom but to deteriorate it, but,
+for at any rate the first few months, it is <em>very</em>
+advantageous both to the mother and to the child
+that she should feed it naturally. If throughout
+the nursing period she slings her breast properly
+from above, and if when the nursing period
+ceases she massages and treats the breast properly,
+it should not lose its beauty in the way which
+is alas, to-day, too general.</p>
+
+<p>Mothers, in the self-sacrifice involved in
+their motherhood, too often forget their duty
+to remain beautiful. All youth is revolted by
+ugliness, consciously or unconsciously. A girl
+should not be indirectly taught to dread motherhood
+herself by seeing the wreckage her own
+mother has allowed it to make of her. A high
+demand for beauty of form by mothers is not
+selfishness but a racial duty.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br />
+
+Baby’s Rights</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“The nation that first finds a practical reconciliation
+between science and idealism is likely to take the front
+place among the peoples of the world.”</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Dean Inge</span>: <cite>Outspoken Essays</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Baby’s rights are fundamental. They are:</p>
+
+<p>To be wanted.</p>
+
+<p>To be loved before birth as well as
+after birth.</p>
+
+<p>To be given a body untainted by any heritable
+disease, uncontaminated by any of the
+racial poisons.</p>
+
+<p>To be fed on the food that nature supplies,
+or, if that fails, the very nearest substitute that
+can be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>To have fresh air to breathe; to play in the
+sunshine with his limbs free in the air; to crawl
+about on sweet clean grass.</p>
+
+<p>When he is good, to do what baby wants
+to do and not what his parents want; for instance,
+to sleep most of his time, not to sit up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+and crow in response to having his cheeks pinched
+or his sides tickled.</p>
+
+<p>When he is naughty, to do what his parents
+want and not what he wants: to be made to
+understand the “law of the jungle.” From his
+earliest days he must be disciplined in relation
+to the great physical facts of existence, to which
+he will always hereafter have to bow. The
+sooner he comprehends this, the better for his
+future.</p>
+
+<p>Most young mothers, even those who have
+had the advantage of highly trained maternity
+nurses to assist them at first, later require
+authoritative advice about how to treat the
+baby for whom they have given so much,
+and to whom they wish to give every possible
+advantage. Many books give advice to the
+young mother and to these she may turn. I
+do not wish to duplicate what they say, but
+advise every one who has an infant, even if they
+think they know all about the best method of
+bringing it up, to possess a copy of Dr. Truby
+King’s <cite>Baby and How to Rear It</cite> for reference.
+It is the most practical, sensible and best illustrated
+book of its kind.</p>
+
+<p>There is, therefore, on the subject of baby’s
+material rights not very much more that I need
+to say, but there is one elementary right very
+generally overlooked, and that is the right to
+love in anticipation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Baby’s right to be <em>wanted</em> is an individual
+right which is of racial importance. No human
+being should be brought into the world unless
+his parents desire to take on the responsibility
+of that new life which must, for so long, be
+dependent upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Far too many of the present inhabitants of
+this earth who are <em>not</em> wanted because of their
+inferiority, were children who came to reluctant,
+perhaps horror-stricken, mothers. To this fact,
+I trace very largely the mental and physical
+aberrations which are to-day so prevalent; to
+this also I trace the bitterness, the unrest, the
+spirit of strife and malignity which seem to be
+without precedent in the world at present [see
+also <cite>The Control of Parenthood</cite>, final section,
+and, for the remedy, my book, <cite>Wise Parenthood</cite>,
+both published by Putnam].</p>
+
+<p>The warped and destructive impulse of revolution
+which is sweeping over so many people
+at present must have its roots in some deep
+wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Revolution is not a natural activity for human
+beings. Though the revolutionary impulse has
+swept through sections of humanity many times
+in its history, it is essentially unnatural, an
+indication of warping and poisoning, and a
+cause of further and perhaps irreparable damage.</p>
+
+<p>Happy people do not indulge in revolution.
+Happy people with a deep sense of underlying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+contentment and satisfaction in life may yet
+strive ardently to improve and beautify everything
+round them. They strive in the same
+direction as the main current of life&mdash;that is the
+growth and unfolding of ever increasing beauty.
+The revolutionaries&mdash;bitter, soured and profoundly
+unhappy&mdash;pit their strength against
+the normal stream of life and destroy, break down
+and rob. Too long humanity has had to endure
+such outbreaks owing to its general blindness
+and lack of understanding of their causes.</p>
+
+<p>Until the scientific spirit of profound inquiry
+into fundamental causes becomes general even
+in a small section of the community, superficial
+and apparently obvious explanations are accepted
+to account for results which really arise
+from profound and secret springs.</p>
+
+<p>The “divine discontent” which has impelled
+humanity forward along the path of constructive
+progress is a very different thing from the bitter
+discontent which leads to revolutionary and
+destructive outbursts. The village blacksmith of
+the well-known song, using his healthy muscles
+on hard, useful work which gives him a deep
+physical satisfaction, may feel the former and help
+forward the stream of progress in his village.</p>
+
+<p>The aim of reformers to-day should be to
+provide for every one neither ease nor comfort,
+nor high wages nor short hours, but the deeper
+necessities of a full and contented life, bodies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+able to respond with satisfaction to the strain
+of hard work performed under conditions which
+satisfy the mind in the most fundamental way
+of all&mdash;the deep, sub-conscious satisfaction which
+is given by the sweet smell of earth, by fresh
+air and sunshine, and green things around one.</p>
+
+<p>We draw from all these things some subtle
+ingredient without which our natures are weakened
+so that a further strain sends them awry.
+To-day we are so deeply involved with the
+hydra-headed monster of the revolutionary spirit
+that there does not seem time to deal with it
+radically, to attempt to understand it, and consequently
+to conquer it for ever. Even now,
+when for the first time humanity is on a large
+scale beginning to tackle fundamental problems,
+I have seen no indication that the source of
+revolution is being sought for in the right place.</p>
+
+<p>What is the source of revolution?</p>
+
+<p>The revolutionaries through the ages, feeling
+themselves jar with their surroundings, have
+been ensnared by the nearest obvious things,
+the happier surrounding of others. These they
+have endeavoured to snatch at and destroy,
+thinking thereby to improve their own and their
+comrades’ lot. Their deductions, though profoundly
+false, have appeared even obviously
+right to many.</p>
+
+<p>External grievances are what the revolutionary
+is out to avenge: external benefits are what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+he is out to gain. Generally this is expressed
+in terms of higher wages, a share, or all, of the
+capital of those supposed to be better off, or
+the material possessions of others. These are
+the things that nearly all strikers and revolutionaries
+are upsetting the world to get, thinking&mdash;perhaps
+sincerely&mdash;that these things will give
+them the happiness for which, consciously or
+unconsciously, they yearn. The truth is, however,
+that it is a much more intimate thing than
+money or possessions which they need. They
+need new bodies and new hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the revolutionaries I have met are
+people who have been warped or stunted in
+their own personal growth. One sees upon
+their minds or bodies the marks and scars of
+dwarfing, stunting or lack of balance. They
+have known wretchedness both in themselves
+and in their families far more intimate and penetrating
+than that of mere poverty.</p>
+
+<p>That, they may answer, is an external grievance
+which has been imposed upon them by
+society. In effect they say: “Society has
+starved us, given us bad conditions.” Thus
+they foster a grievance against “society” in
+their minds. One bitter leader said to <span class="lock">me:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I was one of fourteen children, and my mother had only
+a little three-roomed cottage near Glasgow. We nearly
+starved when I was young. I know what the poor suffer at
+the hands of society.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But it was not society that put fourteen
+children into that cottage; it was the mother
+herself. Her own ignorance, helpless ignorance
+perhaps, was the source of her children’s misery.
+The most for which society can be blamed
+concerning that family is in tolerating such a
+plague-spot of ignorance in its midst. Nor is
+this pestilential ignorance by any means only
+confined to the financially poor.</p>
+
+<p>This country, and nearly all the world, has
+innumerable homes in which the seed of revolution
+is sown in myriads of minds from the
+moment they are conceived. Revolted, horror-stricken
+mothers bear children whose coming
+birth they fear.</p>
+
+<p>A starved, stunted outlook is stamped upon their
+brains and bodies in the most intimate manner
+before they come into the world, so oriented
+towards it that they <em>must</em> run counter to the
+healthy, happy constructive stream of human life.</p>
+
+<p>What wonder at the rotten conditions of
+our population when these are common experiences
+of the mothers of our <span class="lock">race:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>For fifteen years I was in a very poor state of health
+owing to continual pregnancy. As soon as I was over one
+trouble it was started all over again.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="lock">Again:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>During pregnancy I suffered much. When at the end
+of ten years I determined that this state of things should not
+go on any longer.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="lock">Again:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>My grandmother had twenty children. Only eight lived
+to about fourteen years; only two to a good old age.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="lock">Again:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I cannot tell you all my sufferings during the time of motherhood.
+I thought, like hundreds of women to-day, that it
+was only natural, and that you had to bear it. I had three
+children and one miscarriage in three years.</p></div>
+
+<p>Need I go on?</p>
+
+<p>There lies the real root of revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The secret revolt and bitterness which permeates
+every fibre of the unwillingly pregnant
+and suffering mothers has been finding its
+expression in the lives and deeds of their children.
+We have been breeding revolutionaries through
+the ages and at an increasing rate since the
+crowding into cities began, and women were
+forced to bear children beyond their strength
+and desires in increasingly unnatural conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Also since women have heard rumours that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+such enslaved motherhood is not necessary,
+that the wise know a way of keeping their
+motherhood voluntary, the revolt in the mother
+has become conscious with consequent injury
+to the child.</p>
+
+<p>Increasingly, the first of baby’s rights is to be
+<em>wanted</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning baby’s right to be fed on the food
+that nature supplies, or if that fails on the very
+nearest substitute that can be discovered, there
+are to-day so many who urge that an infant
+shall be fed by its own mother, that it is perhaps
+needless to repeat arguments so impressive.
+Nevertheless, perhaps it is as well to remind
+young mothers of two or three of the most
+vital facts. The first is that no artificial substitute,
+however perfectly prepared and chemically
+analysed, can possibly give those very subtle
+constituents which are found in the mother’s
+own milk and which vary from individual to
+individual. These probably are in the nature
+of the vitamines now so well known in fresh
+food, but they are something more specifically
+individual than can be scientifically detected.
+The fresh milk of its own mother has a peculiar
+value to the child which is greater than that
+of any foster mother.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason alone, were it the only one,
+every young mother should nurse her own
+baby if possible; but, on the other hand, to-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+it not infrequently happens that the mother may
+have an apparent flow of milk, quite sufficient
+for the infant in quantity, but that milk may be
+devoid of the necessary supply of fat or sugars
+or some other ingredient for complete nutriment.
+When this is so, it is often wisest to
+allow the mother to nurse the child partly and
+to supplement its diet by other milk.</p>
+
+<p>Various schools of doctors and maternity
+nurses have differed even on this matter, but
+it is quite obvious that if the actual food value
+of the mother’s milk is below a certain point
+then the added value of its individual vitamine-like
+qualities will not wholly compensate for the
+loss of actual nourishment.</p>
+
+<p>Among baby’s rights, I should perhaps also
+make it clear that there is his right that he
+should not be used as a bulwark between his
+mother and another baby in a way which is
+sometimes recommended so that a mother may
+go on nursing her infant for a very long time,
+sometimes even into its second year, in the hope
+that this nursing may prevent her conceiving
+again. Such a course of action is very harmful
+both to the child and to her and should never
+be followed. Such a practice is, of course,
+much less common in this country (except
+among aliens) than it is abroad where I have
+seen healthy children of even three or four
+years of age nursing upon their mother’s knees.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In these days, perhaps it is hardly necessary
+to accentuate baby’s other rights since the
+century of the child dawned a generation ago.
+To-day it is perhaps almost more important
+to accentuate the rights of others who exist
+in the neighbourhood of a baby. But on the
+other hand if one looks penetratingly at the
+whole problem of character development, one
+sees that among baby’s rights is its right to be
+trained from the very first so that its life shall
+be as little hindered by friction as may be possible:
+that it should be taught the elementary
+rules of conduct and necessary conformity with
+the hard material facts of existence from the
+very first. A wise nurse’s or mother’s training
+from the earliest weeks of infancy may make
+or mar a future man’s or woman’s chance of
+getting on in the world and making a success
+of their lives, by making or marring the character,
+the capacity to obey, the formation of regular
+and hygienic habits and the realization of the
+physical facts of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient Greeks taught their youth to
+reverence that which was beneath them, that
+which was around them, and that which was
+above them. In my opinion this right of youth
+to be placed in its proper orientation in relation
+to the world has been neglected of late. We
+are suffering from the wayward revolt from an
+earlier and perhaps harsher type of mistake, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+of too greatly controlling and thwarting the
+child’s impulses. We must maintain a just
+balance and return to the due mean in which
+the right of a child, not only to be well born
+but well trained, is universally recognized.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br />
+
+The Weakest Link in the Human
+Chain</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“This shall be thy reward&mdash;that the ideal shall be real
+to thee.”</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Olive Schreiner</span>: <cite>Dreams</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Proverbs innumerable and daily experience
+have familiarized every one with
+the idea that the citizen is moulded
+and his or her essential characteristics determined
+in childhood, and as a result of childhood’s
+training. The most profoundly operative of
+all his qualities is his potential sex attitude,
+because it is that which determines his experience
+of sex and marriage, which colours his
+thoughts towards women throughout his life,
+which inclines his mind nobly towards his own
+racial actions or which leaves him weak and
+frivolous in his attitude towards the greatest
+profundities of life.</p>
+
+<p>Children, otherwise brought up with every
+care and forethought, surrounded by all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+love and money can give them, are too generally
+left, without their mother’s guidance or their
+father’s wisdom, to discover the great facts of
+life partly by instinct and partly from the vulgar
+talk of servants or soiled children a little older
+than themselves. Worse even than this takes
+place, because most generally in this connection
+they not only do not hear the truth from their
+mother’s lips, but they learn from her their
+most influential and earliest lesson in lying.</p>
+
+<p>The curious thing about the particularly
+pernicious form of lying which deals with racial
+things in the presence of childhood is that we
+have the habit of thinking it quite innocent.
+Indeed we have even acquired the habit of thinking
+it one of the charming form of lies; hence
+when we are in a reforming mood, seeking for
+the origins of the wrongs we are trying to put
+right, we pass these “charming” lies by, thinking
+them harmless.</p>
+
+<p>Where did each one of us first learn to lie?</p>
+
+<p><em>Nearly every one who is now grown up got his
+(or her) first lesson in lying at his mother’s knee.</em>
+To the little child, in his narrow but ever widening
+world, the mother is the supreme ruler,
+the all-wise provider of food, clothes, pleasures
+and pains. The mother (the child instinctively
+feels) must be also the source of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>Question after question about himself and
+his surroundings springs up in the baby mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+Mother is asked them all, and for every one
+she has some sort of an answer. Then inevitably,
+at three or four, or five years old comes
+the question:&mdash;“Mother, where did you find
+me?”&mdash;“Mother, how was I born?”</p>
+
+<p>Then comes the lie.</p>
+
+<p>The child is told about the doctor bringing
+him in a bag&mdash;or a stork flying in through the
+window&mdash;or the accidental finding under the
+gooseberry bush.</p>
+
+<p>All children delight in fairy tales, but instinctively
+they know very well the difference
+between a fairy tale which is recounted to them
+as a story in answer to their mood of “make-believe”
+and a fiction which is putting them
+off when they are seeking the truth.</p>
+
+<p>If the mother who feels herself too ignorant
+or too self-conscious to answer the truth to the
+child’s questions takes him on her knee and
+deliberately tells him in a “make-believe”
+mood a fairy tale, the child will then not feel
+that the mother has lied. <em>He will feel, however,
+that he must ask some one else for the truth.</em></p>
+
+<p>But most mothers give the answer containing
+the fiction of the gooseberry bush, or whatever
+it may be, in a manner indicating that that is
+what the child must believe, and the child
+receives the information as a serious answer
+to his serious question. It is then a lie, and a
+pernicious lie.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Racial knowledge, instinct, whatever you like
+to call it, is subtler and stronger in baby minds
+than we dulled grown-ups are inclined to think.
+The youngest child has a half-consciousness
+that what its mother said in answer to this
+question was not true.</p>
+
+<p>Nurse, or auntie, a friend’s governess, or
+any one else who seems wise and powerful, is
+asked the same question when mother is not
+there, and the chances are that if mother had
+given the stork version auntie gives the gooseberry
+bush or some other fiction which she
+particularly favours.</p>
+
+<p>The baby ponders intermittently, inconsequently,
+perhaps at long intervals, perhaps after
+years, but ultimately it realizes that its mother
+lied to it.</p>
+
+<p>In this way infinite injury has been done to
+the whole human stock, and more particularly
+women have suffered from the dishonesty and
+the inherent incapacity of our society to be
+frank and truthful about the most profound
+and the most terrible aspects of sex, namely,
+its diseases. A wife or a mother has the right
+to be told the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Women, and particularly mothers, have been
+outrageously wronged by the deliberate lies
+and untruthful atmosphere about the greater
+problems of sex in which the learned have
+enshrouded them: but mothers have themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+given the first bent to the little sprouting twig
+of that tree of knowledge, and they have bent
+it <em>away</em> from the sunlight of truth and clean
+and happy understanding.</p>
+
+<p>The mother’s excuse is, or would be if she
+felt herself in any way to blame (which, by the
+way, deplorably, she very seldom does) that
+these terrible mysteries of origin are not suitable
+for the little innocent child to ponder over.
+She thinks they would shock him. But here
+the mother is profoundly mistaken.</p>
+
+<p><em>The age of innocence is the age when all knowledge
+is pure.</em> At three, four, or five years old,
+everything is taken for granted&mdash;everything in
+the universe is equally a surprise, and is at the
+same time accepted without question as being
+in the natural course of events. If true answers
+were given to the tiny child’s questions, they
+would seem quite rational&mdash;not in the least
+more surprising than the fact that oak trees
+grow from acorns, or that the cook gets a jam
+tart out of a hot oven.</p>
+
+<p>All the world’s events seem magic at that
+age, and if no exceptional mystery were made
+of the magic of his own advent, the child would
+feel it as natural as all the rest, and having
+asked the question and obtained satisfactory,
+simple unaccentuated answers, would let his
+little mind run on to the thousand other questions
+he wants to ask. The essential racial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+knowledge would slip naturally and sweetly
+into his mind mingled with a myriad other
+new impressions.</p>
+
+<p>There is no self-consciousness, no personal
+shamefacedness, about a tiny child. It accepts
+the great truths of the universe in the grand
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>If the mother has never failed her child, has
+always given it what she could of wisdom, she
+will retain his trust and his confidence. When
+he gets a little older she can teach him to go to
+no one else for talk about the intimacies of life,
+which the child is quick to realize are not discussed
+openly amongst strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Then, later on, when personal consciousness
+and shyness begin, there need not be the acute
+constraint and tension of the shame-faced elder
+speaking to a mind awakening to itself. Deep
+in the child’s consciousness, deeper even than
+its conscious memory goes, the true big facts
+are planted.</p>
+
+<p>To tell a child of twelve or fourteen the truth
+is, for most parents, an impossibly difficult
+matter. The reason for this is that it is then
+too late for essentials; only details are then
+suitable or necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Little children spend much of their early
+time in exploring themselves and their immediate
+surroundings&mdash;all is mysterious, all at first
+unknown. Their own feet and hands, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+powers of locomotion and of throwing some
+object to a distance, the curls of their own hair,
+the pain they encounter in their bodies when
+explorations bring them in contact with sharp
+angles: all are equally mysterious, together
+forming a wonder-world. And babies are very
+young indeed when they explore with all the rest
+of their bodies, the rudiments of those of their
+racial organs with which they can acquaint
+themselves. <em>In my opinion, the attitude of a man
+or woman through life is largely determined by the
+attitude adopted by the mother towards the racial
+organs <strong>BEFORE</strong> the child was old enough consciously
+to remember any instruction that was imparted</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Advice is often given in these more enlightened
+days to instruct your boy or girl in his racial
+power or duties when he or she is ten or twelve
+years old. This to many seems very young,
+and they hesitate and defer it till they are older
+and “can understand better.” In my opinion,
+this is already eight or ten years too late.</p>
+
+<p><em>The child’s first instruction in its attitude towards
+its sex organs, its first account of the generation of
+human beings, should be given when it is two or
+three years old</em>; given with other instruction,
+of which it is still too young to comprehend
+more than part, but which it is nevertheless old
+enough to comprehend in part. Very simple
+instruction given reverently at suitable opportunities
+at that early age will impress itself upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+the very <em>texture</em> of the child’s mind, before the
+time of actual memories, so that from the very
+first possible beginnings its tendencies are in
+the direction of truth and reverent understanding.</p>
+
+<p><em>A child so tiny will usually not remember one
+word of what was said to it, but the effects on his
+outlook will be deep.</em> For at that early age, children
+are meditatively absorbing and being impressed
+by the psychological states and feelings
+of their instructors and companions, and if, in
+these very earliest months, the mother or
+guardian makes the mistake of treating ribaldly
+the tiny organs or of speaking lightly in the
+child’s presence, or of directly lying to the child
+about these facts, that child receives a mental
+warp and injury which nothing can ever eradicate
+entirely, which may in later years through
+bitter and befouling experiences be lived down
+as an old scar that has healed, but which will
+have permanently injured it.</p>
+
+<p>I hold this to be a profound truth, and one
+which it is urgent that humanity should realize.
+I trust that my view will establish itself on every
+hand. If that were my way, I could easily
+write a whole volume on this theme, and coin
+a polysyllabic terminology in which to mould
+and harden thought on the subject. But I
+prefer that a few simple words should slip like
+vital seed into the hearts of mothers, and that
+they may mould the race.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is ignorance of this truth which has led
+to the dishonouring and befouling of pure and
+beautiful youth, which is the original source
+of the greater part of all the social troubles and
+the sex difficulties of adolescence.</p>
+
+<p><em>The tiny child of two or three years old, just
+beginning to perceive and piece together the psychological
+impressions stamped upon it by its environment
+and the mind-states of those around it, is the
+weakest link in the chain of our social consciousness.</em>
+Physically, the new born babe for the first few
+days of its life is the weakest link in the chain,
+the most liable physically to extinction, but
+spiritually, socially the link most liable to warping,
+even destruction, is the awakening mind,
+the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child
+between two and three years old.</p>
+
+<p>The mother or guardian then who desires
+her son or daughter to face the great facts of
+life beautifully and profoundly should begin
+from the first to mould that attitude in the child.
+It may appear to the unthinking like building
+castles in the sand even to hint at truths which
+it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers
+nothing of the words used in later years. This
+is not so. What the child absorbs is less the
+actual words than the tone of voice, the mode
+of expression that spiritually impresses itself
+upon its own little soul.</p>
+
+<p>Then there comes a later stage for most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+civilized human beings, usually after they are
+three years old, when there arises the possibility
+of permanent consciousness through permanent
+and specific memory of things seen,
+done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present
+generation will have some vivid memory, dating
+back to when they were between three and four
+years old, when they received a strong mental
+impression that grown-ups were lying to them
+or that there was something funny or silly in
+questions which they asked. Perhaps they
+noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was
+taken seriously, questions about where pussy got
+her kittens were laughed at. Almost each one
+of us who is to-day grown up then received some
+grievous injury. This time is of great importance
+in the psychology not only of the child,
+but of the whole adult race arising from the
+growing up of each child, for one’s earliest
+memories are few but very vivid. As things
+are to-day, generally between the ages of three
+and four or so, in the months which are likely
+to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit is wounded
+by the shock of a serious lie.</p>
+
+<p>When as a mother or father you are with
+your children it is vital to be most careful to
+answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the
+questions which arise. No one can foresee
+which question and answer may make that
+terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When your little son or daughter is about
+the age of three or four or five, the day will
+come when you are asked questions about the
+most fundamental facts in human life, and then
+the answers to these questions contain the probability
+of a lifelong memory. Answer with
+the <em>truth</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Many parents are anxious to tell their children
+the great truths in a wise and beautiful manner.
+But few feel that they know how to do it, for it
+is a most difficult thing to know how to answer
+searching questions about profound subjects,
+and particularly about those which the community
+wrongly considers shameful. Each mother
+knows, or should know, the temperament and
+needs of her child, so that the adaptation of the
+advice I give should be varied to suit the individual
+child. In essence, however, children’s
+demands at an early age are remarkably similar,
+and the questions of children on birth and sex
+differ in form, though seldom in substance.</p>
+
+<p>The following conversation between a mother
+and her little son indicates what seems to me the
+best way first to tell a child who has reached
+the age when he may have lasting memory of
+the facts that he is blindly seeking in his baby
+questions. It will not suffice to learn the answers
+off by heart; the baby will then soon confound
+his elders, but the substance of the conversation
+should prove useful.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The very first time the query comes: “Mother
+where did you get me?” the mother must not
+divert the child’s interest, or hesitate, but should
+be ready at once to <span class="lock">answer:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“God and Daddy and I together made you, because we
+wanted you.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>”</p>
+
+<p>“Did God help? Couldn’t He do it all Himself?”</p>
+
+<p>“You know when you and I are playing with bricks together,
+you like Mummy to help, but not to do it all. God
+thought Daddy and Mummy would like Him to help, but
+not to do everything, because Daddy and Mummy enjoyed
+making you much more than you enjoy playing with bricks.”</p></div>
+
+<p>That may suffice for the time, because little
+children are very readily satisfied with one or
+two facts about any one subject, and the talk
+could easily be diverted. The little mind may
+brood over what was told, and some time later&mdash;perhaps
+a few days, perhaps even a few
+months or more&mdash;this question will come up
+again, possibly in a different <span class="lock">form:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Mummy, when was I born?”</p></div>
+
+<p>The mother should give the day and <span class="lock">say:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“You know your birthday comes every year on the 18th of
+April. That birthday is what reminds us of the day you
+were born, and each birthday you are a whole year older.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m five now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, so you were born five years ago on your birthday.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where was I before I was born?”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you remember I told you that God and Daddy
+and I made you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.... Did you make me on my birthday?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not all in one day; you took much longer to make than
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long did I take to make?”</p>
+
+<p>“A long, long time. Little children are so precious they
+cannot be made in a hurry.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long did I take?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nearly a year&mdash;nine whole months.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did baby take as long?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, just the same time. Baby is just as precious as you
+are.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m bigger.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now you are, but you were baby’s size when you were
+baby’s age. You are bigger because you have grown since
+your first birthday.”</p></div>
+
+<p>Again the subject may perhaps drop, or it
+may be carried directly forward.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“What is being born?”</p>
+
+<p>“Being born is being shown to the world and seeing the
+world for the first time. At the end of nine months after
+God and Daddy and Mummy started to make you, you were
+ready to open your eyes and breathe and cry, and be a real
+live baby, and that day they showed you to somebody and you
+saw the world. That was being born.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where was I before you finished making me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mummy kept you hidden away so that nobody at all
+should see you.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“<em>Where</em> was I hidden?”</p>
+
+<p>“You were hidden in a most wonderful place, in the place
+where only quite little babies can be while God and their
+mummies are making them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Show me; I want to go back there.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can never go back; it is only while you are being
+made you can be there. After your first birthday, you can
+never go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where was I?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you know, little babies that are being made are
+very, very delicate, and they have to be kept very warm and
+comfortable, and nobody must see them, and they must be
+close, close up to their mummies.”</p>
+
+<p>The child may interject, “And their daddies too?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, if they have got loving daddies, the daddy keeps
+close to the mummy; but while babies are being made it
+is God and mummy that have most of the work to do. That
+is why you must always love your mummies and obey them.”</p></div>
+
+<p>The child may be temporarily satisfied, or
+may continue at <span class="lock">once:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“But where <em>was</em> it that I was while you were making
+me?”</p>
+
+<p>“What is the warmest, softest, safest place you can think
+of? Mummy’s heart: that is all warm with love. The
+place Mummy hid you while God and she were making you
+was right underneath her heart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her real heart&mdash;the heart that beats like a clock ticking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, her real heart, just here.”</p></div>
+
+<p>The mother should lay the child’s hand on
+her heart and let him feel it beating.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“And just inside, right underneath here, Mummy kept
+you while God was helping her to make you.”</p></div>
+
+<p>The child who has been brought up in a home
+of love and tenderness and beauty will find this
+a thrilling and beautiful thought, like a little
+boy whom I know personally, and to whom
+this fact was told in this way. Solemnly, and
+without a word, he went away from his mother
+into the middle of the room and stood deep in
+thought for several minutes. Then he turned,
+looked round, and rushed across the room,
+threw himself into his mother’s lap, his arms
+round her neck and cried: “Oh, Mummy,
+Mummy, then I was right inside you.”</p>
+
+<p>For days afterwards he was filled with a
+rapturous joy, and at times used to leave his
+play and come to his mother and put his arms
+round her neck, saying: “Oh, Mummy, that
+is why I love you so.”</p>
+
+<p>Whatever form the child’s feeling may take,
+the opportunity should not be allowed to pass
+without a little addition to the conversation,
+and the mother should <span class="lock">say:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“And you see that is why you must never talk to any one
+but Daddy and Mummy, or God through your prayers, about
+such things. As God and Daddy and Mummy, and no one
+else made your little body, so every thing you want to know
+about it, all the questions you want to ask, you should ask of
+them and no one else. You see, you are different from any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+other child in the world, and as Daddy and Mummy helped
+to make you, only they know your works. So whatever it
+is you want to know, or whatever it is that goes wrong, it is
+Mummy and Daddy who can tell you about it.”</p></div>
+
+<p>Once may be sufficient for a child to be told
+the greater truths it desires to know, but it is
+seldom that the child will leave so wonderful
+a subject entirely alone after first learning of it,
+and many portions of the beautiful facts will
+have to be repeated in a variety of forms, or in
+just the same words, as are repeated again and
+again the beloved fairy tales. The child, however,
+will be quick to know the difference between
+this story and fairy tales, for children have an
+instinct for truth at a much earlier age than
+grown-ups generally remember.</p>
+
+<p>A further series of questions will probably
+arise when the child is about twelve.</p>
+
+<p>The essential difficulties of these later questions,
+and the shamefaced self-consciousness so
+usual between parent and child will never arise
+if from the first the deep truths have been known
+to the child.</p>
+
+<p>The child so instructed is not supplied with
+all necessary facts, and instruction of a more
+specific and exact nature will have to be repeated
+at further intervals throughout its life, but on
+this foundation, further knowledge can be built
+without having to wipe out anything already
+implanted, without having to contradict earlier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+instruction, or to acknowledge the gravest error
+of having lied. Life teaches much to a quick
+child trained to observation, particularly in the
+country, where all children should spend much
+of their time. If the little one has been told
+what has been given in the previous pages it
+will have all the essential truths on to which it will
+fit in for itself the other data which daily life
+will bring it; thus it may garner a harvest
+of facts one by one.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the later instruction which will
+be necessary, the information can be given in
+many ways. Some advocate school instruction
+of children of twelve or more in the physiology
+of all the members of the body, so that the racial
+powers are treated in their proper place in conjunction
+with the digestive organs, brain, lungs,
+etc. Some parents prefer to give the instruction
+themselves, for none but they can know so well
+the individual needs of the child.</p>
+
+<p>Much has already been written and is available
+in the voluminous literature about the
+presentation of the facts to be imparted at the
+various later ages, and almost every book advises
+comparisons with flowers. For the later ages of
+ten years and after, this is probably the best
+introduction for specific details, but for the
+first and earliest instruction of the baby mind,
+such direct simple answers as I have indicated
+are, I am sure, the best.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Children whose parents have treated them
+as I advise in this chapter are <em>essentially safe</em>
+whatever form later instruction may take. They
+will then have the vitality to survive lies, although
+ever to lie to them will be putting a cruel and
+useless strain on their recuperative powers. If
+the little child is started upon its life with a
+beautiful and true conception of its relation to
+its mother, and of man’s relation to woman,
+it will be unlikely indeed that it will grow up
+a hooligan who flouts his parents or a loose and
+lascivious destroyer of women.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br />
+
+The Cost of Coffins</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+He only is free who can control himself.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Epictetus.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The imposition of motherhood upon a married
+woman in absolute despite of her health and of the
+interests of the children is none the less an iniquity
+because it has at present the approval of Church and
+State.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Saleeby</span>: <cite>Woman and Womanhood</cite>.
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Why do poor slum mothers buy more
+coffins than do the same number of
+rich women?</p>
+
+<p>The incredulous may answer this question
+by asserting that they don’t, but as a matter
+of fact they do. The Registrar-General’s Report
+for 1911 shows that of every thousand
+births in the upper and middle classes, 76·4
+babies die, while of a thousand births in the
+homes of unskilled workmen (this would be
+the class of the “poor” mothers) 152·5 babies
+die.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So that it is clear that if each member of this
+poorest class of mothers had exactly the same
+number of babies as each mother of the rich
+class, she would have to purchase about two
+coffins for every coffin bought by those whose
+babies are not so prone to die.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, another fact which completes
+the proof of my first sentence. The
+upper and middle classes do not have so many
+children per family as do the poorest class.
+To a thousand married people in the upper
+and middle classes there were born in 1911
+119 babies, but to the poor mothers&mdash;the wives
+of the unskilled workmen&mdash;there were born
+213. So that in addition to buying twice as
+many coffins per thousand children born, these
+poor mothers have nearly twice as many coffins
+again, owing to the fact that nearly twice as
+many children are born to them.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if poor women have ever asked
+themselves if they can afford coffins at this rate?</p>
+
+<p>Of course the coffins of these poor little
+babies are very small, and do not require very
+much wood to make them. But let us think
+in what other ways they cost: To the mother
+they cost not only all the little the baby had
+eaten, and used in the way of clothes before its
+death, but all the wastage of her own vitality
+while she was bearing it; she could not work
+so well, at any rate towards the end of the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+Home duties had to be somewhat neglected;
+the older children had to go to school dirtier
+and less cared for; the husband had less comfort
+and fewer smiles; every one in the family
+was poorer, not only in material things and in
+the work that might make material things,
+but in happiness and buoyancy.</p>
+
+<p>It needs no imagination to realize, when you
+have once grasped these facts, that poor people
+are much less able to spare the cost of a doomed
+baby than are the better class people. Then
+why do they so often indulge in this tragic
+luxury? Chiefly through lack of knowledge,
+through ignorance, particularly on the part of
+the mother.</p>
+
+<p>Often ignorance is blind and unaware that
+it is ignorance, stupidly blundering through
+life; but this is not always the mother’s attitude.
+She may, indeed she often does, passionately
+desire knowledge and seek for it wherever she
+thinks she may find it in her restricted circle.
+Too tragically often she is baffled in her search.</p>
+
+<p>Some years before the war, when I was lecturing
+at a Northern University, a little incident
+opened my eyes to this fact. I was young
+and had not encountered this aspect of life
+before, and it burnt itself into my consciousness
+as one of the most vivid impressions of my life.
+It was <span class="lock">this:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>One of my students was a woman who was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+hoping to qualify as a medical doctor, and she
+was having tea with me and chatting about the
+events of the day. As part of her training she
+had been assisting the doctor in dealing with
+out-patients at a hospital, and a woman had
+brought in a miserable little baby, which wailed
+all the time and which the mother explained
+wouldn’t put on any flesh or grow into a nice,
+healthy baby whatever she did with it.</p>
+
+<p>The mother, with tears in her eyes, made an
+intensely earnest appeal to the doctor to tell
+her what was to her unaccountably wrong with
+the infant.</p>
+
+<p>She was a fine strapping woman, and thought
+her babies ought to be large and healthy. She
+said this was her third or fourth, and the others
+had all died when they were very little.</p>
+
+<p>This happened more than seven years ago.
+Thank God our racial attitude has changed
+since then.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor put her off with some soothing
+platitudes, but the woman driven to despair
+said: “I believe there’s something wrong with
+my man. If there’s something wrong with my
+man I won’t have babies no more&mdash;it’s just
+cruel to see them miserable like this and have
+them dying one after the other. Won’t you,
+for God’s sake, tell me whether there’s anything
+wrong with my man or not?” This appeal
+was met by the assurance that there was nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+wrong, and she should go on having babies
+and do her duty by her husband.</p>
+
+<p>My medical woman student said that it was
+glaringly obvious that the baby was syphilitic.</p>
+
+<p>I asked her why she did not immediately
+tell the mother the truth. She shrugged her
+shoulders and said: “I’ve got my exam. to
+pass; if I did a thing like that Dr. &mdash;&mdash; would
+stop me going to the hospital. I can’t afford
+to take risks like that. Why, he might not
+only stop me, but it would do the other women
+students a lot of harm too.”</p>
+
+<p>This was before the war, and England was
+less enlightened, less eager for medical women’s
+assistance than the war has made her, and it
+was then a fight for a girl to get a footing in
+the hospitals for the wide experience she needed
+for a general practice.</p>
+
+<p>I vowed to myself that I would never forget
+that mother, and that some day I would batter
+at the brazen gates of knowledge on her behalf.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a mother with a glimmering of
+the truth, seeking passionately for knowledge
+from the one person she had a right to turn
+to for this knowledge, and she was put off with
+lies, encouraged again to bear the cost of a
+hopelessly doomed birth; to risk the agonies
+of child-birth, to bring into the world a creature
+who for a short spell would be tormented and
+then would cost her a coffin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By refusing his scientific advice, that doctor
+in reality sent that woman, whose desire to know
+was stirred, to the gossip of the slum alley and
+the street corner. There she would get a
+blurred and inaccurate, if not actually harmful,
+idea of what he should have been able to tell
+her in a clean, simple language based on scientific
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>When this is put down on paper, I feel as
+though it would be ridiculous to begin to point
+out the monstrous cruelty and the monstrous
+folly of such an action as that doctor’s. Yet
+such action was not isolated, it did not depend
+on one man’s warped conceptions of loyalty to
+another unknown man, “the husband.” Since
+the war a public realization of the racial destructiveness
+of such diseases has been increased
+and the woman and her husband would to-day
+be more likely to receive medical treatment.</p>
+
+<p>But even to-day if a mother is truly told
+that there is “something wrong with her
+man,” would she also certainly be told how in
+wise and healthy fashion she can herself supplement
+what his criminal negligence neglected?
+If a husband is careless and callous a woman
+must save herself and the community from
+the waste and the misery of irretrievably doomed
+births.</p>
+
+<p>She will indeed be an exceptionally lucky
+woman if she to-day finds in public hos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>pitals
+doctors to whom she could turn for knowledge
+how <em>best</em> to control conception, though
+such knowledge is not only essential to her
+private well-being, but essential to her in the
+fulfilment of her duties as a citizen.</p>
+
+<p>This little incident is but one illustration
+of many aspects of the subject. It is not only
+<em>disease</em> which necessitates restraint on parenthood.
+No healthy woman can bear a long series of
+infants in rapid succession without loss both
+to them and to herself. This is discussed in
+my <cite>Wise Parenthood</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who thinks will see clearly that no
+civilized country, not even the richest in the
+world, can afford babies’ coffins. Though they
+are smaller than grown-up people’s they are
+more costly, for they are waste and nothing
+but waste. A grown-up individual, man or
+woman, has, we hope at any rate, given some
+return to the community in work or in ideas
+for all that his life has cost. But the infant’s
+death is sheer unmitigated waste.</p>
+
+<p>If all the mothers who realize this and who
+feel their need for the best help that science
+can give them, would insist and persist in their
+enquiries for a knowledge of the most reliable
+results of modern science, they would in the
+end succeed in getting them. There is enough
+knowledge now in the world for the race to
+transform itself in a couple of generations.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX<br />
+
+The Creation of a New and
+Irradiated Race</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, Love! could thou and I with fate conspire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would not we shatter it to bits&mdash;and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remould it nearer to the Heart’s desire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="sig">
+<span class="smcap">Omar Khayyam.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>On parents’ love for the helpless child
+depends the existence of our race.
+Human parenthood necessitates not only
+the desire for offspring, but the willing care
+of them during the long years while they are
+helpless and dependent. Were this desire and
+willingness not deeply implanted in us our race
+would become extinct, as in some strange way,
+the higher type of ancient Greeks vanished from
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Not only throughout the lower creatures do
+we find the responsibilities of parenthood increasing
+as we go up the scale towards the
+higher, but, even in the various grades of highly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+civilized man, the responsibility for the children
+is ever greater in proportion with the general
+culture and position of the parents.</p>
+
+<p>Not many years ago the labourer’s child
+could be set to work early and could very shortly
+earn his keep; while at the same time the
+young gentleman was an expense and care to
+his father and mother until he had passed through
+the University of Oxford or Cambridge, and
+amongst some even until he had made his “finishing”
+world tour. The trend of legislation has
+continuously extended the age of irresponsible
+youth in the lower and lower middle classes,
+until it now approaches that of the middle and
+upper class youth. A stride in this direction
+was taken by the last Education Act, which has
+made education compulsory throughout the whole
+country to an age which is nearly university
+age.</p>
+
+<p>I need not labour the resulting effect of the
+ever increasing prolongation of youth. It is
+not only apparent but has received sufficient
+treatment from the hands of various authors
+and thinkers.</p>
+
+<p>Its corollary, however, has still not received
+that clear and direct thought which its significance
+demands. Parenthood under the present
+<i>régime</i>, is not only an increasing responsibility
+and expense, it has become so great a strain
+upon the resources of those who have for them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>selves
+and their children a high standard of
+living that it is tending to become a rare privilege
+for some who would otherwise gladly propagate
+large families.</p>
+
+<p>As Dean Inge reminded us (<cite>Outspoken Essays</cite>,
+1919), there was a stage in the high civilization
+of Greece when slaves were only allowed to rear
+a child as a reward for their good behaviour.
+I find a curious parallel to this in the treatment
+of a section of our society by our present
+community.</p>
+
+<p>Crushed by the burden of taxation which
+they have not the resources to meet and to
+provide for children also: crushed by the
+national cost of the too numerous children of
+those who do not contribute to the public funds
+by taxation, yet who recklessly bring forth
+from an inferior stock individuals who are not
+self-supporting, the middle and superior artisan
+classes have, without perceiving it, come almost
+to take the position of that ancient slave population.
+It is only as a reward for their thrift
+and foresight, for their care and self-denial
+that they find themselves able (that is allowed
+by financial circumstances) to have one or perhaps
+two children. Hence by a strange parallel
+working of divers forces, the best, the thriftiest,
+the most serious-minded, the most desiring of
+parenthood are to-day those who are forced by
+circumstances into the position of the ancient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+slave and allowed to rear but one or two children
+as a result perhaps of a lifetime of valuable service
+and of loving union with a wife well fitted
+to bear more offspring. While on the other
+hand, society allows the diseased, the racially
+negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the feeble-minded,
+the very lowest and worst members
+of the community, to produce innumerable tens
+of thousands of stunted, warped, and inferior
+infants. If they live, a large proportion of these
+are doomed from their very physical inheritance
+to be at the best but partly self-supporting,
+and thus to drain the resources of those
+classes above them which have a sense of responsibility.
+The better classes, freed from the
+cost of the institutions, hospitals, prisons and
+so on, principally filled by the inferior stock,
+would be able to afford to enlarge their own
+families, and at the same time not only to save
+misery but to multiply a hundredfold the contribution
+in human life-value to the riches of
+the State.</p>
+
+<p>The immensity of the power of parenthood,
+both on the personal lives which it brings into
+existence, and on the community of which
+each individual is to form a part, is not yet perceived
+by our Statesmen in its true perspective.</p>
+
+<p>The power of parenthood ought no longer
+to be exercised by <em>all</em>, however inferior, as an
+“individual right.” It is profoundly a duty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+and a privilege, and it is essentially the concern
+of the whole community. It should be the
+policy of the community to encourage in every
+way the parenthood of those whose circumstances
+and conditions are such that there is a
+reasonable anticipation that they will give rise
+to healthy, well-endowed future citizens. It
+should be the policy of the community to discourage
+from parenthood all whose circumstances
+are such as would make probable the introduction
+of weakened, diseased or debased future
+citizens. It is the urgent duty of the community
+to make parenthood impossible for those whose
+mental and physical conditions are such that there
+is well-nigh a certainty that their offspring must
+be physically and mentally tainted, if not utterly
+permeated by disease. That the community
+should allow syphilitic parents to bring forth
+a sequence of blind syphilitic infants is a state
+of affairs so monstrous that it would be hardly
+credible were it not a fact.</p>
+
+<p>Parenthood, with the divine gift of love in
+its power, with the glorious potentialities of
+handing on a radiant, wholesome, beautiful
+youth should be a sacred and preserved gift,
+a privilege only to be exercised by those who
+rationally comprehend the counter-balancing
+duties. But so long as parenthood is kept
+outside the realm of rational thought and reasoned
+action, so long will we as a race slide at an ever-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>increasing
+speed towards the utter deterioration
+of our stock through the reckless increase of
+the debased, which is necessarily counter-balanced
+by the unnatural limiting of the families
+of the more educated and responsible, whose
+sense of duty to the unborn forbids them to
+bring into the world children whom they cannot
+educate and environ at least as well as they
+themselves were reared.</p>
+
+<p>In earlier generations the child was taught
+to speak of its parents in a respectful and grateful
+tone as the “august authors of its being,” but
+this right and proper instruction in reverence
+was coupled with an arbitrary disposal of the
+child, and a certain harshness in its training
+against which the later generations have revolted.
+As is usual the reformers have deviated from
+rectitude in the opposite direction, so that to-day
+to find children with deep respect for their
+parents is uncommon. Reverence is being
+exacted by some rather from the parent towards
+the child as a fresh, new and unspoilt being.
+This too often results in spoiling the child, which
+is an equally foolish and hampering proceeding.
+The child should be taught from its earliest days
+profound respect, reverence and gratitude towards
+its parents, and in particular towards its
+mother, for of her very life she gave it the
+incomparable gift of life. True parents give
+the child the best and freshest and most beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+impulses of their lives, and, at the cost of bodily
+anguish the mother bears it, and its parents
+for long years nurture it, sacrificing many enjoyments
+which they might have but for the cost
+and care of rearing it. This should be realized
+by the child, who then cannot but feel gratitude
+to and reverence for the authors of its being.</p>
+
+<p>The sheer beauty of the world, were there no
+other gain from living, is so great that the gift
+of eyes and a mind to perceive it should place
+the recipient of that gift for ever in a reverential
+debt towards the pair who gave.</p>
+
+<p>But the value of the beauty of life, and a just
+appreciation of the immense gift which parenthood
+confers cannot be realized by all. To-day
+alas, millions are born into circumstances so
+wretched that life can scarcely involve a perception
+of beauty, or a probability of moral
+action and social service. Also many myriads
+of children are born of parents to whom they
+can feel that they owe nothing, because they
+know or inwardly perceive that they were not
+desired, that they were not profoundly and
+nobly loved throughout their coming, that they
+were hurled into this existence through accident,
+self-indulgence or stupidity. Yet parenthood
+which grants life even on these terms is a
+wonderful power, a cruel and relentless force
+perverted from its divine possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>Youth tends ever to right itself if it but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+escape the taint of the profound racial diseases,
+and the gift of a well-conditioned body is the
+creation of an incomparable set of co-ordinated
+powers in a world in which the potentialities
+for the use of those powers is magical.</p>
+
+<p>Innumerable are the efforts at present being
+made by countless different societies, official
+bodies and individual reformers to diminish the
+ever increasing ill-health and deterioration of
+our race, but their efforts are a fight on the
+losing side unless the fundamental and hitherto
+uncontrollable factors which make for health
+are there.</p>
+
+<p>Doctors may cure every disease known to
+humanity, but while they are so doing, fresh
+diseases, further modifications of destructive
+germs, may spring into existence, the possibility
+of which has recently been demonstrated by
+French scientists who have experimented on
+the rapid changes which may be induced in
+“germs.”</p>
+
+<p>Prisons and reformatories, municipal milk,
+the feeding of school children, improvement
+in housing, reform of our marriage laws, schools
+for mothers, even schools for fathers, garden
+cities&mdash;not all these useful and necessary things
+together and many more added to them will
+ever touch the really profound sources of our
+race, will ever cause freedom from degeneracy
+and ill-health, will ever create that fine, glorious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+and beautiful race of men and women which
+hovers in the dreams of our reformers. Is then
+this dream out of reach and impossible; are
+then all our efforts wasted? No, the dream
+is not impossible of fulfilment; but, at present,
+our efforts are almost entirely wasted because
+<em>they are built upon the shifting sand and not upon
+the steady rock</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The reform, <em>the one central reform</em>, which
+will make all the others of avail and make their
+work successful <em>is the endowing of motherhood,
+not with money but with the knowledge of her own
+power</em>.</p>
+
+<p><em>For the power of a mother, consciously exerted
+in the voluntary procreation and joyous bearing of
+her children is the greatest power in the world.</em>
+It is through its conscious and deliberate exercise,
+and through that alone, that the race may step
+from its present entanglements on to a higher
+plane, where bodies will be not only a delight
+to their possessors, but efficient tools in the
+service of the souls which temporarily inhabit
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I maintain that this wonderful rejuvenescence
+and reform of the race need not be a dim and
+distant dream of the future. It is hovering so
+close at hand that it is actually within reach of
+those who to-day are in their young maturity;
+we, at present in the flesh may link hands with
+grandchildren belonging to a generation so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+wonderful, so endowed, and so improved out of
+recognition that the miseries and the depravity
+of human nature, to-day so wide-spread, may
+appear like a black and hideous memory of the
+past, as incredible to them as the habits of
+cannibals are to us.</p>
+
+<p>An ideal too distant, too remote, may interest
+the dreamer and the reformer possibly, but it
+cannot inspire a whole nation. An ideal within
+the range of possibility, that each one of us
+who lives a full lifetime may actually perceive,
+such an ideal can spur and fire the imagination,
+not only of our own nation, but of the world.
+It is my prayer that I may present such a racial
+ideal, not only to my own people but to humanity.
+It is my prayer that I may live to see in the generation
+of my grandchildren a humanity from which
+almost all the most blackening and distressing
+elements have been eliminated, and in which
+the vernal bodily beauty and unsullied spiritual
+power of those then growing up will surpass
+anything that we know to-day except among
+the rare and gifted few. This is not a wild
+dream; it is a real potentiality almost within
+reach. The materialization of this vital racial
+vision is in the hands of the mothers for the
+next twenty or thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>If every woman will but consciously and deliberately
+exercise the powers of her motherhood
+after learning of those powers; if she bear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+only those children which she and her mate
+ardently desire; if she refuse to bear any but
+these, and if she so space these children that
+she herself rests and recovers vitality between
+their births, and during their coming she lives in
+such a way as I have indicated in the preceding
+chapters, and if at the same time the deadly
+and horrible scourges of the venereal diseases
+and the multitude of ramifications of racial
+baseness are eliminated <em>as they can be</em>, then with
+a comparatively small percentage of accidents
+and unforeseeable errors, the quality of those
+born will enormously improve, and by a second
+generation all should be already far on the
+highway to new and wonderful powers, which
+are to-day almost unsuspected.</p>
+
+<p>What are the greatest dangers which jeopardize
+the materialization of this glorious dream
+of a human stock represented only by well-formed,
+desired, well-endowed beautiful men
+and women? Two main dangers are in the
+way of its consummation; the first is ignorance.
+It is difficult to reach the untutored mind,
+to teach a public hardened and deadened to
+callousness and the lack of dreams of their
+own; even though if one could but reach them
+it would be possible to make them understand.</p>
+
+<p>A second and almost greater danger is not
+a simple ignorance, but the inborn incapacity
+which lies in the vast and ever increasing stock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+of degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced
+who are now in our midst and who devastate
+social customs. These populate most rapidly,
+these tend proportionately to increase, and these
+are like the parasite upon the healthy tree sapping
+its vitality. These produce less than they
+consume and are able only to flourish and reproduce
+so long as the healthier produce food
+for them; but by ever weakening the human
+stock, in the end they will succumb with the
+fine structure which they have destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>There appear then two obstacles which might
+block the materialization of my racial vision;
+on the one hand the ignorance of those who
+have latent powers. This only needs to be
+stirred by knowledge and the inspiration of
+an ideal, to become potent. This obstacle is
+not unsurmountable. If one but speaks in
+sufficiently burning words, if one but writes sufficiently
+contagiously, the ideas must spread with
+ever increasing acceleration. Ignorance must
+be vanquished by winged knowledge. I hold
+it to be the duty of the dreamer of great dreams
+not only to express them in such a way that
+cognate souls may also perceive them. It is
+the duty of a seer to embody his message in
+such a form that its beauty is apparent and the
+vision can be seen by all the people. The infectiousness
+of disease, the contagion of destructive
+and horrible bacterial germs have be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>come
+a commonplace in our social consciousness,
+and we have forgotten, and our artists have in
+recent years tended ever more and more to
+forget that the highest form of art should also
+be infectious. Goodness, beauty and prophetic
+vision have as strong a contagious quality as
+disease if they are embodied in a form rendered
+vital by the mating of truth and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>To overcome mere ignorance in others is,
+therefore, by no means a hopeless task, and it
+is the valiant work of the artist-prophet. Youth
+is the time to catch the contagion of goodness.
+To youth I appeal.</p>
+
+<p>The other obstacle presents a deeper and more
+difficult task. It must deal with the terrible
+debasing power of the inferior, the depraved
+and feeble-minded, to whom reason means
+nothing and can mean nothing, who are thriftless,
+unmanageable and appallingly prolific. Yet
+if the good in our race is not to be swamped
+and destroyed by the debased as the fine tree
+by the parasite, this prolific depravity must be
+curbed. How shall this be done? A very few
+quite simple Acts of Parliament could deal with it.</p>
+
+<p>Three short and concise Bills would be sufficient
+to afford the most urgent social service
+for the preservation of our race. They should
+be simply worded and based on possibilities well
+within the grasp of modern science.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of sterilization has not yet been very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+generally understood or accepted, although it is
+an idea which our civilization urgently needs
+to assimilate. I think that a large part of
+the objections to it, often made passionately
+and eloquently by those from whom one would
+otherwise have expected a more intelligent
+attitude, is due to complete ignorance of the
+facts. Even otherwise instructed persons confuse
+sterilization with castration. The arguments
+which to-day in a chance discussion of
+the subject are always brought forward against
+sterilization have been, in my experience, only
+those which apply to castration. To castrate
+any male is, of course, not only to deprive him
+of his manhood and thus to injure his personal
+consciousness, but to remove bodily organs,
+the loss of which adversely affects his mentality
+and which will also affect the internal secretions
+which have a profound influence on his whole
+organization. I fully endorse the views of
+the opponents of this process.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, neither necessary to castrate
+nor is it suggested by those who, like myself,
+would like to see the sterilization of those
+totally unfit for parenthood made an immediate
+possibility, indeed made compulsory. As Dr.
+Havelock Ellis stated in an article in the
+<cite>Eugenics Review</cite>, Vol. I, No. 3, October 1909,
+pp. 203-206, sterilization under proper conditions
+is a very different and much simpler matter and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+one which has no deleterious and far reaching
+effects on the whole system. The operation is
+trivial, scarcely painful, and does not debar the
+subject from experiencing all his normal reaction
+in ordinary union; it only prevents the procreation
+of children.</p>
+
+<p>It has been found in some States of America,
+and as I know from private correspondents in
+this country, there are men who would welcome
+the relief from the ever present anxiety of potential
+parenthood which they know full well would
+be ruinous to the future generation.</p>
+
+<p>There is also the possibility of sterilization
+by the direct action of “X” rays. At present
+sterility is known as an unfortunate danger to
+those engaged in scientific research with radium,
+but it might, under control, be wisely used as
+a painless method of sterilization. This may
+prove of particular value for women in whom
+the operation corresponding to the severance of
+the ducts of the man is more serious. It appears
+however, not always to be permanent in its effect.
+In some circumstances this may be an advantage,
+in others a disadvantage.</p>
+
+<p>With reference to the sterilizing effect of
+“X”-rays, the following quotation from F. H.
+Marshall, <cite>The Physiology of Reproduction</cite>, 1910,
+is <span class="lock">pertinent:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>A more special cause of sterility in men is one which operates
+in the case of workers with radium or the Röntgen rays. Several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+years ago Albers-Schönberg noticed that the X-rays induced
+sterility in guinea pigs and rabbits, but without interfering
+with the sexual potency. These observations have been confirmed
+by other investigators, who have shown, further, that
+the azoöspermia is due to the degeneration of the cells lining
+the seminal canals. In men it has been proved that mere
+presence in an X-ray atmosphere incidental to radiography
+sooner or later causes a condition of complete sterility, but
+without any apparent diminution of sexual potency. As
+Gordon observes, for those working in an X-ray atmosphere
+adequate protection for all parts of the body not directly
+exposed for examination or treatment is indispensable, but,
+on the other hand, the X-rays afford a convenient, painless
+and harmless method of inducing sterility, in cases in which
+it is desirable to effect this result.</p></div>
+
+<p>When Bills are passed to ensure the sterility
+of the hopelessly rotten and racially diseased,
+and to provide for the education of the child-bearing
+woman so that she spaces her children
+healthily, our race will rapidly quell the stream
+of depraved, hopeless and wretched lives
+which are at present ever increasing in proportion
+in our midst. Before this stream at
+present the thoughtful shrink but do nothing.
+Such action as will be possible when these bills
+are passed will not only increase the relative
+<em>proportion</em> of the sound and healthy among us
+who may consciously contribute to the higher
+and more beautiful forms of the human race,
+but by the elimination of wasteful lives which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+are to-day seldom self-supporting, and which
+are so largely the cause of the cost and outlay
+of public money in their institutional treatment
+and their partial relief, will check an increasing
+drain on our national resources. The setting
+free of this public money would make it possible
+for those now too heavily taxed to reproduce
+their own and more valuable kinds.</p>
+
+<p>The miserable, the degenerate, the utterly
+wretched in body and mind, who when reproducing
+multiply the misery and evil of the world,
+would be the first to be thankful for the escape
+such legislation would offer from the wretchedness
+entailed not only on their offspring but
+on themselves. The Labour Party, all Progressives,
+and all Conservatives who desire to
+conserve the good can unite to support measures
+so directly calculated to improve the physical
+condition, the mental happiness and the general
+well-being of the human race.</p>
+
+<p>Even to-day almost all the thriftiest and better
+of the working class, and the artisan class in
+particular, are already in the ranks of those
+who are sponged upon, and to some extent
+taxed, for the upkeep of the incompetent, and
+it is just from among the best artisan and from
+the middle class that the most serious minded
+parents and those who recognize their racial
+responsibilities are principally to be found.
+There is throughout the whole Labour move<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>ment,
+as throughout the less vocal but deeper
+feeling of the middle class, a passionate desire
+to eliminate the misery and human degradation
+which on every hand to-day saddens the tender
+conscience. The limiting of their own families
+to meet the pressure of circumstances will never
+achieve their desires. The best to-day are
+making less and less headway, and the inferior
+are increasing more and more in proportion
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>Directly, however, the need for such legislation
+as I have outlined above is realized, and such
+legislation is passed, then the tide will be turned.
+Then, at last, we shall begin to see the elimination
+of the horror and degradation of humanity,
+which at present is apparently so hopeless
+and permanent a blot upon the world. And
+then, and then at once, will the positive effects
+of the conscious working of love and beauty
+and desired motherhood begin to take effect.
+The evolution of humanity will take a leap
+forward when we have around us only fine
+and beautiful young people, all of whom have
+been conceived, carried and born in true homes
+by conscious, powerful and voluntary mothers.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the prison reformers, psycho-analysts,
+doctors, teachers and reformers of all
+sorts will be going on with their reforms, and
+will be claiming this and that wonderful improvement
+in the school children, and they will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+probably never realize that it will not be their
+reforms which have worked these apparent
+miracles; it will be the change in the attitude
+of the mother, the return to the position of
+power of the mother, her voluntary motherhood,
+the conscious and deliberate creation by the
+mother and her mate of the fine and splendid
+race which to-day, as God’s prophet, I see in
+a vision and which might so speedily be
+materialized on earth.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>APPENDICES</h2>
+
+
+<p class="p2">A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">B. ON BIRTH.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING DATE
+OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span><br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="break">APPENDIX A<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Physical Signs of Coming Motherhood</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Sometimes a woman is doubtful whether or not she is
+about to become a mother, and may be too shy to ask those
+with whom she is associated. She should, if it is possible,
+seek the advice of a highly qualified midwife or medical practitioner,
+but this is not always possible, and it may be useful
+for her to know the following <span class="lock">signs:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>The first and most widely recognized indication that conception
+has taken place is “missing a period” or the cessation
+of the menstrual flow, while, at the same time, there is no
+ill-health. A woman may even feel unusually bright and
+well.</p>
+
+<p>There is generally an increase in the size of the breast,
+followed as the months progress by a very noticeable increase
+in the size and bright blue colour of the veins round the
+breast, and also a darkening in colour and a changing from
+pink to brownish tint of the area round the centre of the breast.</p>
+
+<p>After the third month, there is visible a steadily increasing
+enlargement of the lower part of the body, but, as this
+also happens with some forms of illness, this alone and without
+the other signs is not proof that motherhood has commenced.</p>
+
+<p>“Quickening” or the movements of the child, are a much
+better indication of motherhood, and these are generally to
+be perceived about the twentieth week, or roughly half-way
+through the whole period of prenatal life; but see further
+the remarks in Chapter XIII, p. <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The perception of the child’s heart beats is absolute proof
+of coming motherhood. These may be perceived after the
+fourth or fifth month quite readily by a nurse or other
+observer, though the mother herself can but seldom perceive
+them.</p>
+
+<p>“Morning Sickness,” which is so often experienced, and
+in most books for the “expectant mother” is quoted as one
+of the first signs of pregnancy, <em>should never occur at all</em>&mdash;see
+Chapter <a href="#Page_93">XI</a>&mdash;although unfortunately it is true that it does
+frequently occur in women who are bearing children under
+present conditions.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="break">APPENDIX B<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">On Birth</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The usual agonies of child birth vary greatly in extent
+according to the structure of the woman. But, as was shown
+in Chapter <a href="#Page_9">II</a>, the tendency already is present, and probably
+will increase, for this to be an almost intolerable strain upon
+the woman. Tardily indeed have efforts to relieve her agonies
+in child birth been made; Queen Victoria took a grave and
+adventurous step when she bore one of her children under
+chloroform. Chloroform, however, only deadens consciousness
+at a comparatively late stage in child birth, and its use through
+the many long hours, even perhaps sometimes days of agony
+which precede the later stages is not often possible. It is,
+therefore, for some types of women a very insufficient narcotic.</p>
+
+<p>Natural “painless Child Birth” is, of course, the ideal,
+and is claimed to be the result of the “fruit and rice diet,”
+see <cite>Tokology</cite> by Dr. Alice Stockham, but although this greatly
+reduces the pain for many, and undoubtedly makes the months
+of pregnancy easier, it cannot make birth anything but a torture
+if the proportion of the child’s head to the bony arch is above
+a given limit. The “Christian Science” claim for not only
+painless but bloodless birth has been reported to me, but never
+at first hand, and I have not yet had the first-hand statements
+of women who are said to have experienced it.</p>
+
+<p>“Twilight Sleep,” a comparatively recent discovery, has
+been much advocated, much praised and much blamed. There
+may be types of women who find it advantageous, but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+fact that it necessitates going to a nursing home, away from
+home, is very much against its use under ideal circumstances.
+For those who have no home, or a sordid and overcrowded
+one, a nursing home may be a place of refuge. “Twilight
+Sleep” (scopolamine-morphine) is, however, for the more
+sensitive type of woman, an extremely unreliable drug, which
+may frequently take no narcotic effect upon the patient, who
+suffers added agony as the result of relying upon it, and it may
+be very dangerous for the child.</p>
+
+<p>There is also the method of birth through the soft part of
+the body, avoiding the birth of the child through the bony
+structure altogether. This operation is described as Cesarean
+section, and involves incision both through the abdominal
+walls and through the walls of the womb. For some women
+with very small bones Cesarean section is necessary if they are
+to produce living children. Even for women who, by paying
+the price of agony, can produce children by normal birth,
+this method may be found very advantageous. I see a possibility
+of its widely extended future use. In hundreds, perhaps
+thousands of years hence when the child’s head will be proportionately
+even larger in comparison with the mother’s bones
+than it is to-day, it may indeed be the only method which
+will stand between the higher human races and their total
+extinction.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain amount of rather gossipy opinion that
+women who are spared the full torture of child birth do not
+have equally passionate love for the child. This, however,
+is nonsense. Love depends far more on the mother’s desire
+for parenthood at the time of the child’s conception and her
+feelings towards it all through the months of waiting than on
+the hours of birth, although the appealing weakness and
+fascination of a baby may win a deeper love than the mother-to-be
+expected to feel for her child.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="break">APPENDIX C<br />
+
+
+<span class="smcap">Suggestions for Calculating the Date of Anticipated
+Birth</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The leading authority in the <cite>Manual of Human Embryology</cite>,
+edited by Franz Keibel and Franklin P. Mall in two volumes,
+London, 1910, <span class="lock">says:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“In ancient times it was generally believed that the
+duration of pregnancy in man, unlike that in lower animals,
+was of very uncertain length; and it was not until the
+seventeenth century that it was more accurately fixed,
+by Fidele of Palermo, at forty weeks, counting from the
+last menstrual period. In the next century Haller found
+that if pregnancy is reckoned from the time of a fruitful
+copulation it is usually thirty-nine weeks, and rarely forty
+weeks in duration. In general these results are fully
+confirmed by the thousands of careful data collected
+during the nineteenth century.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“However, from thousands of records it is found
+that the mean duration of a pregnancy varies in first and
+second pregnancies, is more protracted in healthy women,
+in married women, in winter, and in the upper classes.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“From these figures it is seen that most pregnancies
+take place during the first week after menstruation, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+that the duration of pregnancy is longer if copulation
+takes place towards the end of the intermenstrual period.
+And this is explained if we assume that in the first week,
+especially the first few days after the cessation of menstruation,
+the ovum is in the upper end of the tube awaiting
+the sperm and that conception immediately follows
+copulation. When the fruitful copulation takes place in
+the latter two weeks of the month the opposite is usually
+the case; the sperm wanders to the ovary and there
+awaits the ovum; and, therefore, on an average, pregnancy
+is prolonged in this group of cases, when determined from
+the time of copulation.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“In determining the age of human embryos it is
+probably more nearly correct to count from the <em>end</em> of
+the last period, for all evidence points to that time as
+the most probable at which pregnancy takes place.”</p></div>
+
+<p>On the whole it is generally found that 280 days (<i>i.e.</i>, 40
+weeks) can be reckoned as the average period during which
+the child develops internally if the date is counted from the
+first day of the last menstrual period and 269 days if estimated
+from the date of actual union.</p>
+
+<p>Leuckart tabulated results from a large number of births
+which took place within the first ten months of marriage, and
+found that there was a maximum number of births on the
+275th day, then a decrease and a second maximum on the
+293rd day. Nevertheless, in spite of careful reckoning, there
+are, as will be recognized, many sources of error, and medical
+men and nurses are often wisely cautious of giving any exact
+date for an anticipated birth; sometimes too cautious even
+to suggest the week within which the birth will take place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+I have known a good many mothers, however, who were much
+more accurately certain about this point than their attendants,
+and have found that the birth took place exactly on the day
+they anticipated. As an illustration of this, I give the answer
+from one of my correspondents, both of whose children were
+born on the exact day she anticipated. I asked her how she
+estimated these periods, and she <span class="lock">said:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“I simply took old Dr. Chevasse’s rule which he gives
+in <cite>Advice to a Wife</cite>; you know how he puts the date
+of conception and opposite it the probable date of birth.
+I went by the first union after the last period. It so
+happened that my husband was seedy and there was no
+union for a fortnight after the end of the period. I took
+that first union as the date of conception and looking up
+the date in Chevasse and the corresponding date of birth
+opposite, I found it to be August 20th, and sure enough
+on August 20th he was born. With the second boy,
+the union took place the day after the last period, and
+I took that as the starting date and against it I found
+January 21st and on January 21st he arrived in spite of the
+doctors insisting in each case that it would be three weeks
+earlier. What I do is, I always make a mark in my
+diary against the date of first union after every period.
+Then when I had missed a period and so knew that there
+was probably conception, I could at once tell the probable
+date.”</p></div>
+
+<p>The table Chevasse quoted from Galabin is as <span class="lock">follows&mdash;</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table class="tdl" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>From</td><td>Jan. 1st to Oct. 1st = 273 (274)</td><td>days,</td><td>add</td><td>5 (4)</td><td>days</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Feb. 1st to Nov. 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Mar. 1st to Dec. 1st = 275</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>3</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Apl. 1st to Jan. 1st = 275</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>3</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>May 1st to Feb. 1st = 276</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>2</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>June 1st to Mar. 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>July 1st to Apl. 1st = 274 (275)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>4 (3)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Aug. 1st to May 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Sep. 1st to June 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Oct. 1st to July 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Nov. 1st to Aug. 1st = 273 (274)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>5 (4)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center">„</td><td>Dec. 1st to Sep. 1st = 274 (275)</td><td class="center">„</td><td class="center">„</td><td>4 (3)</td><td class="center">„</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p class="p4 center">
+<i>Printed in Great Britain by</i><br />
+UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Charles Richet, “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">De la Variation mensuelle de la
+Natalité</span>,” 1916, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Comptes rendus Acad. Sciences</span>, Paris, pp.
+141-149 and 161-166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> By this I mean the motherhood which carries and protects
+the developed young within the mother’s body, unlike that
+of the lower animals, such as fishes, which leave the eggs to
+their fate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In this, and in most of the generalisations found in this
+book, I am speaking of things as they are in Great Britain.
+While to a considerable extent the same is true of America
+and the Scandinavian countries, it must be remembered all
+through that I am speaking of the British, and primarily of
+our educated classes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> That is to say, repeating the history of our very early
+ancestors, where the female probably felt some resentment
+towards the male who had encompassed her maternity, and
+who most certainly would live apart from her and not in the
+ordinary contact of a united life.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This book has been reprinted in a modern expurgated
+and mutilated edition, which deprives the reader of the most
+valuable portions of the author’s work. I should advise
+readers to see one of the original early editions if they desire
+to read the book intended by the author for the public.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Balzac: <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Physiologie du Mariage</cite>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Charles Fourier, Leipzig, 1808.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The sow normally breeding once a year, artificially forced to
+breed two or three times a year. Its appearance is proverbial.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This has been reported to me by travellers and others, but
+I cannot get an authoritative scientific record for the fact.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> I refer the reader to that poignant book, <cite>Maternity, Letters
+from Working Women</cite>, collected by the Women’s Co-operative
+Guild. Bell, 1915.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> At the request of many readers this conversation was
+published in the <cite>Sunday Chronicle</cite>.</p></div>
+
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">Transcriber's Note</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following apparent errors have been corrected:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>p. 2 "hearts’ desire" changed to "hearts desire"</li>
+
+<li>p. 26 "undertsand" changed to "understand"</li>
+
+<li>p. 73 "incapacities is," changed to "incapacities, is"</li>
+
+<li>p. 124 "diappointments" changed to "diappointments"</li>
+
+<li>p. 130 "parent this" changed to "parent: this"</li>
+
+<li>p. 148 "agggravation" changed to "aggravation"</li>
+
+<li>p. 150 "ffower" changed to "flower"</li>
+
+<li>p. 154 "want to to" changed to "want to"</li>
+
+<li>p. 218 "ignorance" changed to "ignorance."</li>
+
+<li>p. 233 "Franz, Keibel" changed to "Franz Keibel"</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<p>The following possible errors have not been changed:</p>
+
+<ul><li>p. 4 millenium</li>
+
+<li>p. 34 co-incidently</li>
+
+<li>p. 132  August 24 1893</li>
+
+<li>p. 235 follows&mdash;</li></ul>
+
+
+
+<p>The following are used inconsistently in the text:</p>
+
+<ul><li>lifelong and life-long</li>
+
+<li>overstrained and over-strained</li>
+
+<li>prenatal and pre-natal</li>
+
+<li>shamefaced and shame-faced</li>
+
+<li>X-rays, “X” rays and “X”-rays</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Radiant Motherhood
+       A Book for Those Who are Creating the Future
+
+Author: Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2014 [EBook #45711]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RADIANT MOTHERHOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RADIANT MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+
+
+_BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part I. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. 12s. net.
+
+    The Cretaceous Flora, Part II. Illustrated. Published by the
+    Trustees of the British Museum. L1 1s. net.
+
+    Ancient Plants. Illustrated. Published by Blackie. 4s. 6d. net.
+
+    The Study of Plant Life. 2nd Edition. Illustrated. Published by
+    Blackie. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Married Love. 8th Edition. Published by Putnam. 6s. net.
+
+    Wise Parenthood. 6th Edition. Published by Putnam. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    A Letter to Working Mothers. Published by the Author. 6d. net.
+
+
+TRAVEL.
+
+    A Journal from Japan. Published by Blackie. 7s. 6d. net.
+
+
+LITERARY.
+
+    Man, Other Poems and a Preface. Published by Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    Conquest, a Three-Act Play. Published by French. 1s. net.
+
+    Gold in the Wood and The Race. Two Plays. Published by Fifield. 2s.
+    net.
+
+    With Prof J. Sakurai, Plays of old Japan, The No. Published by
+    Heinemann. 5s. net.
+
+
+    The author's vivid and imaginative sympathy has really enabled her,
+    in some degree, to communicate the incommunicable.
+
+        ATHENAEUM.
+
+
+
+
+  Radiant Motherhood
+
+  A Book for Those Who
+  are Creating the Future
+
+
+  By
+
+  Marie Carmichael Stopes
+
+  Doctor of Science, London; Doctor of Philosophy,
+  Munich; Fellow of University College, London;
+  Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
+  and the Linnean Society, London
+
+
+  LONDON
+  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, LTD.
+
+  TORONTO
+  THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+  _First published August 9, 1920_
+
+
+  _Copyright; translations and all other rights
+  reserved by the Author. Copyright in U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+_Dedicated to young husbands and all who are creating the future_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                       PAGE
+         PREFACE                                         ix
+ CHAPTER
+      I. THE LOVER'S DREAM                                1
+     II. CONCEIVED IN BEAUTY                              9
+    III. THE GATEWAY OF PAIN                             18
+     IV. THE YOUNG MOTHER-TO-BE:
+         HER AMAZEMENTS                                  32
+      V. HER DELIGHTS                                    39
+     VI. HER DISTRESSES                                  44
+    VII. THE YOUNG FATHER-TO-BE:
+         HIS AMAZEMENTS                                  52
+   VIII. HIS DELIGHTS                                    58
+     IX. HIS DISTRESSES                                  62
+      X. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT MOTHER   71
+     XI. PHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE EXPECTANT FATHER   93
+    XII. THE UNION OF THREE                              99
+   XIII. THE PROCESSION OF THE MONTHS                   113
+    XIV. PRENATAL INFLUENCE                             130
+     XV. EVOLVING TYPES OF WOMEN                        146
+    XVI. BIRTH AND BEAUTY                               161
+   XVII. BABY'S RIGHTS                                  171
+  XVIII. THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE HUMAN CHAIN            183
+    XIX. THE COST OF COFFINS                            201
+     XX. THE CREATION OF A NEW AND IRRADIATED RACE      208
+
+
+  APPENDICES
+
+  A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD                        229
+  B. ON BIRTH                                                   231
+  C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH  233
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This book is written for the same young people who inspired _Married
+Love_. Many of my readers have asked me to write such a book as this,
+and I sincerely hope that it will not disappoint them. Many, many
+people have contributed facts which have helped me to write it. The
+book, however, is pre-eminently the work of my baby son and his father,
+whose beautiful spirits have been, and will be, through all eternity
+united with me in a burning desire to bring light into dark places.
+
+        M. C. S.
+
+
+
+
+Radiant Motherhood
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Lover's Dream
+
+    So every spirit, as it is most pure,
+        And hath in it the more of heauenly light,
+    So it the fairer bodie doth procure
+        To habit in, and it more fairely dight,
+        With chearefull grace and amiable sight.
+    For of the soule the bodie forme doth take:
+    For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
+
+        SPENCER: _An Hymne in honour of Beautie_.
+
+
+Every lover desires a child. Those who imagine the contrary, and
+maintain that love is purely selfish, know only of the lesser types
+of love. The supreme love of true mates always carries with it the
+yearning to perpetuate the exquisite quality of its own being, and to
+record, through the glory of its mutual creation, other lives yet more
+beautiful and perfect.
+
+Existence being such a difficult compromise between our dreams and the
+material facts of the world, this desire may sometimes be thwarted by
+factors outside itself; may even be so suppressed as to be invisible in
+the conduct and unsuspected in the wishes of the lover. Yet the desire
+to link their lives with the future is deeply woven into the love of
+all sound and healthy people who love supremely.
+
+It is commonly said that most women marry for children, and not out of
+a personal love, and there is more truth in this saying than is good
+for the race. To-day, alas, many women cannot find the perfect and
+sensitive mate their hearts desire and they hope in _any_ marriage to
+get children which will mitigate the consequent loneliness of their
+lives. Sometimes they may, to some extent, succeed, but far less often
+than they imagine, for that strange and still but little understood
+force "heredity" steps in, and the son of the tolerated father may
+grow infinitely more like his physical father than he is like the dear
+delight his mother dreamed he might be.
+
+Few girls have not pictured in day dreams the joy of holding in their
+arms their own beautiful babies. No man of their acquaintance, however,
+may seem fine enough to be their father. Until she has been crushed
+by experience, or, unless she listens with absolute belief to the
+depressing information of her elders, each girl believes that her own
+intense desire for perfection will be the principal factor in creating
+the beautiful babies of her dreams. Often it seems as though this power
+were granted, for women sometimes bear lovely children by fathers in
+whom one may seek in vain for any bodily grace or charm.
+
+The century long working of economic laws based on physical force,
+the remnants of which still affect us, has resulted in man generally
+having the selective power and tending to choose for his wife the most
+beautiful or charming woman that his means allow; hence hitherto on
+the whole, the race has been bred from the better and more beautiful
+women. This has undoubtedly tended to keep the standard of physical
+form from sinking to the utter degradation which we see in the worst of
+the slums, and in institutions where live the feeble-minded offspring
+of inferior mothers who have wantonly borne children of fathers devoid
+of any realization of what they were doing.
+
+From these avenues of shame and misery, however, I must steer my line
+of thought, for this book is written pre-eminently for the young, happy
+and physically well-conditioned pair who mating beautifully on all the
+planes of their existence, are living in married love.
+
+Whether early in the days of their marriage or postponed for some
+months or more out of regard for his wife's body and beauty, the hour
+will come when the young husband yearning above her, sees in his wife's
+eyes the reflection of the future, and when their mutual longing
+springs up to initiate the chain of lives which shall repeat throughout
+the ages the bodily, mental and spiritual beauties of each other, which
+each holds so dear. Perhaps in lovers' talk and exquisite whispers they
+have spoken of this great deed on which they are embarking, and each
+has voiced that intense yearning which filled them to see another "with
+your eyes, your hair, your smile," living and radiant. The lovers dream
+that they will be repeated in others of their own creation, always
+young, running through the ages which culminate in the golden glories
+of the millenium.
+
+The dream is so wonderful, the thought that it pictures in the mind so
+full of vernal beauty, light and vigour that, were facts commensurate
+with it, its result should spring all ready formed from between the
+lips of those who breathed its possibilities like Minerva from the head
+of Jove.
+
+It seems incredible that such splendid dominant designs to fulfil God's
+purpose should be hindered, and made to bend and toil through the hard
+material facts of the molecular structure of the world, and that it
+is only many months afterwards that the first outward body is given
+to this dream, and that then it is in a form not strong and dancing
+in lightness and beauty but weak and helpless with many intensely
+physical necessities which for months and years will require the utmost
+fostering care or it will be destroyed by material effects, hostile
+and too strong for it. Yet such is the limitation of our powers of
+creation. And underneath the intense passion of love and all its rich
+dreams of beauty is the slow building, chemically molecule by molecule,
+biologically cell by cell, against obstacles the surmounting of which
+seems a superhuman feat.
+
+Lovers who are parents give to each other the supremest material gift
+in the world, a material embodiment of celestial dreams which itself
+has the further power of vital creation.
+
+In this and all my work, I speak to the normal, healthy and loving in
+an endeavour to help them to remain normal, healthy and loving, and
+thus to perfect their lives. So in this book I do not intend to deal
+with those whose marriages are mistaken ones, or with those who do
+not know true love. I write for those who having made a love match
+are passing together through the ensuing and surprising years, and
+incidentally doing one of the greatest pieces of work which human
+beings can do during their progress through this world, and that is
+creating the next generation.
+
+In nature, the consummation of the physical act of union between
+lovers generally results in the conception of a new life. We share this
+physical aspect of mating and the resulting parenthood with most of the
+woodland creatures. How far many of the lowlier lives are conscious of
+the future results of their mating unions is a problem in elementary
+psychology beyond the realm of present knowledge. But that parenthood
+is the natural result of their union is to-day known, one must suppose,
+by almost all young couples who wed. I am still uncertain how far the
+two are _conscious_ of this in the early days of their union, when
+every circumstance encourages that supreme self-centredness of happy
+youth. Much must depend on the age, and on the previous experience and
+education of the two; much also on their relative natures. A profoundly
+introspective and thoughtful man and woman are more liable than
+others to be speedily aware of the many interwoven strands of their
+joint lives, and to live consciously on several planes of existence
+simultaneously.
+
+The supreme act of physical union as I have shown in my book, _Married
+Love_, consists fundamentally of three essential and widely differing
+reactions, having effects in correspondingly different regions. There
+is (_a_) the intimately personal effect on the internal secretions and
+general vitality of the individual partaking of that sacrament; (_b_)
+there is the social effect of the union of the two in a mutual act in
+which they must so perfectly blend and harmonize; and (_c_) there is
+the racial result which may lead to the procreation of a new life.
+
+In the early days of the honeymoon, personal passion and the
+concentrated delight of each in the mate is probably more than
+sufficient in all its rich complexity to fill the consciousness of
+the two who are thus united in a life-long comradeship to form that
+highest unit, the pair. But as education and the conscious control of
+our lives grow, the young pair who are so blissfully self-centred as
+not to remember or not to be aware of the racial effects of their acts
+are probably decreasing in numbers. Among the best of those who marry
+to-day, the majority only enter upon parenthood or the possibility of
+parenthood when they feel justified in so doing. The young man who
+profoundly loves his wife and who considers the future benefit of
+their child, protects her from accidental conception or from becoming
+a mother at times when the strain upon her would be too great, or when
+he is unable to give her and the coming child the necessary care and
+support. That myriads of children are born without this consideration
+on the part of their parents applies to the commonalty of mankind, but
+not to the best.
+
+Often to-day the betrothed young couple will speak openly and
+beautifully of the children they hope to have, while others equally
+full of the creative dream feel it too tender a subject to put into
+words, and may marry without ever having given expression to the
+possibility that they will generate through their love yet other
+lovers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Conceived in Beauty
+
+    ... Here in close recess
+    With flowers, garlands and sweet smelling herbs,
+    Espoused Eve deck'd first her nuptial bed,
+    And heav'nly choirs the Hymenaean sung,
+    What day the genial angel to our sire
+    Brought her in naked beauty more adorn'd,
+    More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods
+    Endow'd with all their gifts....
+    ... Into their inmost bower
+    Handed they went; and, eased the putting off
+    Those troublesome disguises which we wear,
+    Straight side by side were laid; nor turn'd, I ween,
+    Adam from his fair spouse; nor Eve the rites
+    Mysterious of connubial love refused:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    These, lull'd by nightingales, embracing slept,
+    And on their naked limbs the flowery roof
+    Shower'd roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
+    Blest pair, and O! yet happiest if ye seek
+    No happier state, and know to know no more.
+
+    MILTON: _Paradise Lost_.
+
+
+In ancient Sanskrit, there is a work dealing minutely with love and
+with the different forms its expression takes in different types of
+people. This has been modified, added to and re-written by many later
+authors, and under various names works based on this are to be found in
+Sanskrit and translated into various Indian dialects.
+
+In these volumes much that is curious, and to Western nations, absurd,
+is to be found, but also several profound observations which appear
+to be based on truths generally ignored by us. One of the interesting
+themes of these very early writers is a recognition and a description
+of the characteristics of the best and most perfect type of woman, the
+"Padmini." In addition to describing fully her physical appearance and
+characteristics, it is observed that she being a child of light and
+not of darkness, prefers the supreme act of love to take place in the
+daylight rather than the dark.
+
+In this country, owing to our artificial, over-burdened and
+over-strained lives, the physical union of lovers is almost always
+confined to the night time. Crowded as we are in cities and suburban
+districts, solitude in Nature is almost impossible; for most, seclusion
+is only known in a closed room after dark. The Sanskrit writer of the
+sixth century, however, takes love more seriously than we do, and he
+describes how for the sacred union serious preparation of beauty should
+be made--a room or natural arbour decked with flowers; and for the
+supreme expression of love (that is the love between a pair each of
+the highest and most perfect type), this should take place in the light
+of day and not the darkness of the night. Even in our present degraded
+civilization there are some who do realize the sacredness and the value
+of the bodily embrace in the fresh beauty of nature and sunlight. There
+must be many beautiful children who were conceived from unions which
+took place under natural conditions of light and open air radiance. The
+most spontaneous time for conception is the summer when our air is mild
+and sweet enough for true love in Nature's way.
+
+In an empire where woodland or seaside solitude is not obtainable by
+lovers for this their most sacred function, the distribution of the
+population is gravely wrong. It will, however, probably for some time
+to come be difficult for those who desire such a profound return to
+natural rectitude, to obtain the necessary security of seclusion amid
+beautiful surroundings. Therefore, alas, it will in all probability
+long remain only possible to most lovers to ramble together in nature,
+and then later to follow the usual course of uniting within their room.
+
+We do not know enough about ourselves or the results of our actions,
+under our present conditions, to realize to what extent the hour of
+conception modifies the quality of the offspring. We only know that
+the child of lovers beautiful in mind and body, the child ardently
+desired by them, whose coming is prepared with every beauty which it is
+in their power to obtain, is often well worth all the outlay of love
+and thought. Certainly among those personally known to me who have
+followed the rather exceptional course I indicate, the children are
+remarkable for both physical beauty and exquisite vitality, balanced
+with sweetness and strength of mental and spiritual qualities.
+
+There is an old and in my opinion valuable view (although it has not
+been "scientifically proved") that the actual hour of conception, the
+condition of the parents at the moment when the germs fuse is one of
+vital consequences to the child-to-be. Scientific proof of this will
+be, of course, extraordinarily difficult to discover, but indirectly
+there do appear to be some actual data in favour of the converse,
+namely that temporary unhealthy states of the parents result in the
+conception of children so inferior as to be markedly and seriously
+anti-social. Forel (_Sexual Question_, 1908) says:--
+
+    The recent researches of Bezzola seem to prove that the old belief
+    in the bad quality of children conceived during drunkenness is
+    not without foundation. Relying on the Swiss census of 1900,
+    in which there figure nine thousand idiots ... this author has
+    proved that there are two acute annual maximum periods for the
+    conception of idiots (calculated from nine months before birth)
+    the periods of carnival and vintage, when the people drink most.
+    In the wine-growing districts, the maximum conception of idiots at
+    the time of vintage is enormous, while it is almost _nil_ at other
+    periods.
+
+It is, of course, not always possible to arrange the hour of the union
+which will lead to conception. And further even when the hour of the
+union is arranged, nature, to some extent, controls and may modify
+conditions before conception. Sometimes the fertilization of the egg
+cell by the sperm cell takes place in the hour of the bodily union of
+the lovers, sometimes this inner process is delayed by hours or days
+(see overleaf). Conception is possible in most women at almost any
+time during the years of potential motherhood, yet there do appear to
+be several factors which lead to the potential fertility of a woman
+varying very much from time to time. Some women, for instance, appear
+to be liable to conceive only for a certain number of days in each
+month, and these are in general the two or three days immediately
+following the monthly period and the day or two immediately before.
+With other women, however, unions on any day of the month may lead to
+conception, but this depends, possibly, not only on the woman herself
+but on the vitality and probable length of life of the sperm cells of
+her husband. This also varies very greatly in individuals. The longest
+time which the individual sperm has been observed to remain vital after
+entry into the woman is seventeen days (see Bossi, _N. Arch. d'Obstetr.
+Gynocol._, April 1891).
+
+Hence it will be realized that a union arranged to take place under
+ideal and perfect conditions, perhaps on a holiday into wild and
+inspiring solitudes, may result as desired in the entry of the sperm
+into the womb of the woman, and yet the actual fusion of the sperm and
+egg cell, and the consequent conception may not come to pass until some
+days later.
+
+Strange it is indeed in this world, in which so much scientific and
+laborious observation has been devoted to all sorts of irrelevant and
+trivial subjects, that knowledge of the actual processes of our own
+fertilization and conception and of the extent of the significance to
+the future generations of the mode and condition of the union of the
+parents are almost totally unknown to scientists or doctors, and are
+disregarded by the majority of the public.
+
+A recent memoir in the French Academy of Science[1] dealing with
+statistical figures (going back in France, at any rate, so far as 1853)
+proves that there does seem to be a definite seasonal influence on
+the power of conception. Taking the births for the whole year, it is
+found they are not equally divided throughout the months, but that a
+notable maximum of births is found in February and March for most of
+the countries in the northern hemisphere, the actual maximum of births
+being from the 15th February to the 15th March, and thus indicating
+that the maximum of conceptions took place between the 5th May and the
+5th June. Richet quotes Bertillon as having established the fact that
+this maximum of conceptions does not depend on the chance that brides
+like to be married in the spring, because an identical maximum is found
+in the illegitimate birthrate. Richet gives many tables of figures,
+and maintains that the maximum corresponds both in the town and in the
+country, among the rich and the poor, and among the married and the
+unmarried, and is, therefore, in his opinion, an actual physiological
+function:--
+
+[1] Charles Richet, "De la Variation mensuelle de la Natalite," 1916,
+Comptes rendus Acad. Sciences, Paris, pp. 141-149 and 161-166.
+
+    C'est que les conditions physiologiques de la maturation de l'ovule
+    et de sa fecondation ne sont pas egalement favorables dans toutes
+    les periodes de l'annee. Par suite d'une ancestrale predisposition,
+    au moment du printemps, chez la femme, comme chez la plupart des
+    animaux, mais moins nettement que chez eux, la maturation, la chute
+    et la fecondation de l'ovule se font dans des conditions meilleures
+    et plus assurees.
+
+The corresponding maximum for the southern hemisphere arises between
+August and October. This natural tendency to produce children
+according to the season is, to some extent, altered by the conscious
+and deliberate control of parenthood, which all the more highly
+civilized countries now find that their better citizens are exerting.
+
+This natural time for conception will, however, tend not to be thwarted
+by those who are consciously regulating their lives, because from
+almost every point of view, the summer is the best time in which to
+experience the joys of love. As the verdant spring is the best time for
+a baby to be born, the thoughtful mother-to-be will try, other things
+being equal, to arrange that its birth should take place then, both for
+her own sake and for that of the child. The weeks of recovery after the
+strain of the birth are more easily and happily spent lying in the warm
+sunshine of a spring or summer garden than in the chill of the winter
+months, and even the actual expense of the birth is reduced when it
+takes place in the warmth of the spring or early summer when fires and
+the labour they involve will be saved.
+
+The child too has warm air to surround it on its first introduction to
+the outer world after its long period of warmth and protection within
+its mother, and when in a month or two it is able to kick about on the
+grass, it benefits directly from the rays of the sun and also from the
+sun-warmed earth.
+
+Various notable men and women, and, in particular, the famous Dr. Trall
+of America, have held that the actual hour of conception is the one of
+fate, and that the moods, feelings and conditions of the parents in
+that hour work more vital magic then than they can do in any succeeding
+days or weeks. Instinctively, one would like to feel that this is so.
+Indeed it will take much to _disprove_ it, although it is a theme which
+it is at present impossible to prove, and it must remain always only a
+personal bias, until thousands of people who view marriage aright will
+consciously observe and record many things and contribute them to some
+thinker who will tabulate, correlate and understand them.
+
+Whether the hour of conception affects the child directly or not, the
+memory of an ardent and wonderful experience in which the pair of
+lovers consciously surround themselves with beautiful conditions, and
+deliberately place themselves through their love at the service of
+God and humanity in the creation of the next generation, must give a
+vitalizing and joyous memory to both throughout all their lives. This
+memory being especially connected with the dear child of that union
+must, therefore, have in this indirect way at any rate a positive
+racial value.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Gateway of Pain
+
+    As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and firs
+    The mother looks upon the newborn child,
+    Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
+    When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs'd.
+    Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
+    And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
+    Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
+    Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The price of every beauty in this world is in proportion to its
+quality, even although the payment of the price exacted may be long
+deferred or may be made in such an intricate and remote form that its
+connection with the result is overlooked.
+
+As the greatest thing which lovers can give each other is a child,
+and as none in the world are so great as lovers, the price exacted by
+Nature for the child of loving and sensitive people is correspondingly
+heavy.
+
+This statement may apparently conflict with the idea that the joy of
+bearing a child to the beloved is a woman's consummation of happiness;
+yet it does not conflict, because of the deeper truth that the
+supremest happiness is mysteriously intermingled with self-sacrifice.
+A young woman whose character is sufficiently beautiful and sensitive
+to know the highest joys of motherhood--the full delights of human
+existence and love--will also be sensitive to the varied pains which
+motherhood will bring. Indeed, in this respect, the poet's saying that
+"the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to
+be pricked by the thorn" is essentially true.
+
+The radiance of the highest form of motherhood is that of the
+transfigured saint, hallowed by suffering comprehended and endured,
+transmuted into a service beyond and above the lower desires of self.
+
+For long, indeed for the many millions of years during which she has
+shown a motherhood comparable with that of human beings,[2] Nature has
+essentially trapped and tricked the mother into her motherhood. All
+the woodland and jungle creatures, the deer or the tiger, the rabbit
+or the squirrel, grow up through their brief adolescence into a
+partial consciousness of delight in themselves and reach the phase of
+their development in which their own desires urge them to unite with
+each other. One can scarcely believe that they are conscious of the
+resulting parenthood which will become a physical fact at a later date,
+although the training of her cubs by a woodland mother undoubtedly
+does include handing on, through some speechless communication, of
+some actual instruction. A similar blind parenthood, but in addition
+_coerced_, has for many thousands of years been characteristic of a
+large portion of the human race. Even to-day motherhood is too often
+blind: the young girl delighting in herself and the fairness of her own
+body, conscious of the power she wields in social life as a beautiful
+and attractive creature whom older people pet and please and young men
+place upon a pedestal, is urged by this natural self-centred delight
+into accepting through flattery the enjoyment of herself by some chosen
+mate; and the later consequences of motherhood are then faced either in
+amazed astonishment or in open revolt.
+
+[2] By this I mean the motherhood which carries and protects the
+developed young within the mother's body, unlike that of the lower
+animals, such as fishes, which leave the eggs to their fate.
+
+Earlier civilizations often dealt with the excessive births resulting
+from blind or coerced parenthood by destroying the children as infants
+after birth. This was done directly, and often by her leading citizens,
+in Greece (one of the highest forms of civilization ever attained) and
+_still_ infanticide direct or indirect goes on among all the populous
+races of the world. Where the value placed on the mother's mental and
+physical suffering is low, one may still see motherhood, not as a fine,
+voluntary and glorious act of self-sacrifice from the highest possible
+motives of love and service directly to the beloved, and indirectly to
+the race, but as the exploitation of a trapped and helpless sacrifice.
+
+Mothers will say that their babies are their greatest joys; one may
+ask, therefore, how I can use the word "sacrifice" in connection with
+motherhood. The use of the word is just, and based on truths too
+generally concealed by those who know them, and far too generally
+unknown by those who ought to know them. Ignorance of their extent has
+made men callous, indifferent or ribald towards the profound sacrifices
+of motherhood.
+
+Few there be, however, who do not know of the agonizing torments of
+actual birth. The Bible is read aloud in churches, and in its wording
+there is some recognition of the existence of this agony, although
+based upon earlier and simpler civilizations in which the women were
+probably better cared for and better fitted for motherhood than the
+majority of women are to-day. Following biblical tradition, the memory
+of the agony of birth is generally portrayed as being wiped out by
+the supreme joy in the child which follows. To-day, however, this
+effacement of the anguish is by no means universal, and the abiding
+horror of the birth is so great that not a few women refuse to bear
+another child. Then men, who cannot even imagine the experience of
+child-bearing, denounce such a mother, rate her and hold her up to
+derision. How little do they realize that in her they may see Nature's
+working of the laws of evolution (see p. 24).
+
+The torturing agony of birth might so easily have been averted by
+Nature had the construction of our bodies differed but very slightly
+from those which we to-day possess in common with most of the higher
+animals. The human baby when the hour comes for it to sever its
+connection from its mother, and as an independent individual to venture
+into the open air of the world, has to make its way through the arched
+gateway of bone fixed and set by the mother's own requirements as a
+frame to her own structure. The encircling archway of bone through
+which the infant has to pass is but three or four inches in diameter.
+It would have been possible had our evolution taken a different
+turn for the infant to have made its exit through the soft wall of
+the mother's body instead of through this fixed and hardened circle
+of her bone. But for some causes too remote for us at present to
+discover this was not so, and the essential fact faces us to-day
+that every infant born naturally must be born through this circle of
+bone. Moreover if the infant is a well-developed and healthy one,
+as the ordinary baby of a healthy and beautiful young couple should
+naturally and rightly be, that infant's head is larger in diameter than
+the circle of bone through which it has to pass. Its tissues have,
+therefore, to be squeezed and pressed to mould their shape in order to
+allow its exit through the orifice, and this must be a slow process,
+and one which almost always entails great pressure and consequent agony
+to the mother. Dr. Mary Scharlieb says in _The Welfare of the Expectant
+Mother_:--
+
+    It is, however, scarcely possible that either the public or the
+    profession realizes that one woman dies in child birth for every
+    250 children born alive. In addition to this we have to remember
+    that the same accidents and diseases which kill the mothers and the
+    babies inevitably cause a still heavier percentage of crippling and
+    invaliding (p. 43).
+
+Twenty-five per cent. and more of the babies conceived and borne die
+before they reach normal birth. Often they find the journey through
+the bony archway into the outer world so difficult and arduous a task
+that they perish in the process of birth, although probably had they
+been born by Cesarean section, they would have survived and grown into
+healthy children.
+
+We do not consider what the infant itself in birth may be enduring.
+The infant is "unconscious," that is to say it carries no memory of
+these earlier months in its conscious memory as it grows up, but the
+excessive moulding, particularly of its head, which often has to take
+place and sometimes takes weeks to right itself, must, one thinks,
+greatly disturb the little brain, and in my opinion may have a lifelong
+effect.
+
+I have never heard this aspect of our present problem duly considered.
+The fact that the increasing brain capacity of civilized man tends ever
+to give the new born infant a larger head, and tends proportionately
+to increase the size of the head out of relation to the size of the
+circle of its mother's bone, has been commented on, and appears to some
+far seeing thinkers as the possible cause of the ultimate extinction
+of the human race. Because if we go on developing in the way we are at
+present doing, ever depending more and more on our brains, and the head
+of the new born infant tends to increase with the natural development
+of the brain, the day will come when the birth of a child is absolutely
+blocked by the relative diameter of its head and of its mother's pelvic
+bones. If the higher races maintain a dominant place in the world, the
+day may come when with nearly all women such an incompatible relation
+will arise. Of what avail then would be the ratings and peevish fury
+of callous men? What scheme the race may have devised before that date
+to relieve this cruel deadlock we cannot here discuss. The perfecting
+of the method of birth by Cesarean section offers much promise. It may
+become a racial necessity. This possibility, on which to-day we are
+beginning to impinge, indicates one great cause of the torturing agony
+of the actual hours of birth which the young mother and father-to-be
+may have to face before they can see the child of their love.
+
+Fortunate women are even still so constructed that the circle of bone
+has a relatively large orifice which allows the infant comparatively
+easily to pass through it, and the difficulty and danger of birth for
+them is minimized. With them the birth pangs may be so trivial in
+comparison with the result, that they are truly "almost negligible" as
+most men would like to believe of most women.
+
+Such women, when outward circumstances allow it, are those whom every
+impulse should encourage to be the mothers of the large families, which
+are, under proper conditions, still desirable for a portion of our
+people.
+
+Such a woman as the one who wrote me the following letter is indeed the
+standard which all women and would-be mothers would gladly reach were
+it possible in any degree to control the formation of a growing girl's
+body so that as a woman she might retain such a primitive adaptation to
+motherhood:--
+
+    On the exact right day the babe arrived ... in a quarter of an hour
+    he was there, without nurse, doctor or any one and with no pain to
+    myself. This little party has grown into a splendid specimen, very
+    large (he was 8-1/2 lbs. at birth) and firm and muscular. He is the
+    whole day long laughing and kicking or sleeping.
+
+Such women, however, so far as records go, are few. Much might be done
+by science to discover what are the causes of the reverse condition,
+and if possible to attempt to eliminate them.
+
+In view of the agony which myriads of women throughout the ages of
+civilization have endured, it seems strange indeed that no effort
+should apparently have been made by the learned to understand the
+causes which control the individual formation of the growing structure,
+with a view possibly to securing some such development. In recent
+years, however, a little has been done in the recognition of the
+causes of the converse, that is to say the excessive narrowing of the
+pelvis to the degree where child birth is not only torment but a life
+and death agony. And it is now well known that this condition is
+associated with malnutrition and rickets in infancy and early girlhood.
+
+The little baby girl who has rickety bones (which result from being
+improperly fed as an infant) is, in extreme cases certain, and in
+many cases very likely, to have such contracted pelvic bones that
+when her turn comes for motherhood, the birth of a living child may
+be impossible by the ordinary processes of Nature. Here again, as so
+often is inevitable, in the course of any consideration of the profound
+truths of mated existence, we impinge upon the treatment of the unsound
+and the diseased. This _under_ development of the mother's pelvic bones
+is a different problem from that evolutionary one touched on in the
+paragraphs above.
+
+Alas, that it should be true that the great majority of city dwellers
+come into the category of the spoilt and the tainted in some respect or
+another. But with the vision of true health and beauty as a standard
+before our eyes, many might escape the incipient weaknesses by
+consciously pursuing a standard of health, beauty and normality. It is
+this standard, this ideal picture, which may yet be reproduced in the
+lives of millions, which I desire to present in this book, so that in
+telling young married people some of the great facts which are ahead of
+them I will present only those difficulties which are inevitable, and
+leave to others the handling of disease. As things are to-day among
+British stock,[3] it is the very exceptional women who find birth an
+entirely easy process of which the pain is trivial, and this is chiefly
+due to the bony structure fixed and limited in size, which stands as
+a gateway of pain between the infant and the outer world, between the
+young wife and her motherhood.
+
+[3] In this, and in most of the generalisations found in this book,
+I am speaking of things as they are in Great Britain. While to a
+considerable extent the same is true of America and the Scandinavian
+countries, it must be remembered all through that I am speaking of the
+British, and primarily of our educated classes.
+
+Before the hour of birth is reached, however, the young mother-to-be,
+if she is neither instructed nor helped by the wisdom of her elders,
+may have already endured much that it will distress and dismay her
+lover and husband to observe, and much more which she, being a woman,
+will endure without allowing him to perceive, although she may be so
+frightened that it may be hard indeed for her not to cry out in her
+bewildered pain. How much of this distress and pain is essentially
+"natural," how much is the artificial result of our mode of living and
+our ignorance of Nature's laws? What are the things which a healthy,
+finely-built young woman mated to a healthy young man must endure,
+those experiences which she _cannot_ escape and those which she may
+with proper help avoid altogether or in part? It is the object of
+several chapters in this book to answer these questions more truthfully
+and I hope more helpfully than they have yet been answered. The things
+I deal with specially, because they will face nearly every _healthy_
+girl, are in most books ignored.
+
+My chapters may appear superfluous to those who view the long list
+of books purporting to give advice to the young wife and expectant
+mother on how to treat herself and the coming child. I have read the
+majority of those books, and I write this one because of their failure
+to touch on the profoundest essentials in a way which will truly help
+the healthy and sensitive type of young people. The healthy, normal
+and happy in my mind's vision are the standard of the race: those who
+to-day to some extent foreshadow the strength and beauty of bodily and
+mental equipment which will become a commonplace when all have risen
+to their standard, and it is for them that I feel it imperative to add
+this one more book to the long list of books advising the young mother.
+With the young mother I also consider and try to help the young father
+who has been so strangely neglected and ignored and who also needs help.
+
+The majority of the writers on cognate subjects, like the majority
+of the minds of those who are concerned at all with the problems of
+the young mother, really though perhaps unconsciously present studies
+in disease, pictures of aberrations from the normal, accounts or
+innuendos dealing with illness and handicaps, with abnormal conditions
+which should never arise, and the knowledge of which should not be
+brought before the sensitive mind as if they were a usual and general
+thing. The acquiescence in a low standard of health, the discussion
+of diseased conditions as though they were normal, or even as though
+they were unavoidable, are intensive in their result and harmful to all
+who come under their influence. The race sickens ever more and more
+profoundly because of such influences.
+
+We have to-day in our community a new conception in the Government
+Department of the Ministry of Health, but alas, that Ministry is
+engrossed in the contemplation of disease. In the present state of
+our civilization this is perhaps unavoidable, because there are not
+enough people in the country of standing and experience in scientific
+research who have concerned themselves with the problems of the
+healthy and beautiful, and with the needs and requirements in the way
+of instruction and outward conditions and environment of those who by
+nature are healthy and normal, and who desire to remain healthy and
+normal. Even these need instruction to compensate for that which Nature
+cannot give to those who toil apart from her bosom in the cities, where
+they cannot hear her voice for the roaring of the traffic. This is the
+piteous plight of the majority of our citizens to-day, for so many live
+in towns.
+
+Alas, that there are physical facts which all must face of a type
+which makes one feel that Nature is cruel in her treatment of us. When
+two young, beautiful and ardently happy beings are embarking upon the
+greatest work for the community which they can do, with a desire to
+create further beautiful and happy lives, it seems indeed an ironic and
+wanton mistake that there should be distressing physical experiences
+for both of them to endure. But "As gold is tried by the fire, so the
+heart is tried by pain," and if they are given a conscious knowledge of
+what they must face and what they may avoid, there will then be a firm
+foundation and a triumphant consummation to the visions and ideals of
+splendour and perfection which they can secure unimpaired through the
+trials which they conquer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Amazements
+
+    But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand
+    Together tread at last the immortal strand
+      With eyes where burning memory lights love home?
+    Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned
+    And leaped to them and in their faces yearned--
+      "I am your child: O parents, ye have come."
+
+        ROSSETTI: _The House of Life_.
+
+
+The intermingling of the physical, the mental and the spiritual is so
+subtle, intricate and inexplicable that, in describing the states of
+the bride who is about to be a mother, it is difficult to know with
+which first to deal.
+
+In an Appendix, p. 229, I put in compact form one or two of the obvious
+physical phenomena with which it may be necessary for the bride and
+bridegroom to acquaint themselves. Although generally known to their
+elders, my many correspondents have shown me that even such simple and
+direct facts are often unknown to young people, who are frequently so
+shy that they do not like to consult a medical practitioner or an older
+friend. Assuming then that the simple physical facts are known, there
+still remain innumerable subtleties which may cause heart searching,
+perhaps to both bride and bridegroom.
+
+It is almost as though the bearing of a child were a function so
+primitive in its origin that it tends, to some extent, to dissociate
+the ordinary coherence of the mother's life, and to result in a
+weakening of the sub-conscious control over her emotions to which she
+had all her life grown accustomed. Thus she enters upon a complex state
+in which primitive instincts and feelings may be at variance with the
+conscious thoughts and aspirations of highly civilized and sensitive
+humanity.
+
+This complexity of her instincts and her conscious feelings may lead
+the young wife to find an apparently inexplicable conflict in her
+attitude towards her husband. Consciously she desires ardently, with
+all that is best in her nature, to bear the child of their love. She
+adores her husband and is full of tender emotions towards him as the
+coming father, and experiences a form of gratitude that he should be
+the means of fulfilling her dreams; but possibly, at the same time,
+she may be amazed to find in herself an intense and active antagonism
+to his personal presence, an antagonism which she has to fight against
+revealing. She may realize that it is utterly at variance with her real
+feelings, and she may know that it would be the acme of cruelty to
+allow him to become aware of it, particularly when he is full of deep
+concern and love for her, and is doing all that a loving consideration
+can do for her happiness and welfare.
+
+Such a complex diversity of mental states existing perhaps
+co-incidently at the same hour in the mind of a girl may, if acute,
+lead to an outwardly recognizable form of hysteria and even to an
+unbalanced mind. Of such, however, I am not speaking, but am now
+describing the outwardly controllable, but nevertheless inwardly felt
+effervescing conflict of instinctive emotions, which is far more
+frequent than is generally recognized, and which the best balanced and
+most loving women are amazed to experience in themselves.
+
+From women whom I know to be exceptionally happy wives and mothers, I
+have evidence on this theme. With, of course, personal variations, they
+tell me that they have never confided this bewildering experience to
+their husbands, their doctors or their relatives, but, in essence, they
+say what is said in the following words by one of my correspondents:--
+
+In the first few months of coming motherhood she had a feeling of
+antagonism so strong "that it amounted to actual dislike of my
+husband's presence, and a desire to be right away from him. This
+distressed me very much at first as I thought I must be losing my love
+for my husband, and could not understand such a sudden reversal of
+feeling as I loved him very deeply.... At the end of the first three
+months, I found that my feeling of love returned in full strength, and
+with it a feeling of intense devotion and tenderness towards my husband
+as the father of my coming child."
+
+Some such experience, generally and fortunately limited to
+comparatively short though different periods, is not infrequently felt
+and is often a source of secret distress and anguish to the young
+wife whose sense of loyalty to the man she loves and married bars her
+from the relief of talking of these feelings. As is now beginning
+to be realized, emotions deeply experienced which are deliberately
+suppressed, may have far reaching effects even on the health. It is,
+therefore, well that she should know what is, I am sure, the truth,
+that this physical repugnance, which sometimes even amounts to a
+detestation of sharing the same house with the husband, and a desire to
+escape even from the superficial contact of eating in the same room
+with him, is a temporary phase, possibly phylogenetic[4] in its origin.
+
+[4] That is to say, repeating the history of our very early ancestors,
+where the female probably felt some resentment towards the male who had
+encompassed her maternity, and who most certainly would live apart from
+her and not in the ordinary contact of a united life.
+
+This passing phase, whether it lasts a few days or months, is neither
+necessary nor absolutely universal, but so far as I can ascertain it
+appears to be a common occurrence in the lives of the more sensitive
+and tenderly loving of wives. Where the coming child has not been
+desired by both parents, and where the mother resents her coming
+maternity, there is, of course, a totally different problem for
+which there is a very obvious reason. I am speaking now only of the
+mother-to-be who deeply desires her child, who is physically healthy
+and well formed, living under comfortable, protected and happy
+conditions, and who ardently loves and is loved by her husband; it is
+she who may and most frequently does feel this passing phase of intense
+physical antagonism. That she loves, and consciously loves, gives her
+an outward control so that this under-current of inherent antagonism is
+not allowed to show, and is gallantly concealed from the whole world.
+She would feel it an intense disloyalty to speak of it to any living
+soul, but it is there and it is so often a source of distress and
+strain upon the nervous system that it should be openly faced instead
+of being as it now is a repressed feeling. This repression tends to
+result in one of the greatest difficulties of the _healthy_ woman who
+is carrying a child, namely sleeplessness. The complex balance of her
+nervous control is strained by her surprise at herself, and perhaps by
+her self-reproaches, and thus she has an unnecessary burden in addition
+to the one of the coming child. This phase, therefore, is not a fact
+to be ignored or treated too lightly, and while it lasts it should be
+respected so far as is compatible with the circumstances of the two and
+with due regard for the mother. It is not a thing either to fear or
+to be ashamed of. It is perhaps best openly faced as a fact of rather
+curious interest as an ancient survival in oneself of racial history.
+If possible it should form the object of innocently playful laughter
+between the girl and her husband; this would do much to prevent its
+suppression taking a serious root.
+
+Aware of the existence of this phase and its probable meaning and
+treating it in this simple sensible way, neither the young mother nor
+the father-to-be need fear this brief physical antagonism. Where its
+danger lies, however, is in the possibility that unrecognized, it will,
+with those who live a shade less perfectly, result in the beginning
+of a habit of irritation, and perhaps in the setting up of some form
+of verbal bickering on the part of those who cannot lead as secluded
+and separate lives as would be possible in a spacious country or in a
+large establishment. When once the pair have broken the sweet custom
+of speaking only in love to each other, then, even after the temporary
+phase of antagonism has passed, they may find themselves with a habit
+of verbal bickering which is intensely corrosive, ultimately perhaps
+more than any other thing tending to destroy the outward beauty of a
+mutual life.
+
+There is another and reverse aspect of the mental phases through which
+a young mother-to-be may pass, in which she has an intense and added
+passion for her husband, and, as this leads to a subject of great
+importance, and a subject which has never been adequately handled, I
+will defer its consideration to Chapter XII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Delights
+
+    The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs--does anybody
+    know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young
+    girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of
+    love--the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+In a happy and desired motherhood, every hour of the day and night may
+bring its intense delight, both in the dreams of contemplation, wherein
+the experience of love sinks deep into the heart, and of the linking up
+of the present with the future. All natural functions rightly performed
+give a deep satisfaction and content, but this, the greatest function
+of all, now so specialized and intimately interwoven with every highest
+racial impulse and every dearest personal desire of the loving pair,
+yields a wealth and profundity of experience surpassing all else.
+
+In my opinion, undoubtedly the ideal way of spending the earlier months
+of coming parenthood is in the form of an extended honeymoon, in which
+the couple travelling slowly should follow the guide of seasonal
+beauty or should visit place after place of historic interest or
+natural charm so that the mother's mind should be fed and stimulated
+by historic memories, by the exquisite freshness of nature, and the
+grandeur of man's artistic achievements. This, of course, would not be
+possible in its fullest extent to many, until, in the future, society
+recognizes the supreme importance to the race of the expectant mother.
+Some such course, however, might be possible to a larger number than
+it is at present were they to realize not only their personal good but
+the racial benefit of this procedure. In our country, owing to our
+artificial and unclean attitude, the mother-to-be, particularly during
+the later months, stays at home so far as possible, and does not go
+from place to place. When going about entails battling with crowds on
+public conveyances, this is wise. But the easy effort of walking or of
+riding in the old fashioned horse carriage from place to place on an
+extended journey, is ideal, and sometimes appears to have beneficial
+reactions on the character and quality of the child that is coming.
+But, even if such a mode of life is impossible, yet the mother by
+reading and conversation can, if she has a mind of trained imagination,
+vary and enrich the mental environment of her child while it is
+developing.
+
+Then, too, the mother-to-be can count among her delights all the
+intimate personal enjoyment of the little physical things which
+contribute to the great anticipations of the future. She can, if she
+has the skill herself, sew the little clothes, stitching into them
+sunny thoughts and beautiful hopes, making them links between the
+present delightful _solitude a deux_ and another beautiful time which
+the little one who is coming cannot comprehend till, many years hence,
+he or she will experience its charm in turn.
+
+Little things intensely loved undoubtedly bring a greater reward in
+human happiness than great and numerous possessions, the joy of which
+can be but partly grasped. Within a tiny home, a mother whose heart
+vibrates with love can find a thousand sources wherewith to enrich the
+coming life.
+
+But of all her delights, the greatest must always be the thought of the
+wonderful gift, which, at some ever nearing date, she will be able to
+give to the man whom she adores. Some men are negligent of the charms
+and enravishments of children, but I think in every man who fully loves
+and is fully loved by his wife, the thought of the child of them both
+must always be a stimulant to everything most ardently beautiful and
+profound in their natures.
+
+Pictures of the child in after life filling brightly and beautifully
+some big position in the world may flit past the mother's mind during
+this time, but, if the mother is wise, she will not too intimately
+visualize the outward form of her child as a maturing girl or boy. By
+so doing she may indirectly wrong it. (See Chapter XIV).
+
+Her delight should be to picture a tiny laughing messenger from God,
+thinly veiled so that its sex is hidden; the figure of a child a few
+years old, still full of divine innocence and radiant possibilities.
+Happy hours of bodily rest may be spent picturing it in a thousand
+beautiful actions dancing in the sunlight, a contagious centre of joy
+in the whole world around them. On such an idea of delight she may
+lavish every day invigorating thoughts and wonderful dreams; none
+will be wasted, of that she may be assured. If, at the same time, she
+is securing the coming child's bodily well-being through the proper
+material channels, then she can feel that these dreams of higher than
+material beauty are being built into reality. The secret sacred wonder
+of the process of which she is the active centre casts its spell of
+magic and delight around the willing mother. "A Garden enclosed is my
+Beloved," and she feels within her own existence the mystic sense of
+divine beauty, which one feels in another form in a walled garden in
+the summer twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Young Mother-to-be:
+
+Her Distresses
+
+    The amount of suffering that has been and is borne by women is
+    utterly beyond imagination.
+
+    HERBERT SPENCER: _Principles of Ethics_, II.
+
+
+The bodily changes which at first almost imperceptibly steal upon the
+mother, if she be a girl who has enjoyed her own physical beauty,
+and has taken that care of herself which so delightful a thing as a
+young woman's body merits, will be at first a series of amazements and
+perhaps of delights as her body rounds itself and becomes more perfect.
+At this time the husband should fill his memory with her exquisiteness,
+for though she will, in the end, return perhaps to her normal strength
+and a re-awakened and different beauty, she will never again in her
+life reach such a point of bodily perfection as she does during the
+first three months or so of her coming motherhood, culminating at about
+the close of the third month.
+
+As the years pass, hallowed and sanctified by love which is understood,
+even when grey with age, her face may gain an ever increasing beauty
+and power, but the perfection of her body is reached in the early days
+when she is first about to become a mother.
+
+To one who cares for the outward form of her body, changes will occur
+inevitably as the months pass, which may give rise to deep distresses,
+principally because they feel at the time so permanent and it is
+difficult to believe that the disfigurements will ever pass. For a
+time she must inevitably become less and less beautiful; she may
+indeed become, even to herself, repugnant. Perhaps to her as to so
+many thousands of women the sight of themselves then is a torment, and
+the conquest of this feeling is a great and increasingly difficult
+mental exercise. As this time approaches and is upon her, the young
+mother-to-be must concentrate all her conscious thought on the beauty
+of the future. She must forget the present and its cruel distortions
+and live in the months and years that are to come when she will have
+with her another life and lovely form to which she has given origin.
+
+Nothing is at present gained for our civilization by the obstinate
+blindness on the part of some, and the wilful deception on the part of
+others, which together encourage the concealment from the bride of
+what she has to face.
+
+On the one hand stand these prudes, but on the other the too eager
+and explicit, even lewd and profane and soiled minds who delight in
+lugubrious warnings.
+
+The result has been that many a woman enters upon her motherhood gaily
+and eagerly, totally unprepared for what is to follow, totally unaware
+that, by the first act of motherhood, she gives up something essential
+to herself and something which is irreplacable in all the after years.
+So great a gift should be made not only voluntarily, but consciously,
+and with full knowledge of what it entails.
+
+Cruel indeed is the callous hardness of the older mind that can see
+without desiring to help the proud and sensitive young spirit embarking
+upon a course which cannot but entail subtle difficulties at the best
+and extreme physical anguish at the worst, yet help of the kind the
+modern sensitive girl needs is almost unobtainable. Rare indeed is the
+mother of the last generation who has the power and the knowledge to
+meet the unvoiced demands of this.
+
+Acquainted as I am with all sorts and conditions of men and women, I
+am nevertheless frequently amazed and filled with burning indignation
+at the well-nigh inhuman cruelty, stupidity and hypocrisy of the older
+generation towards young potential parents. It is not an uncommon
+thing to hear a man who is unfaithful to his wife because she has lost
+her physical beauty, at the same time haranguing the public on the
+compulsory duties of parenthood on the part of all young married women,
+and coupling his denunciations with sneers at the young girl who fears
+to embark on motherhood, reviling her as selfish. Yet the cause of her
+shrinking may be that from all the weltering confusion of contradictory
+and scrappy information which may have been allowed to reach her, the
+one which has fixed itself in her mind most vividly, is that which
+promised her loss of her bodily charm and that of all she possesses
+which is most valuable to her as a bond which binds her husband's
+affection to her. The woman who is perfectly sure of the continuance of
+her husband's spiritual and romantic love does not fear the risks of
+motherhood. All who truly and deeply love, desire parenthood. But can a
+woman who was married by a shallow man only for her beauty dare to risk
+the thing which holds him to her?
+
+There is indeed a diabolical malignity in the older man who is himself
+unfaithful because of the very things in his wife which he denounces
+the younger girl for fearing.
+
+This must not be misunderstood by my readers as indicating that I think
+a woman should shrink in any way or that her husband should grudge the
+sacrifice of all the fragrance and beauty which they possess towards
+making the child of their love the citizen of the future. But with
+fervent intensity, I feel that to keep the young woman ignorant of
+facts, and, at the same time, on the one hand to upbraid and bully her
+and on the other to terrorize her with evil minded tales and tragic
+sights, is conduct which would be laughable in its absurdity did it not
+touch the spring of tears.
+
+As the months of expectant motherhood succeed one another the girl
+will find her power to walk and run, to keep up with her husband in
+his pleasure, his out-door exertions, or even to do the usual standing
+involved in the course of her house work, increasingly curtailed. This
+is perhaps the inevitable consequence of the burden of actual weight
+which results from the later growth of the child within her as it
+increases and approaches the size of a living baby.
+
+Sometimes the fortunate mother finds that she is still capable of the
+same amount of exertion to which she is generally accustomed, but,
+under modern conditions, this is but seldom. The stories of Kaffir
+women on the trek who bear their children and follow on with the
+rest, and savages whose activity is in no way curtailed, are neither
+applicable to modern conditions, nor are they fair standards to set,
+because such women do not live as the modern woman is forced to, nor
+is their bodily organization really comparable with that of our highly
+sensitive brain-evolved race.
+
+Nevertheless, with the exception of heavy exertion, the girl who is
+carrying her child should be able to indulge in a much greater amount
+of healthful exercise, without undue fatigue, than she is generally
+able to enjoy. (See also Chapter X).
+
+Most women have heard rumours of others who have been able to follow
+out almost all their usual occupations, and have felt little or
+no handicap from child bearing. Such an exceptional woman is my
+correspondent who wrote:--
+
+    I lived exactly as usual; I played golf up to the middle of the
+    seventh month and bicycled up to my very last. On the afternoon
+    of the day my second child was born (weighing 8-3/4 lb.) I was
+    shopping with a woman acquaintance, who had no idea there was
+    anything on the way.
+
+Such women, although not very many, do exist among us. Their existence
+is perhaps the source of the hope which always animates every girl
+first embarking on her parenthood that she, by the sheer force of the
+longing for health which is within her, will prove also to be such
+an exception. Sometimes this desire may be apparently fulfilled,
+but generally, unless it is coupled with much greater knowledge
+than most girls possess, as the months pass one by one, her proud
+spirit will bend, she will give up and give up and give up. Humbled,
+weakened, humiliated before herself, through the fact that she is not
+strong enough to fight what she now is inclined acquiescently to call
+"Nature," she too goes down the stream with all the myriads of other
+happy hearted girls, whose gallant endeavours have equally failed. Then
+she creeps, wearily resting by the way, where she had hoped to tread
+with a firm and lightsome step.
+
+There grows in her mind, and this is stronger the more she loves her
+husband, the added distress that she feels that she is failing him.
+He married a mate, an equal, who lighter of step could yet cover the
+ground as well as he, and who could share his amusements, his work to
+some extent perhaps, and his pleasures. She feels that she must, so
+far as she possibly can, maintain this position. This hope impels her
+particularly if they have been married but a short time, and hence
+their days of delightful untramelled companionship have been so few.
+
+In this unselfish distress, which is primarily for him, she is tempted
+to conceal her effort and tends to overstrain herself in an endeavour
+to act as completely as she can the part, as reported, of the early
+Greek or Roman matron or of the proud and savage mother who could
+bear her children as lightly as a woodland creature. Finding sooner or
+later that she _cannot_ do so, she suddenly gives in. Her strength,
+undermined by the series of distresses, the subtle shocks and blows to
+which she is secretly subjected, she yields and takes on that air of
+semi-invalidism, demanding constant care and consideration from her
+husband and those about her, which in a way represents the hauling down
+of her gallant flag. Her dreams of an easy motherhood are vanquished.
+
+She will at times be dimly conscious that she is no longer able to feel
+so acutely. This, in a way perhaps, is Nature's provision against the
+too intense experiencing of emotion, which would otherwise come with
+sensitive motherhood. The sensation can be described, as one woman put
+it, as though each one of her powers of feeling were wrapped round in
+cotton wool, deadened and clogged so that they no longer gave contact.
+This may be well, but it adds in a dim way to the various distresses,
+a sense of unreality and apartness, which, if it coincides with that
+temporary antipathy to her husband, which was noted on page 33, may
+make the mother-to-be, for the time at any rate, indeed a wanderer in
+the valley of the shadow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Amazements
+
+    Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
+    He woke, and wondered more; for there she lay.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The young father-to-be, though a real and very important person, has
+been curiously neglected by all and sundry who concern themselves with
+the affairs of the "expectant mother," "child welfare," and the other
+social and semi-eugenic matters about which well-meaning people have so
+voluminously written and so sedulously talked.
+
+Sometimes jesting reference is made to the rather strange fact that,
+in some savage races, it is the father and not the mother who lies in
+bed for weeks after the birth of the child, but of the material and
+very real psychological experiences and physical difficulties which
+the young father is encountering and living through during the months
+before the advent of his first-born, few have any knowledge. Fewer
+still have offered the father-to-be any sympathy or help. Nevertheless
+with the increasingly perceptive and specialized individuals comprising
+our civilization, there arises an increasing number of young men
+capable of feeling and suffering in some degree corresponding to the
+great realities of which, for each, his home is the centre. And,
+moreover, it must not be forgotten that among our thoughtful classes
+are now growing up the young men whose mothers were among the pioneers
+of women's emancipation, whose mothers, therefore, were _voluntary_
+mothers who have trained their sons consciously and unconsciously,
+directly and indirectly, to be more in harmony with the true and
+natural attitude of a sensitive human being to its mate than are the
+average gross and over-bearing males, sons of enslaved and involuntary
+mothers. The sensitiveness of the modern young man towards his duties
+as a father, towards his wife as the mother of his child is, in my
+experience, very remarkable in its extent and its beauty. I have direct
+and indirect evidence from thousands that among the young Army men in
+various messes on the continent in recent years, an unexpected racial
+seriousness of attitude was shown when the necessary key that unlocked
+the secret chamber was available. Although it is a most deplorable
+truth, that there has been an increase in the racial diseases and an
+outward levity towards women, this is less an inherent baseness on
+the part of the young men than the result of the existence of the
+false conditions in which they have been placed, due to the criminal
+mishandling the whole racial problem has received from those older and
+in a position of authority.
+
+In the nature of things, at first the young man can scarcely avoid
+taking fatherhood much more lightly than the girl takes motherhood.
+In normal, sweet, and healthy men, a desire for children of their own
+is very strong. Yet, however sympathetic their dispositions, however
+observant they may be of others, the unmarried young men cannot, under
+present conditions, have a full comprehension of what the attainment
+of motherhood involves in sacrifice for the mother. Hence the ideally
+mated young couple embarking upon parenthood set about it gaily, but
+before many months have passed, the young father-to-be must also be
+filled with amazements. For, control her impulse to be alone as she may
+(see Chapter III), curb her induced fretfulness as she may, the general
+psychological attraction between the man and the woman must be affected
+by the physiological state of the mother. The young man should find
+himself, if not actually repelled as the months progress, at least
+much more able to give his wife an impersonal tenderness in place of an
+active desire for physical union than he would have imagined possible.
+However sweet their love, if they are average human beings and not
+exceptional, he will perhaps, from time to time, be amazed and pained
+by unexpected peevishness and fretfulness, perhaps by what appear to
+be quite irrational and unjustifiable complaints from his wife. He
+should be made acquainted with the facts on page 33, and should apply
+them to himself and his wife. Knowing of the liability of such a
+temporary development, he can guard against any permanent injuries to
+love arising from the experience, such as often do result when it is
+unexpected and misunderstood.
+
+I remember once being told by a nurse who had been at a large maternity
+home that of those who came there for the birth of their child she had
+only seen one couple between whom there was no bickering, not even
+infinitesimal criticisms and gusts of temper to ruffle the surface
+of their intense and romantic devotion. "Generally the women at this
+time," she said, "lead their husbands an awful dance, and are always
+snapping at them, but they do not really mean it, of course."
+
+Men, on the whole, I think (although it is difficult and dangerous to
+generalize) are less tolerant of "superficial snappiness" than women,
+and the ruffling of the surface which comes with a few angry words
+enters probably deeper into the life of a sensitive man than it does in
+the life of a girl of corresponding type, although, on the other hand,
+a man may very quickly acclimatize himself to ignoring such comparative
+trivialities. Yet at first, at any rate, they not only amaze but
+distress, and when they appear irrational and swiftly pass, they may,
+although a trifle in themselves, be the cause of much misunderstanding
+and may be the foundation of more serious later disharmonies.
+
+To the man who has any biological knowledge, all the wonderful
+processes of the growth of the unseen embryo, leading up to birth, are
+full of amazed wonder. If a man knows, as all should in these days
+(see my book, _Married Love_, for information about the fundamental
+processes of mating) how minute is the single sperm cell from which
+his growing child takes its rise, the immensity of the results of the
+activity of that tiny cell appear indeed stupendous. His flower-like
+bride is changed, her whole body is permeated, altered and impressed by
+the activities of this particle of himself united with its counterpart
+within her.
+
+Only for the utterly callous can the experience of the months of
+waiting be anything but full of continual reminders of the amazing
+complexity of life. Long ago Tennyson felt:--
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+    I pluck you out of the crannies,
+        I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
+        Little flower--but _if_ I could understand
+    What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+    I should know what God and man is.
+
+Even more filled with humble and profound amazement must be the future
+father, who feels that his wife is now the very centre of the greatest
+mystery and wonder of the universe. Looking at her, brooding in her
+dreams, his mind must be continually filled with the consciousness of
+the eager active growth that is in progress, and the intense desire to
+take part in the mystical processes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Delights
+
+    A Garden enclosed is my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
+
+        _Song of Solomon._
+
+
+It is said that men naturally have a more casual interest in fatherhood
+than women have in motherhood. It is sometimes even definitely said
+that men do not have a passion for fatherhood or care profoundly for
+young children. This is not my experience. A much larger number of
+men than are credited with it feel an intense desire for fatherhood,
+and take a great delight in young children. Though they should share
+the joy equally, yet the father often has a larger proportion of the
+pleasure of the little child, while to the mother comes a larger
+proportion of the burden and the difficulties. To the child itself,
+too, the father is often more precious than the mother. An accidental
+testimony to this effect was given by the little daughter of one of
+those "devoted wives and mothers" who thought woman's place was only
+the home, and a mother's duty only to care for her children. The child
+and I were chatting and the little one misunderstood something I said,
+and thought that I asked which of its parents it loved most. The child
+quickly answered, "Oh, I like father best, _of course_--mother is
+there every day and she washes us." The privilege of being a child's
+favourite is no small one, and, as this child shows us, a father may
+win it with unfair facility.
+
+The conscious dream of parenthood, a parenthood which shall give the
+children the best possible chance in life undoubtedly lies behind the
+majority of marriages. Hence when the young man who has married with
+the desire, perhaps not for immediate, but for ultimate fatherhood,
+first learns the definite fact that he has already inaugurated the
+beginnings of his child's development he must experience an intense
+and unique wave of feeling, which, as in the early days of marriage,
+with all its freshness, and with the actual physical difficulties yet
+unfaced, must be one primarily of buoyant delight.
+
+There is also in the earlier months, for the man of artistic
+perceptions, an unique experience in the appreciation of his wife's
+enhanced beauty. It is perhaps known that the most critical artistic
+view of woman claims the highest point of perfection in her form
+about the third month of her first period of motherhood. To a pair of
+lovers who have delighted in their bodily beauty, as all natural and
+healthy and well formed young people should do, this period, when the
+loveliness of the woman is at its very height, and when the man can
+feel that he has contributed to its perfection, must be a time of very
+special entrancement. That it is something from within his most sacred
+being that has added this glow and radiance in perfecting the rounded
+form of the body that he adored in its virginal grace, must give a man
+with artistic and poetic potentialities an all too brief but never
+to be forgotten experience. The young father-to-be should not lose a
+day of these swiftly passing weeks, for this phase, like all human
+developments, but even more intensely so than most, is passing and
+transient, only to be immortalized in the permanence of a perceptive
+memory.
+
+When, as is inevitable, it has passed, and is followed within another
+month or two by a phase so acutely, perhaps agonizingly its reverse,
+the crucifixion of the mother's sensitive feelings which is entailed
+should be hallowed and elevated in both their minds by that deeper,
+less personal, and more profoundly racial delight, the picturing with
+each other of the radiance, the strength, the power, the purpose and
+passion of the life which they are creating. So tragically soon after
+the days when he has feasted his eyes and filled his memory with her
+beauty, she will, she must withdraw her body from him and for months
+to come he will be shut out entirely from all sight of her. The reward
+will be an inner experience of the mind.
+
+A day will come when, for the first time, the father-to-be may lay his
+hand upon his wife below her waist and feel the sturdy little kicks of
+his future son or daughter, and can know that, though hidden from him,
+still there is beside him a vital and independent being whom he has
+wakened to life. The presence of this little creature whom he has not
+seen colours and permeates every hour of their joint existence, and
+links the family in an extraordinary unity, the full significance of
+which I will consider in Chapter XII.
+
+When the later months pass, the father-to-be will have lost one of his
+most exquisite memories if he has not already talked and laughed with
+his future child, and if he and his wife and child together have not
+united in that most mystical union possible to human flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Young Father-to-be:
+
+His Distresses
+
+    When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is
+    shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the
+    touch of the one in the play of the many.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+With all the passion for children, with the protective chivalrous
+feeling towards his wife which a well born and well knit man
+instinctively feels, through all the joy of fatherhood that is coming
+and the delight in its accomplishment, there must run a thread
+of intense distress at his own helplessness to help. With every
+consideration that the most resourceful man can think of towards his
+wife, with every helpful, tender, encouraging, supporting thing that he
+can do, how little is his share during all these months in the burden
+of the coming parenthood. If, through sympathy, he feels each pang his
+wife may feel; if, through sympathy, he curtails his activity to rest
+with her, nevertheless it is a voluntary abnegation, and if it became
+intolerable at any moment he could escape; he could run over the hills;
+he could go for a day's fierce solitude and activity wherever his feet
+desired to lead him; but he knows that his wife _cannot_, that she is
+chained, that not for a moment of the day or night for nine months can
+she lay down the burden for a brief rest--that there is no exit for her
+from this imprisonment of so many of her potentialities but through the
+gateway of agonizing pain.
+
+The instinct behind marriage is often a feeling of chivalrous devotion
+towards a tender and confiding girl, and the desire to give her every
+protection. The man finds, however, that his act has placed the one
+whom he desired to _protect_ in such a position that she must bear the
+greatest burden possible for a human being to bear, and must bear it
+alone. This must be a deep distress to an imaginative man of integrity,
+although the distress be mingled with other and joyous feelings. To
+pretend that it is not so, to say that the joy of coming parenthood
+should and does wipe out all such under-currents of thought is merely
+to be callous or silly. To repress an intense feeling, to pretend that
+it is not there, may give an apparent surface bravery or brightness.
+But such repression is ultimately destructive to the consciousness and
+whole physique of the one who, thus gallantly to himself, endeavours
+to deny the truth, and is often apt to lead to deeper disorders. The
+modern school of psycho-analysts who endeavour to set right the effects
+of mental strain often discover that throughout life, perhaps dating
+from childhood, a personality has been handicapped and weakened by some
+deep suppression of an intensely experienced emotion.
+
+In my opinion, the pretence that a sensitive man does not feel, and
+does not endeavour to conceal his feeling about his relation to his
+wife, particularly at the time of their first coming parenthood is to
+dishonour man's capacity and his imagination. Why imply that a rational
+man does not experience what surely all but a brute must feel. It
+impoverishes our life of emotional expression, and it tends to injure
+the man himself, to increase the strain by the pretence that the strain
+is not there. I know, for instance, one man who fainted at the time his
+wife gave birth to their child, and who, under no consideration, would
+allow her to have a second child, although he had intensely desired
+and looked forward to the fatherhood of a large family before he knew
+the actual physical experiences which it entailed. Such a man, in my
+opinion, was a good father wasted by an excess of emotion made all the
+more intensely destructive to himself by the endeavour to maintain
+the totally artificial and indeed the crude attitude which is supposed
+to be "correct" for a man, namely a sort of dissociation of himself
+from his wife's experiences and a hardened lack of recognition of all
+that is involved. It is surely better to recognize that there is that
+intense and poignant sense of helplessness, that the sensitive and
+developed young man should and does feel it, but that it should be
+recognized as the compensating price which he pays for fatherhood.
+
+If we are ever to raise our race to the point when every child is
+so precious that no child can be hungry, neglected or unwanted, the
+conscious price which the _father_ pays for his children will be one
+of the assets in valuing the children of the nation. It is, therefore,
+better to acknowledge and encourage such sensitiveness in the father by
+allowing the open and honourable expression of such feeling, and thus
+to avoid that almost neurotic and destructive effect of the suppression
+of such intense feeling as warped the father mentioned above. Because,
+if the wife avails herself of the advice I give in this book, and if
+the time for parenthood is chosen rightly and wisely in relation to her
+general health, and it is ascertained before she embarks upon potential
+motherhood that her bodily and bony structure is fit for motherhood,
+then though the experiences of both will be difficult and profound
+in their testing of the quality of each other, motherhood should
+not result in any excessive strain, and should indeed be a time of
+wonderful life activity.
+
+With all needless ill-health, and wanton ugliness and wasteful distress
+which at present are artificially involved in it, once swept away,
+potential motherhood should not be an unendurable burden. Though the
+father's feelings should be intense and poignant on behalf of his wife
+and though she may go through searching experiences, yet the gladness
+should so preponderatingly weigh in the balance in excess of the
+troubles and difficulties that no normally healthy and well endowed
+young couple should ever suffer so much that they dare not face a
+second maternity, as happens alas only too often to-day.
+
+On quite a lower plane, but nevertheless on the one so essential that
+it greatly affects all the rest of life, is the too frequent distress
+of the young father-to-be about the more material provision of all
+that is necessary for his wife. In counting the cost of the coming
+parenthood, too often quite heavy expenses are unforeseen, and, with
+a fixed income, the young man may have the intense distress of being
+unable to provide all that his wife not only wishes but really ought
+to have. Recent years, for instance, were times of extraordinary
+difficulty for all women who bore children, and who had a naturally
+healthy and proper desire to eat fruit. With oranges at a shilling
+each, as they were in the winter of 1918-19, how could an ordinary
+young couple afford a glassful of orange juice a day, which I recommend
+as profoundly valuable (see p. 80). It was obviously impossible. Such
+a time, of course, one hopes will never be repeated. It was a period
+of undue strain, when none, considering the future of the race, should
+have borne a child unless private reasons made it specially advisable.
+
+But apart from such excessive and unprecedented difficulties, there
+are, and probably always will be, difficulties for the young man who
+desires to provide everything that can benefit his wife. Not long ago
+in the newspapers, a budget of the cost of the baby in an ordinary
+lower middle class home was given, and there was an item: "Dentist's
+bill for the mother, twenty pounds." A wise comment was made on
+this that, alas, it is by no means an unusual, indeed it is a usual
+experience that the coming child adversely affects the mother's teeth,
+and both for the health of the baby and the mother they should be
+attended to. Possibly, even her very life may depend on her teeth being
+thoroughly free from decay after the birth. A heavy dentist's bill is
+too often an unexpected anxiety to the young husband, so that the
+teeth are neglected. Neglected teeth either weaken, or may actually
+result in the death of the mother from their decay, causing internal
+poisoning, to which she is peculiarly liable after bearing a child.
+
+Then too, there are unexpected and heavy expenses which are unforeseen
+through a variety of circumstances, such, for instance, as the
+uncertainty of the date of the birth. Those who go to nursing homes,
+as many are now doing owing to housing and service difficulties,
+experience this trial more acutely than others. They expect and plan,
+perhaps, for the birth within a given week, and the baby may delay two
+or three or even more weeks beyond the calculated time. Young couples,
+scarcely able to afford the heavy expenses of a good nursing home,
+who yet had saved sufficient to allow the wife three weeks there, may
+have their plans quite dislocated by a delay of three weeks in the
+infant's appearance, resulting in the mother unexpectedly having to
+remain double the length of time for which they had saved the money
+for the nursing home. The young father is then faced by the sordid
+difficulty of finding the necessary money, and unless he is gifted in
+such a way as to make extra earning a possibility, is under a condition
+of strain. Just when all his free energy and time should be devoted
+to companionship with his wife and infant, he has to spend extra hours
+working at high pressure in order to meet unexpected expenses. The
+young father-to-be who wishes to maintain the right and beautiful
+atmosphere around his coming child should inform himself of all certain
+and likely contingencies of expense, and should make due provision for
+these before the great act of calling into being one for whom he is
+primarily responsible.
+
+To a healthy man, also, there may be a period of chastening experience
+in sharing daily life with one who is out of health. Though the
+prospective mother _ought_ not to be in any way invalided, yet, alas,
+as things are, too often she is, and only an unselfish man will fail to
+resent the personal sacrifice which he endures as a result.
+
+There is a certain self-centred type of man who may, with the most
+model intentions and in order to lead a self-respecting life, marry,
+and who may find the resulting pregnancy of his wife very disconcerting
+to himself and very thwarting to his own requirements. With a certain
+bitter selfishness, this attitude was unconsciously expressed by one
+of my correspondents in the following words: "Something must be done
+to prevent any more children; imagine what a wretched time I have
+with my wife sick every day for nine months." Perhaps the reader can
+scarcely restrain a smile at so callously self-centred an attitude on
+the part of a husband, but, nevertheless, that man does have a real and
+difficult physical problem before him. One way, of course, in which to
+help such a man would be to place such help and knowledge before his
+wife that her motherhood should be more normal, and not so terrible an
+experience for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Mother
+
+    We cannot reason with our cells, for they know so much more than we
+    do that they cannot understand us; but though we cannot reason with
+    them, we can find out what they have been most accustomed to, and
+    what therefore they are most likely to expect; and we can see that
+    they get this, as far as it is in our power to give it them, and
+    may then generally leave the rest to them.
+
+        SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+To far too many women the time when they are carrying a child is a
+period of strain and semi-invalidism, a time filled not only with
+surprises and difficulties, but too often coloured with actual
+distress and ill-health. _This should not be._ The time of prospective
+motherhood should be one of buoyancy, health, physical activity and
+mental vitality. The low standard of health which the modern woman
+tolerates is deplorable.
+
+But to whom can the young mother-to-be turn for advice and assistance?
+Such healthy, happy, prospective motherhood does not come by instinct
+in our city life. Those around her, older than she, who have had
+children of their own may perhaps be able to give her a hint here and
+a little piece of advice there, which to some extent may alleviate
+her difficulty or pierce with a faint shadow of light the gloom of
+perplexity in the ever deepening unknown into which she is entering
+for the first time; but nearly all such women have themselves gone
+blindly and individually through this period of immense significance
+and mystery without having had any rational help from one devoted to
+the maintenance of _health_.
+
+Almost every book written to advise the coming mother is written by a
+doctor of disease, with very few exceptions by doctors who tolerate
+what is, in my opinion, a disgracefully low standard of general health
+in women. A distinguished gynecologist who, in cross-examination
+before a commission persisted in maintaining that the "daily morning
+sickness" which is so prevalent in women who are carrying a child is
+"physiologically right and natural" (indeed, he implied almost that it
+was necessary) represents an attitude of mind very general and capable
+of far-reaching hypnotic injury to the community as a whole.
+
+By far the best and sanest book available for healthy women is one
+to which I have already referred, namely _Tokology_, by Dr. Alice
+Stockham, but this book has its inaccuracies and its drawbacks, and
+even its pages are too much occupied with the wretched and handicapping
+troubles which women do experience in large numbers, but _which should
+not be_.
+
+Nevertheless, to allow a young girl or woman to enter upon these months
+of trial without making clear to her what she has to face, is cruel
+indeed. For a sensitive woman the experience, even at its best, and
+when most free from incapacities, is yet incredibly and penetratingly
+more terrible than she anticipated. The more sensitive and more
+conscious she is, the deeper and profounder may be her joy in her
+coming motherhood, but, at the same time, the more intense the physical
+experiences through which she must pass.
+
+The modern sensitive young woman does not take things blindly and
+patiently and with resignation, with a pious belief in her own
+inferiority, which may have helped to dull and moderate the sensations
+of her grandmothers. The more evolved she is, the more she may be
+willing to bow to natural law, but the less is she content to suffer
+wanton cruelties imposed upon her by ignorance, stupidity or coercion.
+
+Many are the midwives, maternity nurses and medical practitioners with
+whom I have discussed such matters, and from whom, often incognito,
+I have asked advice. I may say that _none_ gave _all the necessary_
+advice, not one gave one-tenth of what is in this book, only one or two
+gave any necessary simple advice in the sympathetic and understanding
+fashion desirable, and only one or two appeared to have any clear
+_generalizations_ or scientific understanding of the facts about which
+I asked. The resignation, the shrugging of the shoulders in the face
+of things which would otherwise make one weep, or the cheerful braving
+out or pretending that things are not as bad as they are, which is the
+general attitude of mind of the maternity nurse is little more helpful
+than that of the practitioner. Concerning many of the practical facts
+of the later months of pregnancy and actual birth, and the succeeding
+weeks of recovery, the properly trained midwife seems on the whole
+wiser than the average general practitioner, wiser even than the
+specialist who may come at a crisis, but who does not watch his patient
+through the succeeding weeks.
+
+Many young women who have recently been mothers have told me of the
+mental and physical horror which they then experienced, and of the
+added horror that they should feel horror. They have asked me to
+generalize, if it is possible, from their cases in such a way as to
+help others who enter upon maternity's difficulties for the first
+time, so that they may at least be spared that terrible sense of
+isolation and of exceptional failure when they experience one by one
+the things which are inevitable, or the things which are, by our
+artificial lives, so frequently imposed.
+
+The bearing of a child very often may be complicated by actual disease,
+and then requires, of course, expert medical attention. With those who
+are in any sense actually ill, and who should be in the hands of a
+doctor, I am not here dealing, for, in this respect, as throughout my
+other books, I desire only to write of health for the healthy so that
+they may have sufficient knowledge to maintain their health and raise
+the vitality of the race.
+
+I may say here that, even for the healthiest, it is very advisable, not
+only for her first, but for every succeeding pregnancy, that a woman
+should be examined and measured by some wise and healthy-minded medical
+practitioner or midwife at least once during the first three months
+and twice again during the last three months, but that, for the first
+baby, it would be better to go at least every month for examination. In
+that way, the various insidious disturbances of the excretory system,
+and other fundamental things which _may_ go a little wrong, even in an
+otherwise healthy woman, can be detected immediately and dealt with.
+Many however, find a great difficulty in bringing themselves to do
+this.
+
+Undoubtedly it is much better for the prospective mother to go to a
+specialist, old enough to be wise and experienced and mellow, and
+yet young and virile and active enough to be acquainted with modern
+knowledge, and healthy and clean enough to look for and to desire
+health and normality in those who come for advice.
+
+This should pre-eminently be the special field for women doctors,
+but there is not nearly a sufficient body of them with the necessary
+qualifications to meet the requirements of the community, and I should
+like to see a new profession created for women who, to the experience
+and the training of first-class midwives, have added a sufficient
+training in general medicine to be specialized to advise the _healthy_
+prospective mother, and to be able to detect at once anything which
+should necessitate handing her on to the doctor of disease. Such
+practitioners should rank in status somewhere between the cultivated
+midwife of gentle birth (such as a Queen Charlotte's Hospital nurse)
+and the medical woman. Thus the prospective mother would be spared
+that hard and bitter contact with one who has become myopic in the
+observation of disease, and would be able to go to someone specially
+trained to encourage health. Meanwhile, as this is but a bright picture
+of what may come in the future (and that _will_ come if women make a
+sufficient demand for it) it may spare many women distress if I set out
+the physical difficulties and peculiarities which are most liable to
+occur with a _healthy_ woman.
+
+From the welter of accounts of the effects of pregnancy, I have
+disentangled into three groups those which normal women may have to
+face. The difficulties are:--
+
+(1) Those nature-imposed; these are essential; they cannot be avoided
+by the healthiest woman. They can be perhaps, to some extent,
+mitigated. They are things which the coming mother must be helped
+through and over; she cannot be saved from them.
+
+(2) Those entirely artificial; these are quite needless and are the
+results of either ignorance or our gross disregard of known facts, and
+can be entirely eradicated.
+
+(3) Those which are to-day very usual, but which knowledge and a better
+mode of life may entirely conquer.
+
+Now to consider first the third group: those which are general, but
+which a knowledge could or should conquer.
+
+One of the first signs that she is to become a mother, and one of the
+most usual experiences of a young woman when this time begins, is the
+daily recurrence of that penetrating nausea and sickness usually after
+she has risen in the morning, called "Morning Sickness." This is so
+usual that medical practitioners rely on it to some extent as a sign
+of pregnancy. It is described in almost every book for the prospective
+mother, and, as I have mentioned (p. 72), it is sometimes even
+maintained by distinguished gynecologists as a physiological function,
+_i.e._, a normal function.
+
+Now this is a very nauseating and wretched experience to the majority
+of women, and it is one which, I maintain, is entirely imposed by
+ignorance, wrong living and the general hypnotic effect of others'
+perverted views on the woman's system. In those women whose internal
+organs are improperly placed or somewhat malformed, it occurs as a
+physiological result of pressure or other disturbance. _In true health
+there is no physiological reason whatever for the morning sickness_,
+and a woman who lives as she should live during the time of her coming
+motherhood need not experience it. This should, in the next generation,
+be entirely conquered, because it is to a very large extent caused
+by allowing, even forcing to wear corsets, girls when they are still
+unformed and developing. Those women who have never worn corsets in
+the whole of their lives, and who dress as they should dress, and do
+as they should do during the months when they are becoming mothers,
+seldom experience morning sickness. Though there are some who, when
+they know the child is coming, discard their corsets too late, and
+these may still experience this unpleasant feature. The extraordinary
+adaptability and vitality in a woman's system, however, is a remarkable
+thing, and even those who begin later in life than they should to train
+for motherhood may yet accomplish much.
+
+Granted a healthy, well-formed body, a previous life of normal
+activity, sensible attention to the following points will insure
+complete freedom from morning sickness in all but the exceptional and
+pre-disposed:--
+
+    (_a_) Discard every scrap of heavy or constricting clothing,
+    wearing only the lightest garments hung from the shoulders entirely.
+
+As I said in _Married Love_ the standard of dressing for the
+prospective mother, whose garments should be of the lightest wool and
+silk if possible, and should be so lightly hung that a butterfly can
+walk the length of her body without tearing its wings.
+
+    (_b_) Discard all rich, heavy and over-cooked foods, such as
+    pastries and hot cakes, dried peas and beans, rich game or highly
+    seasoned dishes, and live as much as possible on uncooked foods and
+    simple milk puddings, stewed fruit, lightly cooked meat and fish,
+    with the largest obtainable quantity of very fresh ripe fruit.
+
+    (_c_) Start the day not with tea, but with the juice of two or
+    three oranges squeezed into a tumbler.
+
+If she does these things a normal woman may go through the whole nine
+months without experiencing one single moment of nausea, as many a
+woman has done.
+
+A retardation of the action of the bowels or constipation is very
+frequent, and is a cause of many other ill-effects. A right diet such
+as I advise, adding for this purpose honey and brown bread, does much
+to prevent it; if it exists in spite of this, take suitable bending
+exercises (see also page 72), even a warm hydrostatic douche (using a
+douche-can with a little common salt in the water), but do _not_ take
+regular drugs or "aperients."
+
+Another of the very frequent experiences of the mother who is carrying
+a child, particularly towards the later months, is the enlargement of
+the veins of the legs and ankles and the formation of varicose veins.
+These may become very serious if neglected, and even if the woman is
+being doctored, unless, at the same time, she regularly follows the
+proper healthy method of dieting and living. In addition to the dieting
+and clothing described above, which will make her almost certain to be
+immune from varicose veins, she should take warm comfortable sitz baths
+every evening, and she should lie down for at least half an hour or an
+hour in the middle of the day or early evening with her feet raised a
+few inches above the level of her head.
+
+One of the most serious difficulties, felt even by those who avoid all
+other drawbacks, is sleeplessness, particularly in the last month or
+two when the activities of the child may be very disturbing. In this,
+much depends on the position in which the child is lying, and sometimes
+the position of the child can be improved by massage and manipulation
+by a trained midwife or doctor. Something also can be done by the
+mother herself through her mental attitude and hand touch on the child,
+and also by taking hot sitz baths nightly before going to bed. Still
+more, however, is accomplished by right diet, clothes, exercise and
+happiness (see also Chapter XII).
+
+The habit of taking aspirin regularly or in large quantities, which too
+many women indulge in if sleepless during this time, is extremely bad
+both for the child and for the mother. Drugs of any sort should not be
+appealed to. If it is possible during these later months, sleep will be
+much more refreshing, and the advantage will be very great both to the
+coming child and the mother, if her bed can be arranged on a verandah
+or out of doors, but it must not be forgotten that towards the end of
+the period the expectant mother ought not to be out of ear-shot of
+someone.
+
+Now to consider the second group of disabilities; those entirely
+the result of artificial outlook and condition. Among these must be
+classed the inability to walk any distance or to take part in active
+work of any sort. This is partly imposed by the hesitation of a woman
+to be seen at this time, and particularly to face the vulgar and
+leering attitude of the general public, and it is partly also due to
+the general heaviness or strain on the muscles or to the presence of
+varicose veins. If these have, by the methods just described, been
+almost or entirely avoided, she will find that her natural activity is
+much less reduced than it would otherwise be. To walk a mile or two,
+or even three miles the day before or even the day of the birth is not
+at all beyond what can be expected from an ordinary healthy woman who
+lives as she should.
+
+The necessity perpetually to be fussing, to be taking tonics or
+drugs or medicines, to be thinking only of herself and never of any
+general or greater theme, is also eliminated when the general health
+is improved, and any mental or bodily activity which the mother can
+indulge in without a sense of strain is advantageous to the child as
+well as to herself.
+
+The highly nervous condition and overstrained state of so many modern
+women during this time is due entirely to the artificial social lives,
+involving late hours, which they try to lead. The mother-to-be should
+give up almost all social engagements which keep her out of bed after
+9 o'clock. Sleep, fresh air, exercise under the healthiest natural
+conditions she can command, coupled with the right diet, will secure
+her health and strength throughout the time.
+
+The difficulties, however, about which help is most needed are the
+first group, those nature-imposed and inevitable difficulties which
+the woman _has_ to face, and which, without instruction in the things
+she might do to mitigate them, often lead her to suffer intensely,
+though needlessly, and tend to have life-long effects on her health and
+appearance. Simple and sometimes obvious precautions are required, and
+yet these are almost unknown to the generality of advisers to whom the
+prospective mother can turn.
+
+The first and most obvious inmost change that affects her is that
+felt in the muscles below the waist, particularly those which run
+vertically, and which support, by their elasticity and strength, the
+whole front of the body. As the months pass and the child and its
+attendant tissues grow, there is a slowly increasing strain on these
+muscles. As the enlargement proceeds the skin will also stretch, and
+the under-skin and tissues beneath it are finally stretched almost to
+breaking-point, stretched sometimes so that they do break apart and
+leave ultimate permanent little scars under the skin of the mother.
+Few apparently know, but all _should_ know, that this can be almost
+entirely avoided (by fortunate women entirely avoided), if the skin
+and tissues immediately below it are kept supple by daily rubbing with
+olive oil from the fifth month. Perhaps from the fourth month once a
+week, and certainly from the fifth month daily, the mother should rub
+the lower part of her body and her breasts with a little olive oil.
+This will not only have a soothing effect upon the skin, but will
+assist its elasticity in such a way that she may return to her virgin
+condition without leaving those tell-tale scars which so often mark
+a woman, and which many, even highly trained maternity nurses and
+doctors, seem to think are inevitable. Such scars _are not inevitable_,
+and this very simple precaution, coupled with exercise, will frequently
+be sufficient safeguard for the woman who desires to avoid them
+altogether.
+
+The same internal growth which enlarges the muscles and strains the
+skin will also sometimes press apart the two main vertical muscles in
+such a way that there is a tendency for inner tissues to project, and
+for the last month or two this may be very uncomfortable without in
+any way being dangerous. It is then advisable to wear a small stiff
+pad over this and fasten it in place with a narrow, soft elastic band.
+The use of a localized plaster very often strains the skin and leaves
+scars or makes it sore. It is wise to have the small hard central
+bandage wherever there is a tendency to localized projection as will be
+self-evident to anyone who experiences it.
+
+The natural darkening of the colour of the skin when it is strained
+and stretched as it must be is very displeasing to the eye and,
+particularly to a young girl whose beautiful body has been her delight,
+may be a cause of great distress and self-repugnance. It is well that
+she should be helped over this most anxious time of self-detestation
+by the reliable assurance that it is only a temporary phase, and that
+if she keeps in good health, and rubs herself with pure oil for two or
+three months after birth as well as before, the skin will be entirely
+freed from any stained or discoloured appearance, and will return to
+its normal condition.
+
+As the months pass, the actual physical weight of the body will
+increase, gradually becoming a greater burden, so that long distance
+walking and any acute activity such as running or tennis-playing
+must become impossible. Nevertheless if the diet and mode of living
+suggested above is followed out this will be very much less
+embarrassing than is usually experienced.
+
+Many forms of support or maternity corsets are advertised or medically
+recommended to assist supporting the weight at such times, but, unless
+the woman has any actual slipping of the position of the organs or
+any deformity, she is very much better not to take such proffered
+assistance for they will form a broken reed, and, as one knows, "the
+broken reed pierces the hand." It is much better for her to strengthen
+her own muscles by slow and careful exercise, bending forward until she
+touches the ground or as nearly touches the ground as possible; also
+lying on her back on the ground and rising without touching the floor
+with her hands and arms; also slowly raising the feet forward above the
+head while lying on the back, and then allowing them to drop slowly to
+the ground, this last exercise being very strengthening to the central
+muscles of the body wall (detailed accounts of other useful exercises
+will be found in Dr. Alice Stockham's _Tokology_). So long as there is
+no strain upon her, she should exercise throughout the whole of the
+time. She would then not need any artificial support, and would be much
+better without it.
+
+I have never seen it elsewhere clearly stated, but I have discovered
+that one very important reason against corsets is that, however well
+shaped and loose they may be, they tend to touch and exert some slight
+pressure on the soft tissues at the back of the waist; they must do so,
+merely to remain upon the body without dropping off, and this amount
+of pressure is sufficient to induce morning sickness (see p. 88) for
+the following among other reasons. As the womb grows in the centre of
+the body it pushes aside and to the back the many yards of soft tubular
+alimentary canal which normally lie coiled in the front of the body,
+and, if there is no constriction or pressure, these tend to find room
+for themselves round the waist line and to the back, so that there
+appears what seems almost like a coil or roll of fat round the waist.
+This disposition is very advantageous, however, and should not be
+interfered with in the way any corset must interfere, and it greatly
+reduces the ungainly frontal size and helps to keep the body better
+balanced (see p. 91).
+
+At first the breasts will become firmer and larger and will support
+themselves more readily than at any time, but later on their shape
+somewhat changes and they tend to fall. They should then have carefully
+slung and properly arranged supports looped over the shoulder. Neglect
+of this often results in the final and lifelong loss of the beauty of
+the bosom, and it is indeed a cruel thing that the average doctor or
+nurse appears not to be capable of giving any useful advice on this
+point, so that hundreds of thousands of women have not only lost their
+beauty, but have been told that it is an inevitable and natural result
+of having borne a child. That it is well-nigh inevitable under modern
+unaided conditions, may be true. With proper support, proper massage
+and treatment afterwards, the ugly breasts need not have been, and need
+not be.
+
+A thing which often distresses girls, but which however unsightly it
+is while present is a temporary and passing phenomenon, is the sudden
+appearance of freckles, even large patches of brown colouring matter,
+on the skin during the time the baby is forming. So far as I am aware
+nothing can be done to prevent it, and if as sometimes happens these
+brown patches even appear on the face, it is a misfortune which must be
+endured as stoically as possible, encouraged with the knowledge that it
+will entirely pass.
+
+Another curious thing I know one woman experienced, and about which
+I am awaiting further evidence, was the apparent transplantation by
+the child in the mother of the strong black body hairs of the father.
+The result was that during the later months of carrying and for a few
+months after birth, the mother's lower limbs and forearms had a thick
+growth of masculine-like hair, which nearly all fell off within six
+months after the birth.
+
+The tendency that the coming child has to extract nutriment from the
+mother's tissues often results in the loss or temporary spoiling of two
+of her beauties, the beauty of her nails and the beauty of her hair.
+These are apt to suffer unless she is warned in time and protects them.
+The injury to them probably depends on the withdrawal of the proper
+quantity of fat from the tissues. It is, therefore, advisable for the
+mother-to-be to rub her nails and hair with some suitable natural oil.
+Refined paraffin, almond oil or castor oil for the hair are by far
+the best, and for the nails some animal grease such as lanoline, or
+perhaps simple vaseline. Expensive concoctions, very much advertised
+and claiming wonderful properties, generally owe anything which they
+may contain to these ingredients, but more frequently contain little or
+nothing of any value, and are often harmful.
+
+The more fundamental, and, alas, almost inevitable result of bearing
+a child is that it extracts not only the fat from the system, but the
+hardening matter from the teeth. This indeed is, so far as I am aware,
+a theft from the mother by the next generation which no knowledge of
+its liability can prevent, and which can only be met by a careful
+supervision of the mother's teeth both before and after birth. Women
+differ in the amount they lose, but it is, alas, one of the almost
+inevitable things that there shall be a certain weakening of the teeth.
+Sometimes this will right itself and teeth which shook in their sockets
+immediately after the birth may apparently harden again and refix
+themselves firmly, but if the weakening takes the form of actual decay,
+they must be attended to.
+
+In this respect the diet recommended by Dr. Stockham in _Tokology_,
+which advocates the elimination of all calcareous food is perhaps
+inadvisable if strictly followed out, because the growing child insists
+on mineral matter, and it simply takes it from the mother's structure
+if it does not get it in other ways. I have, therefore, thought it
+advisable not entirely to eliminate the wheat and other bone making
+materials from the usual diet as Dr. Stockham recommends, but to
+maintain a certain proportion of wheat, especially whole wheat, in the
+food. Her advice to replace rich dishes by simple rice, stewed fruits,
+etc., is certainly wise, and still more important is it to follow her
+warm recommendation to eat large quantities of fresh fruit.
+
+One of the perfectly natural, but to the young mother rather
+unexpected, results of the changes of the later months is the
+alteration which gradually comes in the position of the centre of
+gravity of her whole body. She is of course scarcely conscious of
+this, and yet it is a point of some importance, because it results
+in a certain liability to slip and to fall, particularly coming
+downstairs. The danger of such a fall is less to the child, which is
+safely surrounded by a buffer of fluid and by the mother's protective
+muscles, but more to the mother herself, who, in falling, may strain or
+injure herself. The growth which results in this change in the centre
+of gravity comes too rapidly for the system quite perfectly to adjust
+itself to it. It will be remembered how long it takes a baby to learn
+to balance itself upright upon its feet; the adult mother-to-be has
+had a whole lifetime knowing just how to balance, and every muscle
+has become adjusted to the centre of gravity in its accustomed place.
+The change in the distribution of weight changes the position of the
+centre of gravity to some extent, sufficiently at any rate to throw
+the co-ordination of many years somewhat out of gear, and it is,
+therefore, wise for the expectant mother to take particular care not
+to slip or stumble unexpectedly. The sudden and active movement of the
+child which may kick or turn with no warning may cause her quite to
+lose her balance, particularly if she is on a steep staircase. It is
+well, therefore, to make a special point of keeping guard against this
+possibility by always having a firm grip on the handrail when going up
+or down stairs during the later months of carrying a child.
+
+However well and full of a sense of power and creative vitality she
+may be, a woman should take long hours of rest: to bed at nine each
+evening and not up till eight o'clock in the morning and taking at
+least one hour lying down during the day. During the nine months of
+bearing the unborn child, she should remember she is providing it with
+_vitality_ every second of the twenty-four hours of each day, and she
+should neither have forced upon her, nor should she desire to do, work
+which ever tires her, though she should live an active, full, healthy,
+happy existence and should be capable of nearly all her normal work and
+enjoyments. If she is wise she will work in direct contact with sun-lit
+earth. Gardening ensures the truest sense of physical well-being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Father
+
+    I was a child beneath her touch,--a man
+      When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,--
+      A spirit when her spirit looked through me,--
+    A god when all our life-breath met to fan
+    Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
+      Fire within fire, desire in deity.
+
+    D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The higher the evolution of the creatures, the more is the parental
+responsibility shared by both parents. Among human beings the
+institution of monogamy, which is universally accepted as a higher
+form of human relation than polygamy, involves in the dual partnership
+a certain sharing of the actual physical difficulties of parenthood
+by the father which is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous
+establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy strictly maintained, does
+really affect the physical aspects of expectant fatherhood _more_ than
+it does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.
+
+The modern pair, being intensely and deeply united, the effects of the
+experiences and physical states of one have actual reverberations and
+physical effects on the other. In this respect the change in the girl's
+attitude of mind towards the man, which is sometimes a result of the
+physical effect of motherhood (see Chapter III), may have a very far
+reaching influence upon the man's health and happiness if he does not
+comprehend the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension,
+know how to endure or overcome it. Undoubtedly a home which is
+disturbed by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed irritations has a
+physical effect on the general mental balance, and consequently on the
+whole health of the pair involved.
+
+The way in which these difficulties can be overcome is by a mutual
+comprehension, so far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and
+sometimes perhaps by the attitude of "bowing before the storm" until it
+has passed, recognizing that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.
+
+Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate reverberations from
+his wife's state. The actual physical fact has to be faced by the
+father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on the period when all
+his natural desires for a completed sex union with his wife were met
+and consummated by equal desires in her, there comes a time when such
+impulses on his part are not only not responded to by his wife, but are
+perhaps antagonized and may be entirely thwarted by either her mental
+or her physical condition.
+
+In Chapter XII, I will show how, to some extent, and at probably rather
+long intervals, his impulses may be not only satisfied but may be
+harmoniously responded to and may be profoundly valuable. Nevertheless,
+in almost every period of coming fatherhood, there will be at least
+some months when bodily union is actively repugnant and consequently
+actively harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive feeling
+of the mother against any act should be sufficient to bar it, because,
+even if the act itself should not be harmful, to force her will at such
+a time or to lure her into coercing herself against her own will is in
+itself harmful. A young husband, therefore, will be faced by periods in
+which it will be impossible for him to have any of the unions to which
+he may have become accustomed and which his natural virility may at
+first continue to demand.
+
+This difficulty is of very varying intensity for different types of
+men. Some feel it so acutely that, although they may do so with deep
+shame, they yield to the impulses and are unfaithful to their wives
+in a bodily sense just at the time when of all others they may be
+mentally and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such shameful
+conflict of will with deed must have blackened many a father's memory,
+and, with due understanding of all the circumstances, it should be
+eliminated from our race: it should not take place. Nature has created
+a way out for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic rapport
+with his wife. While the wife on whom he centres all his desires
+and love is in a bodily condition which deprives her from such an
+experience as a complete union with him, this fact has a mental and
+consequently a physical reaction on the better type of man, and he
+finds, sometimes even to his surprise, that the instinctive impulses to
+which he has been accustomed die down. At first perhaps becoming only
+sufficiently dormant to be conquered by a deliberate exertion of the
+will, but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from his wife increases,
+its reaction stills his desire also, and his need for unions may
+temporarily cease.
+
+This is partly to be explained as a nervous reaction due to his anxiety
+and his concentration of nervous force on his wife, which tend to
+inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which would otherwise
+demand an outlet.
+
+The vitality, the physical state, the needs, however, of different men
+vary very greatly, and there are those who really do require some
+physical assistance in addition to will power and even a religious
+determination to help them through this time of difficulty. For such
+I recommend daily thorough washing in cold water of the organs of
+generation, and when an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking of
+the whole body in as hot a full length bath as can be borne.
+
+It may perhaps sound fantastic because one has not yet scientific
+proof (neither had Leonardo da Vinci when he casually made the first
+announcement that our earth is a planet of the Sun), but I think,
+in addition to the physical presence of the secretions potentially
+demanding exit, that a very important factor in the desire for sex
+union is an electrical accumulation within the system, and undoubtedly
+the soaking in hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to allay
+the urgency for a desire for a sex union.
+
+These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to
+maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration
+of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute
+everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child,
+should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which
+his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by
+incorrigible physical requirements, may have a hard time; if it is
+insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some
+slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical
+treatment.
+
+After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of
+the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the
+wife's pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this
+is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some
+months or a year after the wedding. (_Cf._ _Married Love_, Chapter IX).
+
+Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse
+of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the
+mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this
+with tact and intelligence may be surmounted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Union of Three
+
+    "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
+
+
+In the early days of our modern civilization, that is to say within the
+last couple of hundred years, the treatment of women in Western Europe
+sank to a terribly low ebb. Although the last few years have done much
+to restore woman to some of her ancient rights and privileges, there
+are still among us a distressing proportion of ignorant, coarse and
+consequently ruthless men who are not debarred from becoming husbands.
+Such men have been in the past in the habit of "using their wives"
+regardless of the desires or even the actual health requirements of
+the unfortunate women who are tied to them, and such men have made a
+practice of continuing to indulge in sex union even through the later
+stages of pregnancy. I have heard from midwives, to my amazed horror,
+that some such depraved men (not bestial, for no beast behaves in such
+a way) have even used their wives while they are still in bed after
+child birth. With such I have in this volume no concern beyond the
+mention that they are loathsome.
+
+Their existence, however, has had an effect on a better type and has
+given rise to reaction on the part of men infinitely their superiors.
+Women who have seen their sister women thus outraged have had the
+support of men of sensitive conscience and consideration when they
+have claimed that the mother who is carrying and nursing her child is
+sacred, and must not be approached by her husband at all during the
+whole of the child's coming and nursing period. It has, therefore,
+come about that a large number of our best and most high-minded women
+(supported by correspondingly high-minded men, anxious to do the best
+that is within their power for their wives and children) hold the view
+that no sex union after the third month, or perhaps that no sex union
+at all is allowable during pregnancy.
+
+Now this is one more matter which has not begun to receive the
+consideration which it deserves. When I wrote _Married Love_ I felt
+that I was not entitled to decide on this subject, and I tried to hold
+the balance between the various opinions, and drew attention to the
+fact that the prospective mother of the lower creatures is always set
+apart. This was apparently misinterpreted by some of my readers as
+being a personal expression of opinion, and women wrote or spoke to
+me about the subject saying they were sure I was right _because their
+husbands held the same opinion as I did_, BUT _the women themselves
+were ashamed, almost humiliated, to confess that during the carrying of
+their child they most ardently desired unions_.
+
+To these, as individuals, I pointed out that I was very far from
+expressing a definite opinion in my book on this point, and that my
+actual opinion indeed inclined towards thinking that restricted unions
+should be advantageous. In a later edition (the 7th) of my book, I
+enlarged on what I had to say on this subject, concluding: "There is
+little doubt that in this particular, even more than in so many others,
+the health, needs, and mental condition of women who are bearing
+children vary profoundly."
+
+Through evidences from very various types of women in the last year or
+two, I have now accumulated facts in sufficient numbers to begin to see
+something approaching a possible generalization on this subject.
+
+One of the most striking things I noticed concerning the evidences I
+received was that the women who confessed to a desire for sex union
+while they were carrying a child were, almost without exception, the
+_best_ type. A hasty generalization would have predicted that those
+very women with their pure attitude, their high degree of culture,
+their intellectual attainments, and their gracious self-restraint in
+outer life were just exactly those women who would maintain a fierce
+chastity during the nine months. These quite remarkable corresponding
+experiences of similarly superior women forced the matter vividly upon
+my attention, and I am now prepared to make a tentative generalization,
+coupled with the generalization to be found in Chapter XV.
+
+The attitude of one of the women who confessed her intimate feelings
+to me is typical of those of this type, and is illuminating. She is
+a woman of unusually gifted brain, well endowed physically and a
+normally healthy mother in every respect; she is noted for a peculiar
+beauty and sweetness of disposition, and an unusually high degree of
+sensitive appreciation of beauty and goodness. In conversation she
+said to me: "You know I feel so ashamed and degraded by myself, but
+just at the time when I felt I ought to be sacred from these things,
+I more ardently desired my husband than I had done throughout all my
+married life of fifteen years." She then told me that her husband who
+had been truly devoted to her all his life was particularly considerate
+and thoughtful for her during her time of expectant motherhood, and
+that when she tentatively hinted at her wish for union with him he
+refused tenderly on the grounds that the higher standard for men was
+to share, however difficult it was, in the nine months of complete
+abstinence. He said that, for the sake of the child and herself, he
+must refuse. Her desire, however, again recurred, much to her own shame
+and mortification, because she felt that what her husband said really
+represented the highest accepted standard of pre-natal conduct. Quite
+a number of rather similar and also exceptionally endowed women have
+confessed to me in almost the same terms the same feeling.
+
+Before I indicate my conclusions, let us briefly consider some of the
+surrounding circumstances of this problem. As I said in the opening
+paragraphs of this chapter, the nobler and better men have been carried
+away by a certain type of woman into thinking that it is man's share
+of the difficulties and self-sacrifice of parenthood that he should
+entirely sacrifice what is spoken of as "his desires." In my opinion,
+this attitude involves two profound fallacies. The first fallacy is
+that the act of sex union is to meet only "his desires"; it is not.
+Completed union is something infinitely greater: it is a consummation
+jointly achieved by both the man and his wife. This attitude I make
+clear in my book, _Married Love_ and in my new _Gospel_ addressed to
+the Bishops at Lambeth. And I must postulate in this, my present book,
+the far reaching effects on the bodily, spiritual and mental health
+of a man and woman concerned in this complex sex union. The truth is
+that the husband who mutually and considerately unites with his wife
+when she can accept him is not merely gratifying his own desire, he
+is enriching her whole system as well as his own through this mutual
+alchemy.
+
+Before following up the logic of this paragraph, let us turn to the
+woman and her needs. The drain on her system of providing for another
+life out of her own tissues, and the substances which pass through her
+own body, must be very severe unless she is amply provided with all the
+subtle chemical compounds which are demanded of her. Now there is much
+evidence that in unmarried women, and in young wives who are debarred
+from sex union altogether, something approaching a subtle form of
+starvation occurs; conversely that women absorb from the seminal fluid
+of the man some substance, "hormone," "vitamine" or stimulant which
+affects their internal economy in such a way as to benefit and nourish
+their whole systems. That semen is a stimulant to a woman was long
+ago recognized as probable, and is now the opinion of several leading
+doctors. Reference to this will be found in Havelock Ellis, vol. 5,
+1912. See also the paper by Toff in the _Centralblatt Gynakologie_,
+April, 1903. Incidentally the converse is true, and the man who
+conducts himself properly during the sex union, and remains for long in
+contact with his wife after the ejaculation is completed, also benefits
+through actual absorption from his wife. For this I have the testimony
+of a number of men.
+
+If, therefore, the woman who is becoming a mother, and who is
+supporting a second life, feels the need of union with her husband
+it is, I maintain, an indication that her nature is calling out for
+something not only legitimate but positively beneficial and required,
+and that it should be not only a man's privilege, but his delight, to
+unite with his wife at such a time and under such circumstances.
+
+The maintenance of the right balance of the internal secretions of the
+various glands which re-act on sex activity is important to women at
+all times, and particularly during the time when a woman is becoming a
+mother. One of the results of the growth of the child is the increased
+activity of the thyroid gland in the neck, which considerably increases
+in size.
+
+A general account of the relation of such glands to a woman's mental
+and physical balance is found in Blair Bell's book (_The Sex Complex_,
+1916), but he does not deal with the special aspect of a woman's
+requirements which forms the subject of this chapter.
+
+There is, even with the type of woman who does feel the need of, and
+ardently desires some sex unions with her husband during the long
+months, almost always a space of time, perhaps as much as two or three
+months consecutively, when she will have no such desires at all and
+there are also times of special liability to lose the child through
+premature birth, when unions should be avoided. Unexpected abortions
+most usually take place at the dates around the time which would have
+been a monthly period.
+
+When I consider the evidence which I have before me, which is almost
+exclusively from the very best type of women, and when I observe that
+the most generally perfected, and finest women of my acquaintance,
+and they in particular, desire occasional moderate intercourse during
+pregnancy, I feel that one has a guide to what is best for the race.
+In these women and the conduct which their needs inspire, we have an
+indication of the truest and highest standard of all. The deviations
+of conduct may at last return from both the grossness of abuse and the
+reaction from it, and settle in the right and middle path. After the
+excessively virtuous, and perhaps undersexed type of woman, in contrast
+to the totally base attitude of the earlier and coarser type of man,
+has made the thoughtful speed from baseness to an ascetic absence
+of unions, we should be led back by these well developed and well
+balanced and noble minded women to the right and middle way. In this
+the spontaneous impulse of the responsible mother will be the guide for
+her husband and will benefit all three concerned.
+
+For, let us realize what a profound mystical symbol is enacted when
+the union is not that of a single man and woman, but of that holy
+trinity the father, the mother and the unborn child. _Only_ during
+these brief sacred months can the three be united in such exquisite
+intimacy, and during all these months when the child is forming, it
+is only in the few infrequent embraces of subdued passion that the
+husband and father-to-be can come truly close to his child, that he
+can, through additions to her system from his own, assist the mother in
+her otherwise solitary task of endowing it with everything its growth
+demands.
+
+Every woman who is bearing a child by a man whom she loves deeply,
+longs intensely that its father should influence it as much as it is
+possible for him to do: in this way _and in this way alone_ can he give
+it of the actual substance of his body.
+
+This view of mine, in the present crude state of scientific knowledge
+must, of course, be stated as an hypothesis, but it will be proved
+later on when science is sufficiently subtle to detect the actual
+microscopic exchange of particles which takes place during proper and
+prolonged physical contact in the sex union.
+
+Light on my thesis is also shown by the converse: For instance, an
+interesting suggestion was made by a distinguished medical specialist
+as a result of his observation of two or three of his own patients,
+where the prospective mother had desired unions and the husband had
+denied them thinking it in her interest: the doctor observed that
+the children seemed to grow up restless and uncontrollable, with a
+marked tendency to self-abuse. To these two or three instances I have
+added some which have come under my own observation and, although as
+yet the evidence is insufficient to support a dogmatic attitude, I
+incline to think that not only the deprivation of the mother of proper
+union during pregnancy, but also the after effects of some years of
+the use of _coitus interruptus_ tends to have a similar effect upon
+later children. That is to say that mothers whose natural desire for
+union has been denied, and mothers who are congenitally frigid rather
+tend to produce children with unbalanced sex-feeling liable to yield
+to self-abuse. Immoderate and excessive desire for sex union during
+pregnancy so far as I am aware is rare, and where it occurs it should
+of course be treated as an abnormality.
+
+The mother of the higher type, such as I have indicated in the
+paragraphs above who does desire unions, will probably only require
+them infrequently during these months.
+
+It should be obvious, but as the general public often lacks a
+visualizing imagination, I ought to add, that for the proper
+consummation of the act of union, particularly during the later months
+of coming parenthood, the ordinary position with the man above the
+woman is not suitable and may be harmful. The pair should either lie
+side by side, or should lie so that they are almost at right angles
+to each other, so that there is no pressure upon the woman. Or the
+man should lie on his side behind the woman, which makes penetration
+easy and safe and free from pressure. I might point out here a fact
+which is of general importance in all true consummations of the sex
+union, and that is that all the preliminaries and even the final act of
+ejaculation itself do not constitute the whole of the truest union. A
+truth on which I lay great stress, although I have not yet dealt with
+it fully in any publications, is the fact that an _extremely_ important
+phase of each union is the close and prolonged contact after the
+culmination takes place. The benefit to both of the pair of remaining
+in the closest possible physical contact for as long a time as is
+possible after the crisis is almost incalculable.
+
+A whole chapter could be written upon this theme, and indeed it should
+be written. In the union during pregnancy, a woman is by nature
+debarred from the complete and intense muscular orgasm and for her,
+indeed, the union must essentially consist almost solely of the close
+contact of skin with skin and of the absorption of molecular particles
+as well as the resolution of nervous tension as the result of so close
+and prolonged a contact.
+
+Among the children known to me personally, several of the most
+beautiful were the children of mothers and fathers who had unions
+during the months of their development. The following quotation from a
+young husband may be of interest in this connection:--
+
+    The day before the birth of our baby, we went for a six-mile walk
+    over country ground, and I slept with my wife the very night before
+    he was born.... We had unions, but not in the ordinary position;
+    she would be on her side with her back to me, and after union
+    would quietly go off to sleep in my arms, and in the morning would
+    wake with a joyful and passionate kiss. Now our baby is one of the
+    finest of babies from all points of view.
+
+As I have seen photographs of the child, I can endorse the parent's
+opinions.
+
+Tolstoy's condemnation of any sex contact while the wife was pregnant
+or nursing may have influenced some serious men, but, as in many other
+respects, Tolstoy's teaching is so widely contradictory, and depends so
+much upon his own age and state at the time, one cannot but regret the
+unbalanced influence his literary power has given him.
+
+While this chapter may be taken as an indication that sex union is, in
+my opinion, not only allowable but advisable for certain types during
+the time they are carrying a child, nevertheless I do not wish it to
+be misinterpreted in such a way that a single act of union which is
+repugnant to the prospective mother should be urged upon her "for her
+good."
+
+There is undoubtedly a large body of most excellent women who are as
+individuals distinctly rather undersexed, but who are on the whole good
+mothers, profoundly well meaning and right minded and virtuous women
+to whom the time of prospective motherhood is an intensely individual
+period, during which they feel an active repugnance to any sex union.
+
+Women of this type are not able to give the _completest_ dower to
+their children, but are immensely superior to the average and baser
+type which forms the majority. If such women do not spontaneously
+desire unions they should be left unharried by any suggestion that they
+would benefit by them, and the husbands of such women should, in their
+own interests, curb any natural impulses which may conflict with the
+intense feeling of the wife. Husbands, however, should also be aware
+that such women generally feel as they do because they have never been
+_wooed_ with sufficient grace and tenderness.
+
+To sum up, I am convinced that unless there is any indication of a
+disease or abnormal appetite in any respect, that the natural wishes
+and desires of the mother-to-be who is bearing a child should be the
+absolute law to herself and her husband, for during these months
+she is on a different plane of existence from the usual one. She is
+swayed by impulses which science is as yet incapable of analysing or
+comprehending, and experience has again and again proved that she is
+wise to satisfy any reasonable desire, whether for the spiritual,
+bodily or mental contributions to her growing child's requirements or
+those which would strengthen her own power of supporting that child.
+
+Fortunate indeed is the husband of the best, well-balanced and
+developed mother-to-be, who with intense emotion shares with him in the
+closest and most exquisite intimacy, the creating of a life which has
+every prospect of adding beauty and strength to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Procession of the Months
+
+    "The mother is the child's supreme parent."
+
+        HAVELOCK ELLIS.
+
+
+At first invisible, with no outer changes to indicate the vital
+internal processes, from the moment of conception an intense activity
+has begun within the mother. Sometimes women are aware of the actual
+moment of conception, and faintly perceive for the first two or three
+days sensations too delicate to be called pain and yet intense and
+penetrating as though of the lightest touch upon the inward and most
+sensitive consciousness. I have read reports of women, and know one
+personally, who felt the process of conception, although this will
+probably be generally received with incredulity. The majority of people
+are less completely cognisant of the voices of their own organism,
+and perhaps for two or three months are almost unaware that anything
+different from the usual course of their life is taking place.
+
+If, as seems to me unquestionably the best and happiest relation, the
+man and woman who are creating a child are doing so deliberately,
+consciously and with acute interest, a mutual knowledge of the
+principal stages through which their child passes should add greatly to
+their interest and the intensity of their feeling.
+
+From the first moment of its conception, indeed often for months before
+this has been possible, their child is to the loving pair a living
+entity of whom they may speak.
+
+The active egg cell, which is ready for fertilization, is produced
+in one or other of the two ovaries, which lie internally and cannot
+be touched or reached in any way without operating upon the mother;
+they have no direct contact with the outer world. These two ovaries
+each communicate with the central chamber, which is called the womb or
+uterus and this is a strong muscular organ, into the walls of which the
+attachment of the minute embryo fastens, and within this chamber the
+growing embryo gradually fills the space reserved for it. The womb or
+uterus has a connection with the outer world through the lower mouth
+called the os, which opens into the vaginal channel. This os or mouth
+with its rounded lip can just be felt at the end of the vaginal channel.
+
+Fertilization consists in the actual penetration of the egg cell by the
+male sperm, the nuclei of which unite. As I have elsewhere described
+(_Married Love_, Chap. V) the numbers of male sperm provided in any act
+of union outnumber by millions those actually required, because for
+each single fertilization one egg cell combines with one sperm cell.
+The egg cell or ovum is very large in comparison with a single sperm;
+nevertheless it is itself a minute, almost invisible protoplasmic
+speck, measuring rather less than 1/120th of an inch in diameter,
+and roughly spherical in its shape--a minute pellet of jelly-like
+protoplasm with a concentrated centre or nucleus. The single sperm
+which unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is little more
+than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm round it, and a long cilium
+or hair-like continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus propels
+itself or swims towards the egg cell. Judging by analogy, it leaves
+this tail outside the egg cell on the mutual fusion. The nucleus of
+the sperm and of the egg unite in a very complex and precise manner.
+In other organisms, and probably also in human beings, the entry of a
+single sperm to the egg cell shuts out the possibility of other sperms
+fusing with them, because directly it has been fertilized, the egg cell
+exudes a film of substance which antagonizes the other sperms, and
+which ultimately forms a filmy skin around itself.
+
+From the moment of the fusion of the nuclei of the male and female
+cells, active changes and nuclear divisions are in progress. The egg
+cell, which is free, travels slowly to the allotted place in the womb
+or uterus of the mother, and there it settles down in the tissue of the
+wall and attaches itself. Until it has attached itself firmly to the
+wall of the uterus, conception proper has not finally taken place, and
+a fertilized egg cell may be lost through want of a capacity to attach
+itself to the womb, or through some nervous or other disturbance of the
+walls of the womb, which throw it off after it has been attached. The
+distinction between the actual moment of fertilization (or union of the
+male and female nuclei) and of the final attachment which secures true
+conception is an important one, though frequently overlooked. Sometimes
+the failure to conceive a child may not at all be due to lack of
+fertility and readiness to unite on the part of the egg cell and sperm
+cell, but may be due to some nervous or other influence on the wall of
+the uterus, which consequently throws off the ovum before it has firmly
+settled into its place there.
+
+A few days after conception, and when the ovum has attached itself
+to the proper place, a definite zone of tissue begins to form which,
+growing and altering with the growth of the tiny developing child
+(which is now called the embryo), forms a medium of transmission
+between it and the mother through which pass the substances used and
+excreted by the embryo in its growth.
+
+After fertilization, intense and rapid activity takes place in
+the nuclei of the cells, first in the united nucleus of egg and
+sperm cell, and later in the nuclei of all the resulting division
+cells. The nucleus of the sperm cell is supposed to contain twelve
+chromosomes which go through a formal rearrangement and mingling with
+the corresponding chromosomes in the egg cell. As a result of the
+complete fusion and intermingling of the male and the female factors
+on fertilization, all the resulting divisions of cells which follow
+derive their nuclei partly from the male and partly from the female
+nucleus of the parents. Thus, if it were possible to trace the history
+of every tissue cell in the body of your child, we should see that each
+nucleus of all the myriads that compose its structure would ancestrally
+consist of part of the many sub-divisions of the nuclei of both father
+and mother. Thus to speak of one side of the body as being male in its
+inheritance and the other female, is the most unmitigated nonsense,
+though this idea formed the basis of a recent book.
+
+The rapidity with which the first cells grow to form tissues, once they
+have been stimulated by union is very great, and from the ovum, which
+on the day of fertilization is only 1/120th of an inch in size, the
+growth is so rapid that it is ten times as big at the end of fourteen
+days. By that time the length is one-twelfth of an inch, and it weighs
+one grain. By the thirtieth day the tiny embryo is already one-third
+of an inch big, and were it practicable, which, of course, it is not,
+to remove it living from its bed of tissue in the mother's womb and
+examine it, even with the naked eye, and still more with a magnifying
+glass, it would be possible to see the rudiments of the legs, head and
+arms which are to be.
+
+By the fortieth day the embryo is about one inch in length, and the
+shape of the child, which it is to be, is quite clearly visible. Dark
+points are to be seen where later it will have eyes, nose and mouth,
+and there is already a hint of its backbone.
+
+Meanwhile, as may be realized, although to have grown in forty days to
+the size of an inch from a minute speck 1/120th part of an inch is a
+great and rapid achievement, nevertheless the existence of a thing one
+inch big within her makes little outer difference to the mother, and
+all the earlier weeks and months of the growth of this tiny organism do
+not yet take more visible effect on the mother's body than to enhance
+its contour. After the first child this effect is less noticeable, and
+a woman may be unaware that she is about to become a mother. The first
+sign in a really healthy woman generally is in the form of her breasts,
+which sometimes begin to enlarge by the second or third week. It is
+said that the more healthy and perfectly fitted for motherhood a woman
+is, the sooner her breasts show signs of the effect of the developing
+embryo but, particularly with a woman who has already borne a child,
+there may be no external sign until at least three months have passed.
+
+By the sixth week, the limbs and most essential parts of the child are
+apparent, and there are the minute indications of the beginning of
+its future sex organs. It is evident, therefore, that if there is any
+desire to control the sex of the coming child, it is already too late
+by the sixth week to do anything, were it ever possible reliably to
+control sex at any time. It is, therefore, apparent that any passionate
+desire for a child of one or the other sex which the mother may indulge
+in when she knows she is about to be a mother, say by the third or
+fourth month, is futile. It may also be injurious (see Chapter XIV).
+
+By the second month, nearly all the parts are fully apparent, even the
+eyelids are visible in the embryo and a tiny nose begins to project;
+fingers and toes can be seen, and some centres of bone begin to
+harden, as for instance, in the ribs.
+
+By the third month the embryo reaches an average length of three or
+more inches, and weighs on an average about 2-1/2 ounces. In this month
+the sex organs of the future baby are rapidly developing, and indeed
+are rather unduly prominent in proportion to the other parts which
+enlarge relatively later.
+
+Between the third and the fourth month, or often not till a little
+after the fourth month, the active muscular movements of the embryo's
+limbs can be felt by the mother. The experience of this, like the
+consciousness of the moment of conception, depends very much upon the
+sensitiveness and delicate balance of the mother's conscious control of
+herself.
+
+Some are insensitively, though perhaps comfortably, unaware of what
+is going on in their systems; others are conscious, not of what is
+properly going on, but of what is going wrong in their systems owing to
+disease or maladjustment; but there are others who, in perfect health,
+are yet so acutely sensitive and conscious that they can at will
+detect, as it were, the condition of their whole organs. Such women as
+these will sooner feel the active movements of the embryo than those
+who are less perceptive. As a rule, medical practitioners estimate that
+about half-way between the date of conception and the date of birth,
+which should be a full nine calendar months, that is to say about 4-1/2
+months from the date of conception, muscular movements of the child are
+detectable and distinct.
+
+In the third month, however, some women are conscious of the most
+delicate fluttering sensation.
+
+By the end of the third month, a definite enlargement of the mother's
+body becomes visible, because not only the actual child within her
+has to be accounted for in the space among her organs, but all the
+accessory growth of the chamber which accommodates the child in the
+womb has to find its place, the womb growing rapidly and containing
+not only the child, but the large amount of fluid by which the child
+is surrounded, and in which it partly floats. The visible changes in
+the mother to some extent depend on the proportion of this fluid which
+develops, some having much more than others, and it is to this rather
+than to the actual size of the child for the first four or five months
+that any outward change is due.
+
+About the end of the third month the soft and cartilaginous beginnings
+of the vertebral column begin to harden in various centres, and
+afterwards the hardening of the bones (or ossification) slowly spreads
+throughout the whole skeletal system. For some other bones in the
+body, however, the hardening is not fully completed by the time of
+birth.
+
+By the fifth month, the child weighs six to eight ounces, and is from
+seven to nine inches long. By this time its movements are very active
+and almost continuous except when it sleeps. It should be trained
+to sleep at the same time as its mother, and thus give her rest. My
+phrase "it should be trained to sleep" may arouse incredulous smiles
+from medical men, even from mothers who have borne children, but it
+is not impossible to train a child even so young as an unborn embryo,
+strange as it may sound. From about this month (the fifth) to the time
+of birth, the child appears to have a strong and definite personality,
+and sometimes, in some strange and subtle way, it seems possible to
+communicate with it. If there is that sweet and intense intimacy
+between mother and father which there should be if the full beauty of
+parenthood is to be realized, the child is apparently to some extent
+conscious of the nearness of its father, and I know at least of one or
+two couples who spoke to their coming child as though it were present,
+and who, by a touch of the hand could to some extent control and soothe
+it so that it would sleep during the night when the mother desired to
+sleep.
+
+About the fifth month the actual nails begin to grow, although the
+local preparations for their growth took place much earlier.
+
+After the fifth month, the child grows rapidly in weight, in the sixth
+month weighing nearly two pounds and during the seventh nearly three.
+
+If it is placed in the best possible position, its head would be
+directed downwards, and it should be lying so that its arms and legs
+are tucked in much as a kitten curls up when it is asleep. It will
+move, however, sometimes completely round, entirely altering its
+position.
+
+By the eighth month it weighs about four pounds and averages perhaps
+sixteen inches or so long. It should by this time be very active, so
+that its movements are not only strongly felt by the mother, but are
+externally quite perceptible.
+
+By the ninth month, at birth, the child weighs between six and eight
+or more pounds. It is better for the mother that it should not be too
+heavy, as, unless she is a large and strongly built woman, the actual
+weight of the child becomes a great strain upon her, however strong she
+may be.
+
+A child may be born during the seventh month, and children born
+during the seventh month live and have sometimes even grown up
+learned and important men. Sir Isaac Newton is an illustration of a
+premature child. Usually, however, a seventh month infant is terribly
+handicapped; its skin is not yet fully developed, and in many respects
+it is quite unfitted to face the world.
+
+Many claims are made that a child is seven months at birth which are
+based on the mis-counting of the date of conception or a desire to
+conceal a pre-marital conception. When one is shown, as one sometimes
+is, a bouncing, healthy, ordinary baby, and told that it was "a very
+forward seven months child," those who know can only smile or sigh,
+according to the circumstances, for an ordinary, healthy, bouncing baby
+with nails and well formed skin has never yet been generated in seven
+months.
+
+The seventh month is the time of greatest danger for a late
+miscarriage, and many have been the disappointments of parents who
+ardently desired a child, but who lost it through premature birth at
+the seventh month. I have often wished to know why this should be so,
+and have found no satisfactory answer or indication of any scientific
+reason for this, but when revolving all the possibilities of ancestral
+reminiscence, it occurred to me that possibly our earlier ancestors,
+ancestors in fact so early as to be scarcely human, were born at the
+seventh month. I was, therefore, interested to find that for some of
+the monkeys seven months is the date of normal birth. Possibly some
+such ancestral characteristic may make the seventh month a critical
+time in the development of the human embryo, a time when it inherits
+the reminiscence of the possibility of separating itself from its
+mother and coming into the outer world.
+
+The times, moreover, when birth is most liable are those few days in
+each month which correspond to the regular menstrual flow in the woman,
+the periods which would have taken place at each twenty-eight days
+had not the child been developing. It is, therefore, often desirable,
+particularly for the later months, for the woman to take one or two
+days of complete rest, or even to remain in bed during that dangerous
+day or two, so as to minimize the possibility of a miscarriage.
+
+The same applies of course to some extent to the eighth month, but
+curiously enough, miscarriages in the eighth month appear to be less
+frequent. It is also popularly said that it is more difficult to rear
+a child born in the eighth month than one born in the seventh, though
+this does not appear to be true.
+
+The last week or two of the child's antenatal existence are used by
+it in finishing itself off; growing its tiny shell-like nails, losing
+the downy hair which covered its body earlier in its existence, and in
+a sense preparing itself, and particularly its skin, for contact with
+the outer world which is to come. Its movements are very active, and if
+it is in the most perfect position, the head tends to sink deep down
+towards the canal approaching the circle of bone through which it will
+have to pass (see Chapter II).
+
+The question is often asked as to which is the time when the embryo
+is most sensitive to outward impressions, but as yet there is no
+sufficient body of evidence to show that at any particular time more
+than another (unless it be on the actual day of conception, see Chapter
+II) is the power of influence greater than any other.
+
+Is it possible to pre-arrange, to determine the sex of the child which
+is voluntarily conceived? Since earliest human experiences have been
+recorded, this has formed the theme of some writers and thinkers, and
+a variety of opinions have been expressed, theories propounded, and
+rules for the production of a girl or boy at will have been given. Each
+of the views, however, still remains far from being established, and
+damaging exceptions may be found to every theoretic rule. The impartial
+observer must feel that we are still unable to control the sex of the
+child.
+
+There are three main theories on this subject: (_a_) one is that the
+nature of the child which will be produced is already pre-determined
+in the ovum and sperm cell before they have united; (_b_) the second
+theory is that the critical moment which settles the sex of the
+future offspring is the moment of fertilization and the changes in
+the nucleus immediately resulting from it; (_c_) and the third theory
+is based on the view that the differentiation of the organs, which
+makes the difference in sex, take place at some stage in the embryo's
+development after it is already a many-celled organism.
+
+The first named theory lies behind the advice which varies around the
+theme that according to whether the conception takes place from the
+egg cell grown in the right or the left ovary and testicle so will the
+child be a boy or a girl. Instances of the desired child proving to be
+of the sex "arranged for" by following out some such methods are of
+comparatively frequent occurrence, but to the scientist are completely
+counter-balanced by other and negative results.
+
+The second and third theories do not offer the same explicit
+application in practical advice. But all the practical advice, on
+whatever basis it is builded, appears to me to be laid on insecure
+foundations. In my opinion, the complexities of the factors which
+determine sex are such that it depends much less on the outward
+and visible nutrition of the mother, than on the inner and almost
+inscrutable quality of the nutrition of the ovum and spermatozoon
+before and immediately after fertilization has taken place.
+
+That sex, even in some vertebrate creatures is actually controllable
+through nutrition can be easily demonstrated with a batch of frogs'
+eggs. These can be divided into two portions and by simple differences
+in the feeding of the young tadpoles male or female frogs can be
+obtained; the richly nourished ones produce the female frogs, those
+on sparser diet the male. The human embryo, however, developing in
+and through its mother, will depend to some extent on her diet, but
+in a much less direct way, for, as all know, the actual nutrition of
+the system does not depend merely on the quantity and valuable nature
+of the food taken into the mouth; it depends equally or even more on
+the digestive power, on the circulatory system, even on the mentality
+of the person who eats, and to add still further to the complexity,
+the tissues and organs of one part of the body may be receiving fully
+sufficient nutriment, while owing to some hindrance or difficulty some
+other tissues may be wasting and under-nourished. It is consequently
+necessary before we can theorize, to determine, even in the healthiest
+woman, whether or no a very rich and abundant nutriment is reaching the
+developing embryo in its earliest and most critical days, for, on the
+other hand, just in this critical time, a woman relatively ill-fed and
+in relatively poorer health may be digesting her simple diet well and
+may be so stimulated as to provide for the minute developing embryo
+a richer and more nutritious environment than her better fed sister.
+Consequently, even if, as I incline to believe, the pre-determination
+of sex depends on the nutriment procurable by the early dividing cells
+of the embryo, it is still almost beyond the realm of scientific
+investigation or of human control to determine whether or not the
+embryo is surrounded with such stimulating food as will produce a girl,
+or the rather sparser diet which will produce a boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Prenatal Influence
+
+    "To leave in the world a creature better than its parent: this is
+    the purpose of right motherhood."
+
+        CHARLOTTE GILMAN: _Women and Economics_.
+
+
+On the power of the mother directly to influence her child while it
+is still unborn, diametrically opposite opinions have been expressed,
+and without exaggeration I think one may safely say that the tendency
+of biological science has been to scout the idea as "old wives' tales"
+and incredible superstition. Fortunate indeed it is that though our
+immature and often blundering science has in many ways permeated and
+influenced our lives, yet this denial of profound truth by those
+incapable of handling it in the true terms of science, has not entirely
+barred this avenue of power to the mother. Fortunately there are
+innumerable children who owe their physical and spiritual well-being to
+the profound racial knowledge still dormant in the true woman. As I
+said when I touched upon this question in _Married Love_:--
+
+    Yet all the wisest mothers whom I know vary only in the degree
+    of their belief in this power of the mother. All are agreed in
+    believing that the spiritual and mental condition and environment
+    of the mother does profoundly affect the character and spiritual
+    powers of the child.
+
+Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist and co-discoverer with
+Darwin of the principle of Evolution, was in many respects a pioneer
+of unusual foresight and penetrating observation, who thought that
+the transmission of mental influence from the mother to the child was
+neither impossible nor even very improbable. In 1893 he published a
+long letter detailing cases, which he prefaced by saying:--
+
+    The popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother affect
+    the offspring physically, producing moles and other birth-marks,
+    and even malformations of a more or less serious character, is
+    said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy facts, and it
+    is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical grounds. But I
+    am not aware that the question of purely mental effects arising
+    from prenatal mental influences on the mother has been separately
+    studied. Our ignorance of the causes, or at least of the whole
+    series of causes, that determine individual character is so great,
+    that such transmission of mental influences will hardly be held to
+    be impossible or even very improbable. It is one of those questions
+    on which our minds should remain open, and on which we should be
+    ready to receive and discuss whatever evidence is available; and
+    should a _prima facie_ case be made out, seek for confirmation
+    by some form of experiment or observation, which is perhaps less
+    difficult than at first sight it may appear to be.
+
+    In one of the works of George or Andrew Combe, I remember a
+    reference to a case in which the character of a child appeared to
+    have been modified by the prenatal reading of its mother, and the
+    author, if I mistake not, accepted the result as probable, if not
+    demonstrated. I think, therefore, that it will be advisable to make
+    public some interesting cases of such modification of character
+    which have been sent me by an Australian lady in consequence
+    of reading my recent articles on the question whether acquired
+    characters are inherited. The value of these cases depends on their
+    differential character. Two mothers state that in each of their
+    children (three in one case and four in the other) the character
+    of the child very distinctly indicated the prenatal occupations
+    and mental interests of the mother, though at the time they were
+    manifested in the child they had ceased to occupy the parent, so
+    that the result cannot be explained by imitation. The second mother
+    referred to by my correspondent only gives cases observed in other
+    families which do not go beyond ordinary heredity.
+
+    ... Changes in mode of life and in intellectual occupation are
+    so frequent among all classes that materials must exist for
+    determining whether such changes during the prenatal period have
+    any influence on the character of the offspring. The present
+    communication may perhaps induce ladies who have undergone such
+    changes, and who have large families, to state whether they
+    can trace any corresponding effect on the character of their
+    children.--_Nature_, August 24 1893, pp. 389, 390.
+
+Yet this suggestive pronouncement of the world-famous naturalist has
+never been seriously followed up by scientists.
+
+I think the time is now ripe for a definite statement that: _The view
+that the pregnant woman can and does influence the mental states of the
+future child is to-day a scientific hypothesis which may be shortly
+proved_. I make this definite statement, in conjunction with the
+cognate and illuminating facts from other fields of research, a few of
+which are discussed in the following pages.
+
+That our mental states can affect, not only our spirits and our
+points of view, but actually the physical structure of our bodies, is
+demonstrable in a hundred different ways, and appears either to be
+proved or merely suggested according to the bias and temperament of the
+one to whom the demonstration is made. But there is one at least of
+these physical correlations which can be demonstrated with scientific
+thoroughness, and which proves beyond doubt that the mental state of
+the mother _has_ a reaction upon her infant even after it has severed
+its physical connection with her, and is a baby of a few months old.
+This fact is that a nursing mother who is subjected to a violent shock
+which results in a paroxysm of temper or of terror in her own mind,
+conveys the physical result of this to her infant when next she nurses
+it, so that the child has either an attack of indigestion or a fit.
+The effect of the mother's mental state is transmitted by the influence
+on the milk, the chemical composition of which is subtly altered by her
+nervous paroxysm, and which thus acts as a poison to the infant.
+
+A much more subtle and closer correlation must exist between the
+mother's mental states and the child when it is still not yet free and
+independent in the outer environment of the world but while it finds
+in her body its entire environment, its protection and the resources
+out of which it is building its own structure, while the blood and
+the tissues of her body form its whole world, while through them and
+through them alone can it obtain all its nourishment.
+
+True, the result of the mental state of the mother which we can see
+is, apparently, merely the physical result on the child's digestion of
+the milk which has become poisoned: but to stop at this point like a
+jibbing mule, and to refuse to take the further step in the argument
+because the child is yet too young for us to understand its resulting
+mental states, which reason indicates must be correlated with its
+poisoned digestive system, is to defraud the mind of the logical
+conclusion of a sequence of ideas.
+
+The argument is as follows:--
+
+(_a_) The mother's intense _mental_ experience and consequent nervous
+paroxysm has a physical result upon the composition of her milk
+(presumably, therefore, upon other portions of her body, though this is
+irrelevant for the moment);
+
+(_b_) This physically altered milk has a physical effect upon the
+infant who shows other and more extreme forms of physical distress;
+
+(_c_) This physical distress must obviously to some greater or lesser
+degree, affect the child's nervous system; and (which is the point
+where the old-fashioned will break off);
+
+(_d_) Consequently the child's mental state will be affected--although
+it is too young to translate this into conscious forms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Were I to make this the main thesis of my book, examples of the effect
+of mental states on bodily functions could be readily multiplied, and
+illustrations drawn from facts quoted in other connections could be
+found in a great number of medical works. I here bring together a few
+which when placed in juxtaposition offer if not proof, yet such strong
+support of my theme as to place it in the realm of the scientifically
+ascertainable. For instance, Blair Bell in _The Sex Complex_, 1916,
+says:--
+
+    Religious manias may lead to ideas which fill the patient with
+    abhorrence of sexual intercourse, and in this way directly
+    interfere with the genital functions. There is indeed no doubt
+    whatsoever that the mind influences function just as function
+    influences the mind; for example, it has been shown that fright
+    leads to an immediate increase in the output of suprarenin, and we
+    know well from constant clinical observations that hypothyroidism
+    leads to mental depression (pp. 209 and 210).
+
+and Havelock Ellis in _The Psychology of Sex_, vol. 5, 1912, says:--
+
+    We can, again, as suggested by Fere, very well believe that the
+    maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and
+    degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently
+    active movements of the _foetus_ may be really consecutive on
+    unconscious maternal excitations. We may also believe that, as
+    suggested by John Thomson, there are slight incoordinations _in
+    utero_, a kind of developmental neurosis, produced by some slight
+    lack of harmony of whatever origin and leading to the production
+    of malformations. We know, finally, that, as Fere and others have
+    repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by experiments on
+    chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly
+    affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the
+    mother's psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect
+    specifically the physical conformation or even the psychic
+    disposition of the child within her womb must remain for the
+    present an insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude
+    that in some cases such action seems to be indicated.
+
+Direct evidence of the physical aspect of my thesis is found in the
+fact quoted by Marshall in _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, p.
+566:--
+
+    So also it has been found that immunity from disease may be
+    acquired by young animals being suckled by a female which had
+    previously become immune, the antibody to the disease being
+    absorbed in the ingested milk.
+
+Further argument upon these lines might well be brought forward in
+favour of the view that the potential mother, during the months whilst
+she is acting as the child's total environment in all physical ways,
+is also through her mental states and conditions affecting the child's
+ultimate mentality and artistic and spiritual powers.
+
+This subtle control exerted over the formation of the child may be
+visualized as more like some effect parallel to the remote influences
+of the internal secretions in controlling the other organs of the body
+than the more mechanical picture of things visualized by the Mendelians
+and those who concentrate on the purely physical and material aspects
+of heredity as related to chromosome structure.
+
+The tendency in recent years in biological work has been far too
+much to lay stress upon the curiously mathematical laws Mendel
+discovered, and consequently to concentrate attention upon the physical
+chromosomes as containing the factors which carry hereditary qualities.
+Physiologists are now making an attempt to bring back into the
+treatment of life a more rational outlook, and nothing has contributed
+more to the scientific basis of this than the recent following up
+of the suggestions made so long ago as 1869 by Brown-Sequard. Since
+Starling named the internal secretions Hormones (see the Croonian
+Lecture, 1905) they have been much discussed by physiologists and some
+medical men (see for instance the recent work of Blair Bell, _The Sex
+Complex_, 1916 already quoted).
+
+To form a rough mental picture of what is happening one must combine
+the physiological and the mechanical outlooks. One then obtains the
+idea that the mother is, through her mental states, affecting and
+to some extent controlling the production of the various internal
+secretions, and other more subtle and still undetected influences
+from various organs upon other organs, and that, in so doing she is
+making the environment for the various hereditary factors, in which
+their potentialities find it possible to develop or to be suppressed
+according to the circumstances which she thus creates. As is now
+beginning to be realized, we all have an immense number of latent
+potentialities, which may lie dormant and develop only under suitable
+circumstances.
+
+Thus in my view the mother may actually and in every sense
+fundamentally influence and control the character of her child, working
+through the remote effects of internal secretions which play on the
+complex material factors of hereditary qualities which form the
+material basis of the child's potentialities.
+
+Thus both heredity and environment have a vital part to play in
+building character, _but greater than either is the subtler environment
+within the prospective mother created by her during the nine antenatal
+months_.
+
+Sometimes people who would otherwise like to believe that a mother has
+this power, are deterred by their own experience or that of others, who
+have, under conditions of distress and unfavourable circumstances, had
+children whose dispositions seem not to have suffered, but appear as
+sunny and happy as a child apparently conceived under more favourable
+circumstances. Here, however, one is immediately faced by the
+difficulties of accurate observation entailing a large number of data
+which tend to cancel out; for the mother who may personally have been
+below her usual standard of health and spirits while bearing the child
+may, nevertheless, actually be in such a good physical condition, or be
+a member of such a sound, healthy stock that the child's heredity was
+better than that of the average human being, and consequently that the
+child itself was provided with a healthy well-run body.
+
+While to contrast with it and apparently to refute my thesis, there
+may be a mother full of the most ardent hopes and buoyant spirit,
+looking forward with supreme joy to the advent of her baby, doing all
+she can to give it every beautiful mental impression and physical
+health, whose work may yet be undone by some cruel chance, such as
+venereal infection, or some local malformation which has resulted in
+weakness in, let us say, the child's digestion. We all know how peevish
+mere indigestion will make anybody. Or she, the well-intentioned and
+outwardly well-circumstanced mother may, unknown to herself, have been
+battling against the cruel handicap in some racial, heritable defect
+in her husband; the child, therefore, may, with all her efforts, yet
+fail to be joyous owing to the too strong physical bias which chance or
+heritable disease has given it.
+
+The existence of such apparently conflicting and contradictory
+individual instances in no way refutes my main thesis, which is that
+granted equal conditions of clean and wholesome ancestry, granted
+equally favourable conditions of health and nutrition for the mother
+during her period of carrying the child, that that child benefits and
+is superior to the other who has had the advantage of a happy mother's
+conscious effort to transmit to it a wide and generally intellectual
+and spiritual interest in the great and beautiful things of the world.
+
+This fact is often illustrated in the different children of the same
+parents. Of children born under as nearly identical circumstances
+as may be possible within a year or two of time, the one may have a
+totally different disposition with totally different qualities from the
+other. The chance of birth, the inheritance of the innumerable possible
+characteristics latent in both parents might be sufficient to account
+for this were chance alone at work, but very often information may be
+obtained from the observant mother which correlates her own state while
+carrying the child with the after condition of the child itself.
+
+One rather striking instance of such a correlation is by a curious
+chance known to me, and should be of general interest. Oscar Wilde,
+whose genius was sullied by terrible sex crimes, which he expiated
+in prison, is known to all the world as a type whose distressing
+perversion is a racial loss. His mother once confided to an old friend
+that all the time she was carrying her son Oscar, she was intensely and
+passionately desiring a daughter, visualizing a girl, and, so far as
+was possible, using all the intensity of purpose which she possessed to
+have a girl, and that she often in after years blamed herself bitterly,
+because she felt that possibly his perverted proclivities were due to
+some influence she might have had upon him while his tiny body was
+being moulded.
+
+Evidence upon this subject of the power or otherwise of the mother
+to influence her coming child is wanted, and it is very difficult to
+obtain, partly because of the reticence of those who have been through
+the dim and secret mysteries of motherhood, and partly because their
+accuracy cannot well be tested until after the child has reached
+maturity. In these after years the mother is likely to be swayed by the
+course the child's life has taken, into unconsciously laying stress
+upon one or other point which may seem correlated with its after
+achievements.
+
+Evidence, however, in the form of notes kept during the time the
+mother is carrying the child which may be compared with the child's
+life in later years are very valuable, and, if any readers have such
+with which they would entrust me, a sufficient body of such evidence
+might possibly be accumulated to assist materially in the formation of
+a strong spiritual asset in the creation of the best possible human
+beings.
+
+The father who desires to influence his child must do so through the
+mother: had clever men more generally realized this we should have
+heard less of the lament that clever men so often have stupid sons.
+
+Of the more physical aspects of the mother's power to influence
+the form of the development of her growing child we have abundant
+evidence. If the mother is starved, and by starved I mean less the
+actual starvation from want of food than the subtler starvation of
+improper food or food lacking in the truly vital elements, then the
+child visibly suffers. For instance, rickets, a disease of grave racial
+significance to which reference has already been made (see Chapter II),
+is due to the lack of certain necessary elements in the food.
+
+A simple diet, the simpler the better, is sufficient adequately to
+provide all the essentials of nourishment for the mother and her coming
+child, and much indeed may be done for the general health and beauty of
+the child by providing the mother with the best form of material from
+which the embryo may build itself. The use of foods containing large
+quantities of vitamine (real butter and oranges, for instance, are
+specially good) is very advisable. They are not only enriching in their
+action in assisting true assimilation of other foods, but they probably
+tend to make good the general drain on the mother's vitality which
+would naturally take place were she not amply provided with these most
+subtle ingredients, which, though present in such minute quantities in
+fresh food, are yet of incalculable value. The effect of proper and
+specially adapted dieting, not only on the health of the mother, but
+also on the beauty and general vigour of the child, is a thing which
+is particularly expressed by various writers who have followed up the
+early experiments on diet made by Dr. Trall.[5]
+
+[5] This book has been reprinted in a modern expurgated and mutilated
+edition, which deprives the reader of the most valuable portions of the
+author's work. I should advise readers to see one of the original early
+editions if they desire to read the book intended by the author for the
+public.
+
+There is also Dr. Alice Stockham's book, _Tokology_, to which I have
+previously drawn attention. Although, as I then said, it contains
+errors of a comparatively trivial nature such as calling carbonaceous
+material "carbonates," which may have been sufficient to prejudice
+the scientific mind against the rest of her work, it contains the
+profound and valuable message Mr. Rowbotham published in England in
+1841, amplified, and to some extent enriched by this woman doctor's
+experience.
+
+Those lovers who ardently desire their child and have a mental picture
+of it long before its birth may delight in speaking of it to each other
+as though it were, as indeed it is, alive. For this a name is required,
+but in order to avoid the danger suggested on page 141, it is wiser
+perhaps to choose the name of both a girl and a boy, the name which the
+child would be called by according to its sex after birth, and, while
+it is still unseen, to link the two together in speaking of the coming
+child.
+
+Sometimes for private reasons a girl in particular or a boy in
+particular may be desired, but the well-balanced mind of a parent,
+particularly of the first child, should welcome either a son or a
+daughter, each of whom has its peculiar charms, and neither of whom
+can be described as more valuable than the other. Our false estimate
+of boys as superior is largely due to economic conditions and the
+custom of male entail. This should, and of course will, be altered. It
+is the first _child_, whether boy or girl is no matter, who is "the
+first-born" with all that that connotes in rapture and wonder to its
+parents.
+
+Owing to the fact that more boys are born than girls, there is always
+the greater chance of the birth of a boy than a girl. From this point
+of view it would appear that girls are more precious, but boys are
+oftener ailing and feeble and difficult to rear, so that it is perhaps
+well that more of them should be born than of their stronger sisters.
+
+Throughout its coming, the little one should be thought of in such a
+way that it will be equally welcome whichever its sex, and thus be
+given the best chance of developing fully and naturally in its own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Evolving Types of Women
+
+    Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of
+    freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
+
+    Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
+    colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.
+
+    No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight
+    and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.
+
+    Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination or joy, and all
+    my desires ripen into fruits of love.
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+One of the great sources of disharmony in our social life is the extent
+of the extraordinary ignorance about ourselves which still persists.
+From this spring our conflicting opinions and diametrically opposed
+views, and also the apparently self-contradictory evidence on almost
+any point of fundamental importance which is brought before the public.
+
+In no respect is there more conflict of opinion than concerning the age
+at which a woman should marry and become a mother. On the one hand,
+we have advocates of very early motherhood, and they point to the fact
+that a girl of seventeen is often already a woman and strongly sexed;
+they point to the hackneyed statement "that a girl matures sooner than
+a boy"; they point to the fine and healthy babies which very young
+mothers may bear and to the greater pliability and ease of birth,
+and these facts and their arguments may appear conclusive. On the
+other hand, the actual experience of many people conflicts with these
+apparently justified conclusions.
+
+All the highly evolved races tend to prolong childhood and youth. All
+tend to replace early marriage by later marriage and parenthood to the
+obvious advantage of the race.
+
+Marriage and parenthood at fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, which once
+were common in almost every country, are being replaced by later
+marriage and parenthood. As Finot 1913 says:--
+
+    A mystic chain appears to attach the age for love to the
+    consideration enjoyed by women. In the Far East, woman is offered
+    very young to the passion of man, and disappears from existence at
+    the time her contemporaries are just beginning to live. Love, for
+    this very reason, has a purely sensual stamp, degrading to man and
+    to woman. The lengthening of the age of love elevates the dignity,
+    and at the same time increases the longevity, of woman. Beyond
+    the age of thirty or forty the woman, dead to love, was fit only
+    for religion or witchcraft. Her life was shattered. Prematurely
+    aged she went out of the living world. The prolonged summer of
+    Saint-Martin in women will doubtless have consequences which
+    we should be wrong to fear. There is a solidarity of ages. The
+    cares bestowed on the child benefit the old man. The enlargement
+    of the age of maturity allows the child longer to enjoy the
+    years of life that are intended to form bodies and souls.... The
+    sentimental life of the country has undergone similar results.
+    Balzac, in proclaiming the right to love on the part of the woman
+    of thirty, aroused in his contemporaries astonishment bordering on
+    indignation. In his day, was not a man of forty-four considered
+    an old man?[6] Let us not forget that forty or fifty years before
+    Balzac, a philosopher like Charles Fourier, despairing of the
+    sentimental fate of young girls who had not found a husband before
+    the age of ... eighteen years, claimed for them the right to throw
+    propriety to the winds. According to the author of the _Theorie des
+    Quatre-Mouvements_,[7] this was almost the critical age (_Problems
+    of the Sexes_, transl. Jean Finot 1913).
+
+[6] Balzac: _Physiologie du Mariage_.
+
+[7] Charles Fourier, Leipzig, 1808.
+
+The relative ages of husband and wife also have their influence, but
+should, to some extent, depend more on their _physiological_ age than
+on their actual years. They should, however, not be widely different.
+As Saleeby says:--
+
+    The greater the seniority of the husband, the more widowhood will
+    there be in a society. Every economic tendency, every demand for
+    a higher standard of life, every aggravation for the struggle for
+    existence, every increment of the burden of the defective-minded,
+    tending to increase the man's age at marriage, which, on the
+    whole, involves also increasing his seniority--contributes to the
+    amount of widowhood in a nation.
+
+    We, therefore, see that, as might have been expected, this question
+    of the age ratio in marriage, though first to be considered from
+    the average point of view of the girl, has a far wider social
+    significance. First, for herself, the greater her husband's
+    seniority, the greater are her chances of widowhood, which is
+    in any case the destiny of an enormous preponderance of married
+    women. But further, the existence of widowhood is a fact of great
+    social importance because it so often means unaided motherhood, and
+    because, even when it does not, the abominable economic position of
+    women in modern society bears hardly upon her. It is not necessary
+    to pursue this subject further at the present time. But it is
+    well to insist that this seniority of the husband has remoter
+    consequences far too important to be so commonly overlooked (_Woman
+    and Womanhood_, 1912).
+
+I have observed many girls, who were in every true sense of the word
+girls (that is unconscious of personal sex feeling, still growing in
+bodily stature and still developing in internal organization) until
+they were nearly thirty years of age. In my opinion, the girl who
+is thoroughly well-balanced, with an active brain, a well-developed
+normally sexed body, natural artistic and social instincts is not
+more than a child at seventeen, and to marry her at that age or
+anything like it is to force her artificially, and to wither off her
+potentialities.
+
+The type of woman who really counts in our modern civilization is,
+as a rule, not of age until she is nearly thirty. Not only does she
+_not_ mature sooner than a boy; she matures actually later than a
+large number of men. I have now accumulated a wide and varied amount
+of evidence in favour of the view which I here propound, namely, that
+there is a most highly evolved type of woman in our midst. This type,
+which it will be agreed is the most valuable we possess, encompasses
+women of a wide range of potentialities; they have beautiful entirely
+feminine bodies, with all feminine and womanly instincts well
+developed, with a normal, indeed a rather strong, sex instinct and
+acute personal desires which tend to be concentrated on one man and one
+man alone. I will provisionally call this the late maturing type, for
+such a woman is generally incapable of real sex experience till she
+is about twenty-seven or thirty. I think that she is in line with the
+highest branch of our evolution, that she represents the present flower
+of human development, and that through her and her children the human
+race has the best hope of evolving on to still higher planes--but, and
+this is very important, she is not fitted for marriage until she is at
+least twenty-seven, probably later, her best child-bearing years may be
+after she is thirty-five, and her most brilliant and gifted children
+are likely to be born when she is about forty.
+
+Personal evidence, and also facts in the interesting letters sent
+me by my readers have brought to my knowledge the existence of
+an important proportion of women who are absolutely unconscious
+of personal localized sex feeling until they are nearly or over
+thirty--one woman was nearly fifty before she felt and knew the real
+meaning of sex union though many years married.
+
+From outward observation of the general physique of such of these women
+as I have seen face to face, I may say that, as a rule, they retain
+their youth long; they retain also a buoyancy and vitality which, if
+they are properly treated, and have the good fortune to be married at
+the right time to the right man, may remain with them almost throughout
+their lives. Such women not only prolong their girlhood, they defer
+their age. Such women have, of course, throughout the centuries
+appeared from time to time, and I fancy have generally in the past,
+and still often in the present, suffered acutely through marrying too
+young. When they marry too young they tend, by the forcing of their
+feelings, by the deadening through habit of their potentialities, by
+the trampling on the unfolded possibilities within them, to be turned
+artificially into a "cold type of woman."
+
+Women now older tell me of the fact that for the first years of
+their married life they could give no response, but when they were
+respectively twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one or more, they began first
+to feel they were truly women. Young husbands have written to me of
+their distress that their wives (aged about twenty to twenty-three),
+delightful girls in every respect, seemed utterly incapable of
+any response in the marital orgasm. Sometimes this depends on her
+conformation, but such an incapacity I often attribute to the girl's
+marriage being premature. When she is twenty-seven or twenty-eight
+perhaps her internal development will be complete, and she will then
+be ripe for the full enjoyment of marriage: but if instead of a
+considerate husband she marries one who merely uses her, she stands
+little chance ever of knowing the proper relation of wifehood and
+motherhood.
+
+These facts which I could vary with details from individual
+experiences, in my opinion, indicate a profound truth in the
+development of the human race. It is this: not only do the higher races
+of human beings have a prolonged childhood and youth, but the most
+highly evolved, mentally, physically and racially, of our girls have
+not finished their potential growth into maturity until they are in the
+neighbourhood of thirty years of age.
+
+Does this then mean that all marriage should be deferred till so late?
+By no means, nor is the above conclusion any reflection on the type of
+girl who ripens much more quickly. I fully recognize that from the
+point of view of their sex potentialities some girls are complete women
+at seventeen or eighteen, and that they may then be very strongly sexed
+indeed. Such women should marry young.
+
+The marked differentiation of type of these very notably different
+women can be traced through many other aspects of their lives. I
+consider, for instance, the type of whom I spoke in Chapter XII (who
+has a natural desire for union, representing the highest and most
+complex human union, the union of three) belongs very frequently to the
+late maturing and the most highly evolved form of femininity.
+
+It should be recognized that there are among us not only different
+races, but that in the same stock, sometimes in the same family of
+apparently no specially mixed ancestry, we may find one or more members
+of the late maturing, others of the early maturing type. Sometimes of
+two sisters, the elder may perhaps be still in mind a girl while her
+younger sister is a woman, as can be observed by any one with a large
+circle of acquaintances. It would be well, I think, if humanity, whose
+proper study is mankind, were at least to know themselves sufficiently
+well to realize the existence of such different types, and their
+possible potential value as well as their differing needs. The energy
+at present wasted in the acrid statement of conflicting views would
+be so much better spent on the careful recording and recognizing of
+varying types.
+
+The advice to marry young, which is in every respect socially wise and
+physiologically correct for some, should not be hurled indiscriminately
+at all women, because for the late maturing such advice is socially
+disadvantageous and physiologically wrong.
+
+I am now ready to consider the question of the proper age for
+motherhood about which an immense variety of opinion is expressed. The
+general tendency has been, even in the last few years, to raise the
+age at which a girl may marry, and to raise the age which the medical
+profession advises as the earliest suitable for motherhood. But still
+one often hears of elders, whom one would in other respects like to
+follow, advising the early bearing of children.
+
+Now I should like every potential parent to consider what type of child
+they want. Do they want to secure healthy, jolly little animals with no
+more brains than are sufficient to see them creditably through life? If
+so, let them have their children very early. Such healthy sound people
+with no special gifts are valuable, and there is much work in the world
+for them to do. On the other hand, do they want to take the risk for
+their child of a possibly less robust body, but with the possibility,
+indeed, in healthy families, almost the certainty, of an immensely
+greater brain power, and a more strongly developed temperament? Then
+let them have their children late. And if a man desires to have a child
+who may become one of the _master_ minds whose discoveries, whose
+artistic creations, whose ruling power stamps itself upon the memory
+of our race, whose name is handed down the ages, then let the father
+who desires such a child mate himself with the long-young late-maturing
+type of woman I have just described, and let her bear that child some
+time between the age of thirty-five and forty-five.
+
+How often one hears some version of the phrase: "Yes, it is so sad,
+poor, dear Lord So-and-So, a charming man, but no brains at all; his
+younger brother such a brilliant man; but that is always the way, the
+eldest sons in the aristocracy do seem to get the gift of property
+balanced by the lack of brains." Now I enquire, and I should like my
+readers to enquire, into the secret of this phenomenon, which is by
+no means universal, but is sufficiently common to be endorsed. In my
+opinion, the interpretation of this fact is that the earlier children
+were born when the mother was still too young to endow them with
+brains, particularly if the mother was one of the gifted and cultivated
+women of the late-maturing type.
+
+This also leads me to consider another generality which is frequently
+used as an argument by those who oppose conscious and deliberate
+parenthood. Some people say that by the direct control of the size
+of the family to a small limited number which the parents definitely
+desire, we would be eliminating genius from our midst, and their
+argument runs: Look at Nelson, he was a fifth son; look at Sir Walter
+Scott, he was a third son; and so on. This to the uncritical seems
+conclusive, and many people of great capacity, ideals and heart, who
+otherwise would be wholly on my side in my claim that every child born
+shall be deliberately desired, and that all other conceptions shall
+be consciously prevented, are swayed by this argument and say: "Yes,
+your position would be obviously the right one for the race if it were
+not that later children are so often the better." I turn, therefore,
+to a consideration of the life histories of these men's mothers. Why
+was Nelson the genius of his family? Because his mother was too young
+to bear geniuses at the time she was bearing her elder children. But
+this is not yet a sufficiently accurate consideration of the subject;
+I want to know also of which type the mother was, for, in my opinion,
+the right age for the parenthood of a woman depends also on the type
+to which she belongs, whether the early maturing or the late maturing.
+If she knows herself to be the latter, after it is patent, as it must
+become patent to every one once the idea is placed before them, that
+such women are in our midst, then that woman and her husband should
+usually defer parenthood until she has reached at least thirty years of
+age. If this were done, then not the fourth, fifth or seventh but the
+first child would stand a very great chance of being a world leader,
+a powerful mind, perhaps even a genius. First children have been
+geniuses (Sir Isaac Newton was an only child); all depends on the age,
+the conscious desire, the general type and the surrounding conditions
+during prenatal state of her infant, of the mother who bears him and
+the father from whom he also inherits potentialities.
+
+A few investigations bearing on the effect of the parent's age have
+been published by the Eugenics Society and some individuals, but none
+of these appear to me to be of any value, for none take into account
+the necessary data concerning the type of the mother which I here point
+out, and in all the calculations crude errors occur.
+
+The best woman, with comparatively few exceptions, is already and will
+still more in the future be the woman who, out of a long, healthy and
+vitally active life, is called upon to spend but a comparatively small
+proportion of her years in an _exclusive_ subservience to motherhood.
+A woman should have eighty to ninety active years of life; if she bears
+three or perhaps four children, she will, even if she gives up all her
+normal activities during the later months of pregnancy and the earlier
+of nursing, still have cut out of her life but a very small proportion
+of its total. She should, indeed, after she once is a mother, always
+devote a proportion of her energies to the necessary supervision of
+her children's growth and education, but with the increasing number of
+schools and specialists, nurses, teachers and instructors of all sorts,
+the individual mother has much less of the purely physical labour of
+her children than formerly. That this is not only so, but is _approved_
+by the State can be seen at once by imagining a working class mother
+insisting on keeping her child at home all day under her personal
+supervision--the School Inspector would step in and take the child from
+her for a certain number of hours every day. But this book is primarily
+for middle and upper class women, and for them motherhood increasingly
+should mean a _widening_ of their interests and occupations.
+
+The counter-idea still expressed, even by leading doctors and others,
+is that the whole capability of the individual mother should be devoted
+solely to contributing to her children. This is exemplified in the
+recent statement of Blair Bell: "A normal woman, therefore, would not
+exploit her capabilities for individual gain, but for the benefit of
+her descendants." This view is a false one and is based on a narrow
+vision.
+
+This pictures an endless chain of fruitless lives all looking ever
+to some supreme future consummation which never materializes. By
+means of this perpetual sinking of woman's personality in a mistaken
+interpretation of her duty to the race, every generation is sacrificed
+in turn. The result has not been productive of good, happiness or
+beauty for the majority. No; the individual woman, normal or better
+than the average, _should_ use her intellect for her individual
+gain in creative work; not only because of its value to the age and
+community in which she lives, but also for the inheritance she may
+thus give her children and so that when her children are grown up they
+may find in their mother not only the kind attendant of their youth,
+but their equal in achievement. With a woman of capacities perhaps
+still exceptional, but by no means so rare as some men writers would
+like to pretend, the pursuit of her work or profession and honourable
+achievement in it is not at all incompatible with but is highly
+beneficial to her motherhood. As Charlotte Gilman says:--
+
+    No, the maternal sacrifice theory will not bear examination. As a
+    sex specialized to reproduction, giving up all personal activity,
+    all honest independence, all useful and progressive economic
+    service for her glorious consecration to the uses of maternity,
+    the human female has little to show in the way of results which
+    can justify her position. Neither by the enormous percentage of
+    children lost by death nor the low average health of those who
+    survive, neither physical nor mental progress, give any proof to
+    race advantage from the maternal sacrifice.--_Women and Economics._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Birth and Beauty
+
+    "Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou
+    knowest how to wait.
+
+    Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower."
+
+        TAGORE: _Gitanjali_.
+
+
+When all goes well and there is no accidental hastening of the birth
+by shock or jar which dislodges the child too soon, the birthday finds
+its place in the ordinary rhythm of the woman's existence. We speak
+generally of the "nine months" during which the child is borne by its
+mother, but this nine months is a fictitious number depending on our
+calendar months, and the developing child is actually ten lunar months
+within its mother. Just as the average almost universal period of
+the woman's rhythm has twenty-eight days cycle, so on this number of
+days does the circle of months leading to birth depend. Ten months of
+twenty-eight days each is the full period of development, at the close
+of which the child seeks its exit through birth. As a rule the day
+of birth corresponds to some extent, if not quite accurately, to the
+former rhythm of her menstrual waves.
+
+An interesting paper containing various scientific data (not all of
+which are universally accepted) is to be found in the _Anat Anzeiger_
+of 1897 by Beard. What is actually the spring behind this rhythm is as
+yet largely unknown, but recent work on the internal secretions from
+the ovary such as was described by Starling in the _Croonian Lecture_,
+1905 (who quotes Marshall and Jolly and other workers), appears to
+indicate that this function like so many others in our system is due
+to the activities of certain glands yielding internal secretions.
+These, penetrating the whole system, have a controlling influence upon
+activities remote from their source.
+
+For the birth itself, the mother should be in experienced hands,
+preferably those of a highly trained and certified midwife or maternity
+nurse such as Queen Charlotte's or the London Hospital supplies, one
+who is experienced in all that has to be done in normal, healthy
+circumstances, and who can detect at once any necessity for specialized
+help. If the mother has lived rightly and wisely, dieted as I suggest
+and is properly formed (as, of course, should be assured through
+examination some time before the birth is expected), the birth should
+be, however terrible an experience, yet one which is safely passed.
+
+In the days which follow she will have much to endure, and instead of
+the peace and quietness which she expected, she will find that she
+has constant disturbances incidental to the nursing of one who is, in
+essentials, a surgical case.
+
+Possibly due to the inconveniences involved in staying in bed, there
+is a tendency at present to encourage the mother to get up and at
+least walk about the room and be up for an hour or two within ten days
+or less of the date of the birth. Almost every one with whom I have
+come in contact, advises this, and in a certain school, particularly
+those who go in for what is called "Twilight Sleep," there is not only
+an effort to get the mother up early, but a pride on the part of the
+mother and her advisers when she gets up perhaps within two or three
+days of the birth.
+
+Some women who have had a good many children boast of how they are up
+and about in ten days. I glance critically at all who tell me that,
+examining both their figures and their general appearance. _Only one
+woman of all who have ever discussed this matter with me urged the
+entirely old-fashioned month in bed following the birth. But_, and
+this is _very_ important, _she was the only one who, having had many
+children, at the same time had done most notable and arduous brain
+work, and also retained her youthful figure and general appearance_.
+
+This quite exceptional and old-fashioned advice is what I would hand on
+to women to-day. The modern craze for getting up quickly is absolutely
+wrong, and has a fundamentally deleterious effect on the general health
+of our women. I should go so far as to say that not only should a woman
+stay in bed the entire month, but that she should for two weeks longer
+scarcely put her foot to the ground. She may lie out of doors or on
+sofas, but, after a birth, _she should lie about for the whole of six
+weeks_.
+
+This may startle my readers. I, who look so keenly into the future, who
+am so progressive, so modern and so desirous of the great and rapid
+evolution of women, to return to the old custom of our grandmothers,
+and demand, not only the month in bed, to ask even more, that there
+should be six weeks spent practically lying about all the time! Is
+this not an anachronism? No. It will be observed that throughout this
+and my other books, my advice always has a biological basis, depending
+on the actual structure or the history of our bodies, and there is
+a very profound and physiological basis for the advice I now give.
+It is this--that not only during the birth is the whole system of
+the mother to some extent jarred and shaken; she suffers in all her
+nerves the sudden relief from the strain upon her muscles and in the
+whole readjustment of her system an extremely profound shock, and the
+treatment for shock entails rest. More than that, the womb which lies
+centrally and is so important an organ in her body, so enormously
+enlarged during the last months through which the child inhabited
+it, returns to its permanent size slowly; its strong, muscular walls
+tensely contract, but this contraction which reduces its size very
+much in the first day or two does not complete itself, does not bring
+the tissues back to the size which they will afterwards permanently
+maintain, _until six weeks have elapsed_. For the whole of six weeks,
+therefore, the womb will be larger and heavier than normal and with a
+tendency to get out of place, while all the muscles of the body wall
+are weakened and out of condition by being so long stretched. A woman,
+therefore, should not put any strain on her muscles like standing
+or walking or taking any active exercise before the six weeks has
+elapsed, though she should, lying both on her back and on her face,
+do exercises calculated to restore the strength of these muscles and
+fit them to take on their work directly she rises. One exercise,
+particularly valuable and but little known, is to raise the diaphragm
+without breathing. This can be done during the six weeks in bed, but
+is particularly valuable on first rising and standing or walking.
+This internal pull upwards of all the organs strengthens both the
+internal and the outer body wall muscles. Such control deliberately
+and frequently exerted throughout the day does more perhaps than any
+one other thing to retain a slender well-formed trunk. It has also a
+curiously bracing and exhilarating mental effect, and as the action can
+be done at any time unobserved, its effect can be utilized at will.
+The ancient Greeks laid great stress on the value of control of the
+diaphragm.
+
+It may be argued that during the time the child was within it the womb
+was very much larger than it is after birth, and nevertheless then
+active walking exercise was recommended. Yes: but during that time the
+womb was supported by the increased tension on the front muscles of the
+body wall against which it pressed and was thus assisted in maintaining
+its position; but after birth, while it is so very much smaller than
+quite recently it has been, and, at the same time, while still much
+larger than normal, and more than the weakened internal muscles are
+prepared to support, it is no longer held firm by the tense body
+wall, for the body wall is now limp, crumpled and almost incapable of
+supporting any strain. If, therefore, the woman stands too soon, the
+inner organs which are again beginning to find their natural place--the
+long digestive tract and other organs--tend to flop downwards, to
+bulge out the still loose and strained abdominal muscles, and press the
+still too heavy womb out of its normal position, the position to which
+it must return, and must permanently take up if the woman is to have
+her general health maintained throughout the rest of her life. Hence,
+before she sets foot to the ground she must lie the nature-decreed six
+weeks, and meanwhile _exercise_ the abdominal muscles so as to prepare
+them to act properly.
+
+When I see and hear of women either forced or lured or eagerly getting
+out of bed in ten days or a week after child birth, I wonder what will
+happen to all those women ten or fifteen years hence. They will be
+fortunate if they do not have what is now so increasingly prevalent,
+namely some form of displacement of the womb with all its attendant
+miseries of handicapped motherhood and wifehood. I maintain that it is
+nothing short of cruelty and criminality to allow the modern woman to
+get up quickly in the way she does. It may possibly be claimed by some
+of the foolish and hardy pioneers of getting up rapidly, that when she
+is a middle-aged or elderly woman she will not be suffering from the
+slow relaxations and displacements which result from putting pressure
+too soon on abdominal muscles unprepared to bear the strain. This
+will not make things safe for the average woman however. It is not
+realized how appalling is the prevalence of womb displacements among
+the lower working-class women, those who are forced by circumstances to
+get up in a week or ten days and go back to work. I think the modern
+increase in displacements in middle and upper class women is partly to
+be traced to the tendency to get up too soon, and also to the impatient
+practitioner's use of instruments to hasten a birth which would come
+naturally in good time. When once the perineal and inner supporting
+muscles have been torn, they are too often mended superficially, but
+inner tears are left which make the perineum an insufficient support
+for the womb, of which the result is its slow and gradual dropping
+out of place, which some years afterwards may acutely handicap the
+unfortunate woman.
+
+In the name of all the fond and happy mothers that I hope the future
+may contain, I would urge every one who possibly can to _insist_ on
+having six weeks of "lying in." This is not only in the interests of
+general health but of beauty. Too long have we become tolerant of the
+hideous formation of the body which is common in older women. We have
+domesticated some animals[8] solely for our own purposes, and they are
+hideous indeed. Why should we women permit a comparable standard for
+ourselves? Why not insist on at least as much care as is devoted to the
+race-horse? Why not take a period of rest after the great effort of
+maternity proportionately as long as a she-wolf or tigress takes in her
+cave, fed by her mate while she lies about and plays with her cubs?[9]
+The standard of beauty of the racing mare, of the wild tigress or
+she-wolf is slender and not markedly different from that of its virgin
+state. Such a standard, and not that of the over-taxed, man-used,
+domesticated animals should be that on which we women should insist.
+
+[8] The sow normally breeding once a year, artificially forced to breed
+two or three times a year. Its appearance is proverbial.
+
+[9] This has been reported to me by travellers and others, but I cannot
+get an authoritative scientific record for the fact.
+
+In this connection should be mentioned one other way in which the
+following of Nature and obedience to her law works for good. In the
+next chapter I mention the baby's right to be fed by nature's food, and
+while the infant is nursing from its mother it stimulates contractions
+in the womb which very much assist in bringing it to its right size and
+position, and so the act of nursing benefits not only the infant but
+its mother.
+
+A number of researches by various experts have been made, which proves
+that the womb reacts to the stimulus of suckling by the child. Pfister
+(_Beit. z. Geb. u. Gyn._, 1901, vol. v, p. 421), for instance, found
+that very definite contractions took place during the baby's suckling,
+particularly for the first eight days after its birth; also Temesvary
+(_Journ. Obstet. and Gyn. Brit. Emp._, 1903, vol. iii, p. 511) found
+that the natural involution of the womb after birth was distinctly more
+rapid in those who nursed their babies than in those who did not.
+
+Prolonging the nursing period does undoubtedly not tend to increase
+the beauty of the woman's bosom but to deteriorate it, but, for at any
+rate the first few months, it is _very_ advantageous both to the mother
+and to the child that she should feed it naturally. If throughout the
+nursing period she slings her breast properly from above, and if when
+the nursing period ceases she massages and treats the breast properly,
+it should not lose its beauty in the way which is alas, to-day, too
+general.
+
+Mothers, in the self-sacrifice involved in their motherhood, too
+often forget their duty to remain beautiful. All youth is revolted by
+ugliness, consciously or unconsciously. A girl should not be indirectly
+taught to dread motherhood herself by seeing the wreckage her own
+mother has allowed it to make of her. A high demand for beauty of form
+by mothers is not selfishness but a racial duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Baby's Rights
+
+    "The nation that first finds a practical reconciliation between
+    science and idealism is likely to take the front place among the
+    peoples of the world."
+
+        DEAN INGE: _Outspoken Essays_.
+
+
+Baby's rights are fundamental. They are:
+
+To be wanted.
+
+To be loved before birth as well as after birth.
+
+To be given a body untainted by any heritable disease, uncontaminated
+by any of the racial poisons.
+
+To be fed on the food that nature supplies, or, if that fails, the very
+nearest substitute that can be discovered.
+
+To have fresh air to breathe; to play in the sunshine with his limbs
+free in the air; to crawl about on sweet clean grass.
+
+When he is good, to do what baby wants to do and not what his parents
+want; for instance, to sleep most of his time, not to sit up and crow
+in response to having his cheeks pinched or his sides tickled.
+
+When he is naughty, to do what his parents want and not what he wants:
+to be made to understand the "law of the jungle." From his earliest
+days he must be disciplined in relation to the great physical facts of
+existence, to which he will always hereafter have to bow. The sooner he
+comprehends this, the better for his future.
+
+Most young mothers, even those who have had the advantage of highly
+trained maternity nurses to assist them at first, later require
+authoritative advice about how to treat the baby for whom they have
+given so much, and to whom they wish to give every possible advantage.
+Many books give advice to the young mother and to these she may turn.
+I do not wish to duplicate what they say, but advise every one who has
+an infant, even if they think they know all about the best method of
+bringing it up, to possess a copy of Dr. Truby King's _Baby and How to
+Rear It_ for reference. It is the most practical, sensible and best
+illustrated book of its kind.
+
+There is, therefore, on the subject of baby's material rights not very
+much more that I need to say, but there is one elementary right very
+generally overlooked, and that is the right to love in anticipation.
+
+Baby's right to be _wanted_ is an individual right which is of racial
+importance. No human being should be brought into the world unless his
+parents desire to take on the responsibility of that new life which
+must, for so long, be dependent upon them.
+
+Far too many of the present inhabitants of this earth who are _not_
+wanted because of their inferiority, were children who came to
+reluctant, perhaps horror-stricken, mothers. To this fact, I trace
+very largely the mental and physical aberrations which are to-day so
+prevalent; to this also I trace the bitterness, the unrest, the spirit
+of strife and malignity which seem to be without precedent in the world
+at present [see also _The Control of Parenthood_, final section, and,
+for the remedy, my book, _Wise Parenthood_, both published by Putnam].
+
+The warped and destructive impulse of revolution which is sweeping over
+so many people at present must have its roots in some deep wrong.
+
+Revolution is not a natural activity for human beings. Though the
+revolutionary impulse has swept through sections of humanity many times
+in its history, it is essentially unnatural, an indication of warping
+and poisoning, and a cause of further and perhaps irreparable damage.
+
+Happy people do not indulge in revolution. Happy people with a
+deep sense of underlying contentment and satisfaction in life
+may yet strive ardently to improve and beautify everything round
+them. They strive in the same direction as the main current of
+life--that is the growth and unfolding of ever increasing beauty. The
+revolutionaries--bitter, soured and profoundly unhappy--pit their
+strength against the normal stream of life and destroy, break down and
+rob. Too long humanity has had to endure such outbreaks owing to its
+general blindness and lack of understanding of their causes.
+
+Until the scientific spirit of profound inquiry into fundamental causes
+becomes general even in a small section of the community, superficial
+and apparently obvious explanations are accepted to account for results
+which really arise from profound and secret springs.
+
+The "divine discontent" which has impelled humanity forward along the
+path of constructive progress is a very different thing from the bitter
+discontent which leads to revolutionary and destructive outbursts. The
+village blacksmith of the well-known song, using his healthy muscles
+on hard, useful work which gives him a deep physical satisfaction, may
+feel the former and help forward the stream of progress in his village.
+
+The aim of reformers to-day should be to provide for every one neither
+ease nor comfort, nor high wages nor short hours, but the deeper
+necessities of a full and contented life, bodies able to respond with
+satisfaction to the strain of hard work performed under conditions
+which satisfy the mind in the most fundamental way of all--the deep,
+sub-conscious satisfaction which is given by the sweet smell of earth,
+by fresh air and sunshine, and green things around one.
+
+We draw from all these things some subtle ingredient without which
+our natures are weakened so that a further strain sends them awry.
+To-day we are so deeply involved with the hydra-headed monster of the
+revolutionary spirit that there does not seem time to deal with it
+radically, to attempt to understand it, and consequently to conquer
+it for ever. Even now, when for the first time humanity is on a
+large scale beginning to tackle fundamental problems, I have seen no
+indication that the source of revolution is being sought for in the
+right place.
+
+What is the source of revolution?
+
+The revolutionaries through the ages, feeling themselves jar with their
+surroundings, have been ensnared by the nearest obvious things, the
+happier surrounding of others. These they have endeavoured to snatch at
+and destroy, thinking thereby to improve their own and their comrades'
+lot. Their deductions, though profoundly false, have appeared even
+obviously right to many.
+
+External grievances are what the revolutionary is out to avenge:
+external benefits are what he is out to gain. Generally this is
+expressed in terms of higher wages, a share, or all, of the capital of
+those supposed to be better off, or the material possessions of others.
+These are the things that nearly all strikers and revolutionaries
+are upsetting the world to get, thinking--perhaps sincerely--that
+these things will give them the happiness for which, consciously or
+unconsciously, they yearn. The truth is, however, that it is a much
+more intimate thing than money or possessions which they need. They
+need new bodies and new hearts.
+
+Most of the revolutionaries I have met are people who have been warped
+or stunted in their own personal growth. One sees upon their minds or
+bodies the marks and scars of dwarfing, stunting or lack of balance.
+They have known wretchedness both in themselves and in their families
+far more intimate and penetrating than that of mere poverty.
+
+That, they may answer, is an external grievance which has been imposed
+upon them by society. In effect they say: "Society has starved us,
+given us bad conditions." Thus they foster a grievance against
+"society" in their minds. One bitter leader said to me:--
+
+    I was one of fourteen children, and my mother had only a little
+    three-roomed cottage near Glasgow. We nearly starved when I was
+    young. I know what the poor suffer at the hands of society.
+
+But it was not society that put fourteen children into that cottage; it
+was the mother herself. Her own ignorance, helpless ignorance perhaps,
+was the source of her children's misery. The most for which society can
+be blamed concerning that family is in tolerating such a plague-spot of
+ignorance in its midst. Nor is this pestilential ignorance by any means
+only confined to the financially poor.
+
+This country, and nearly all the world, has innumerable homes in which
+the seed of revolution is sown in myriads of minds from the moment they
+are conceived. Revolted, horror-stricken mothers bear children whose
+coming birth they fear.
+
+A starved, stunted outlook is stamped upon their brains and bodies
+in the most intimate manner before they come into the world, so
+oriented towards it that they _must_ run counter to the healthy, happy
+constructive stream of human life.
+
+What wonder at the rotten conditions of our population when these are
+common experiences of the mothers of our race:--
+
+    For fifteen years I was in a very poor state of health owing to
+    continual pregnancy. As soon as I was over one trouble it was
+    started all over again.[10]
+
+[10] I refer the reader to that poignant book, _Maternity, Letters from
+Working Women_, collected by the Women's Co-operative Guild. Bell, 1915.
+
+Again:--
+
+    During pregnancy I suffered much. When at the end of ten years I
+    determined that this state of things should not go on any longer.
+
+Again:--
+
+    My grandmother had twenty children. Only eight lived to about
+    fourteen years; only two to a good old age.
+
+Again:--
+
+    I cannot tell you all my sufferings during the time of motherhood.
+    I thought, like hundreds of women to-day, that it was only
+    natural, and that you had to bear it. I had three children and one
+    miscarriage in three years.
+
+Need I go on?
+
+There lies the real root of revolution.
+
+The secret revolt and bitterness which permeates every fibre of the
+unwillingly pregnant and suffering mothers has been finding its
+expression in the lives and deeds of their children. We have been
+breeding revolutionaries through the ages and at an increasing rate
+since the crowding into cities began, and women were forced to bear
+children beyond their strength and desires in increasingly unnatural
+conditions.
+
+Also since women have heard rumours that such enslaved motherhood is
+not necessary, that the wise know a way of keeping their motherhood
+voluntary, the revolt in the mother has become conscious with
+consequent injury to the child.
+
+Increasingly, the first of baby's rights is to be _wanted_.
+
+Concerning baby's right to be fed on the food that nature supplies, or
+if that fails on the very nearest substitute that can be discovered,
+there are to-day so many who urge that an infant shall be fed by
+its own mother, that it is perhaps needless to repeat arguments so
+impressive. Nevertheless, perhaps it is as well to remind young
+mothers of two or three of the most vital facts. The first is that
+no artificial substitute, however perfectly prepared and chemically
+analysed, can possibly give those very subtle constituents which are
+found in the mother's own milk and which vary from individual to
+individual. These probably are in the nature of the vitamines now so
+well known in fresh food, but they are something more specifically
+individual than can be scientifically detected. The fresh milk of its
+own mother has a peculiar value to the child which is greater than that
+of any foster mother.
+
+For this reason alone, were it the only one, every young mother should
+nurse her own baby if possible; but, on the other hand, to-day it
+not infrequently happens that the mother may have an apparent flow
+of milk, quite sufficient for the infant in quantity, but that milk
+may be devoid of the necessary supply of fat or sugars or some other
+ingredient for complete nutriment. When this is so, it is often wisest
+to allow the mother to nurse the child partly and to supplement its
+diet by other milk.
+
+Various schools of doctors and maternity nurses have differed even on
+this matter, but it is quite obvious that if the actual food value of
+the mother's milk is below a certain point then the added value of its
+individual vitamine-like qualities will not wholly compensate for the
+loss of actual nourishment.
+
+Among baby's rights, I should perhaps also make it clear that there is
+his right that he should not be used as a bulwark between his mother
+and another baby in a way which is sometimes recommended so that a
+mother may go on nursing her infant for a very long time, sometimes
+even into its second year, in the hope that this nursing may prevent
+her conceiving again. Such a course of action is very harmful both to
+the child and to her and should never be followed. Such a practice is,
+of course, much less common in this country (except among aliens) than
+it is abroad where I have seen healthy children of even three or four
+years of age nursing upon their mother's knees.
+
+In these days, perhaps it is hardly necessary to accentuate baby's
+other rights since the century of the child dawned a generation ago.
+To-day it is perhaps almost more important to accentuate the rights
+of others who exist in the neighbourhood of a baby. But on the other
+hand if one looks penetratingly at the whole problem of character
+development, one sees that among baby's rights is its right to be
+trained from the very first so that its life shall be as little
+hindered by friction as may be possible: that it should be taught the
+elementary rules of conduct and necessary conformity with the hard
+material facts of existence from the very first. A wise nurse's or
+mother's training from the earliest weeks of infancy may make or mar a
+future man's or woman's chance of getting on in the world and making
+a success of their lives, by making or marring the character, the
+capacity to obey, the formation of regular and hygienic habits and the
+realization of the physical facts of the world.
+
+The ancient Greeks taught their youth to reverence that which was
+beneath them, that which was around them, and that which was above
+them. In my opinion this right of youth to be placed in its proper
+orientation in relation to the world has been neglected of late. We are
+suffering from the wayward revolt from an earlier and perhaps harsher
+type of mistake, that of too greatly controlling and thwarting the
+child's impulses. We must maintain a just balance and return to the due
+mean in which the right of a child, not only to be well born but well
+trained, is universally recognized.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Weakest Link in the Human Chain
+
+    "This shall be thy reward--that the ideal shall be real to thee."
+
+        OLIVE SCHREINER: _Dreams_.
+
+
+Proverbs innumerable and daily experience have familiarized every one
+with the idea that the citizen is moulded and his or her essential
+characteristics determined in childhood, and as a result of childhood's
+training. The most profoundly operative of all his qualities is his
+potential sex attitude, because it is that which determines his
+experience of sex and marriage, which colours his thoughts towards
+women throughout his life, which inclines his mind nobly towards his
+own racial actions or which leaves him weak and frivolous in his
+attitude towards the greatest profundities of life.
+
+Children, otherwise brought up with every care and forethought,
+surrounded by all that love and money can give them, are too generally
+left, without their mother's guidance or their father's wisdom, to
+discover the great facts of life partly by instinct and partly from
+the vulgar talk of servants or soiled children a little older than
+themselves. Worse even than this takes place, because most generally in
+this connection they not only do not hear the truth from their mother's
+lips, but they learn from her their most influential and earliest
+lesson in lying.
+
+The curious thing about the particularly pernicious form of lying which
+deals with racial things in the presence of childhood is that we have
+the habit of thinking it quite innocent. Indeed we have even acquired
+the habit of thinking it one of the charming form of lies; hence when
+we are in a reforming mood, seeking for the origins of the wrongs we
+are trying to put right, we pass these "charming" lies by, thinking
+them harmless.
+
+Where did each one of us first learn to lie?
+
+_Nearly every one who is now grown up got his (or her) first lesson in
+lying at his mother's knee._ To the little child, in his narrow but
+ever widening world, the mother is the supreme ruler, the all-wise
+provider of food, clothes, pleasures and pains. The mother (the child
+instinctively feels) must be also the source of wisdom.
+
+Question after question about himself and his surroundings springs
+up in the baby mind. Mother is asked them all, and for every one
+she has some sort of an answer. Then inevitably, at three or four,
+or five years old comes the question:--"Mother, where did you find
+me?"--"Mother, how was I born?"
+
+Then comes the lie.
+
+The child is told about the doctor bringing him in a bag--or a stork
+flying in through the window--or the accidental finding under the
+gooseberry bush.
+
+All children delight in fairy tales, but instinctively they know very
+well the difference between a fairy tale which is recounted to them as
+a story in answer to their mood of "make-believe" and a fiction which
+is putting them off when they are seeking the truth.
+
+If the mother who feels herself too ignorant or too self-conscious to
+answer the truth to the child's questions takes him on her knee and
+deliberately tells him in a "make-believe" mood a fairy tale, the child
+will then not feel that the mother has lied. _He will feel, however,
+that he must ask some one else for the truth._
+
+But most mothers give the answer containing the fiction of the
+gooseberry bush, or whatever it may be, in a manner indicating that
+that is what the child must believe, and the child receives the
+information as a serious answer to his serious question. It is then a
+lie, and a pernicious lie.
+
+Racial knowledge, instinct, whatever you like to call it, is subtler
+and stronger in baby minds than we dulled grown-ups are inclined to
+think. The youngest child has a half-consciousness that what its mother
+said in answer to this question was not true.
+
+Nurse, or auntie, a friend's governess, or any one else who seems wise
+and powerful, is asked the same question when mother is not there,
+and the chances are that if mother had given the stork version auntie
+gives the gooseberry bush or some other fiction which she particularly
+favours.
+
+The baby ponders intermittently, inconsequently, perhaps at long
+intervals, perhaps after years, but ultimately it realizes that its
+mother lied to it.
+
+In this way infinite injury has been done to the whole human stock,
+and more particularly women have suffered from the dishonesty and the
+inherent incapacity of our society to be frank and truthful about
+the most profound and the most terrible aspects of sex, namely, its
+diseases. A wife or a mother has the right to be told the truth.
+
+Women, and particularly mothers, have been outrageously wronged by the
+deliberate lies and untruthful atmosphere about the greater problems
+of sex in which the learned have enshrouded them: but mothers have
+themselves given the first bent to the little sprouting twig of that
+tree of knowledge, and they have bent it _away_ from the sunlight of
+truth and clean and happy understanding.
+
+The mother's excuse is, or would be if she felt herself in any way to
+blame (which, by the way, deplorably, she very seldom does) that these
+terrible mysteries of origin are not suitable for the little innocent
+child to ponder over. She thinks they would shock him. But here the
+mother is profoundly mistaken.
+
+_The age of innocence is the age when all knowledge is pure._ At three,
+four, or five years old, everything is taken for granted--everything in
+the universe is equally a surprise, and is at the same time accepted
+without question as being in the natural course of events. If true
+answers were given to the tiny child's questions, they would seem quite
+rational--not in the least more surprising than the fact that oak trees
+grow from acorns, or that the cook gets a jam tart out of a hot oven.
+
+All the world's events seem magic at that age, and if no exceptional
+mystery were made of the magic of his own advent, the child would
+feel it as natural as all the rest, and having asked the question and
+obtained satisfactory, simple unaccentuated answers, would let his
+little mind run on to the thousand other questions he wants to ask. The
+essential racial knowledge would slip naturally and sweetly into his
+mind mingled with a myriad other new impressions.
+
+There is no self-consciousness, no personal shamefacedness, about a
+tiny child. It accepts the great truths of the universe in the grand
+manner.
+
+If the mother has never failed her child, has always given it what she
+could of wisdom, she will retain his trust and his confidence. When he
+gets a little older she can teach him to go to no one else for talk
+about the intimacies of life, which the child is quick to realize are
+not discussed openly amongst strangers.
+
+Then, later on, when personal consciousness and shyness begin, there
+need not be the acute constraint and tension of the shame-faced
+elder speaking to a mind awakening to itself. Deep in the child's
+consciousness, deeper even than its conscious memory goes, the true big
+facts are planted.
+
+To tell a child of twelve or fourteen the truth is, for most parents,
+an impossibly difficult matter. The reason for this is that it is then
+too late for essentials; only details are then suitable or necessary.
+
+Little children spend much of their early time in exploring themselves
+and their immediate surroundings--all is mysterious, all at first
+unknown. Their own feet and hands, their powers of locomotion and of
+throwing some object to a distance, the curls of their own hair, the
+pain they encounter in their bodies when explorations bring them in
+contact with sharp angles: all are equally mysterious, together forming
+a wonder-world. And babies are very young indeed when they explore with
+all the rest of their bodies, the rudiments of those of their racial
+organs with which they can acquaint themselves. _In my opinion, the
+attitude of a man or woman through life is largely determined by the
+attitude adopted by the mother towards the racial organs_ BEFORE _the
+child was old enough consciously to remember any instruction that was
+imparted_.
+
+Advice is often given in these more enlightened days to instruct your
+boy or girl in his racial power or duties when he or she is ten or
+twelve years old. This to many seems very young, and they hesitate
+and defer it till they are older and "can understand better." In my
+opinion, this is already eight or ten years too late.
+
+_The child's first instruction in its attitude towards its sex organs,
+its first account of the generation of human beings, should be given
+when it is two or three years old_; given with other instruction, of
+which it is still too young to comprehend more than part, but which
+it is nevertheless old enough to comprehend in part. Very simple
+instruction given reverently at suitable opportunities at that early
+age will impress itself upon the very _texture_ of the child's mind,
+before the time of actual memories, so that from the very first
+possible beginnings its tendencies are in the direction of truth and
+reverent understanding.
+
+_A child so tiny will usually not remember one word of what was said
+to it, but the effects on his outlook will be deep._ For at that early
+age, children are meditatively absorbing and being impressed by the
+psychological states and feelings of their instructors and companions,
+and if, in these very earliest months, the mother or guardian makes the
+mistake of treating ribaldly the tiny organs or of speaking lightly in
+the child's presence, or of directly lying to the child about these
+facts, that child receives a mental warp and injury which nothing can
+ever eradicate entirely, which may in later years through bitter and
+befouling experiences be lived down as an old scar that has healed, but
+which will have permanently injured it.
+
+I hold this to be a profound truth, and one which it is urgent that
+humanity should realize. I trust that my view will establish itself on
+every hand. If that were my way, I could easily write a whole volume
+on this theme, and coin a polysyllabic terminology in which to mould
+and harden thought on the subject. But I prefer that a few simple words
+should slip like vital seed into the hearts of mothers, and that they
+may mould the race.
+
+It is ignorance of this truth which has led to the dishonouring and
+befouling of pure and beautiful youth, which is the original source of
+the greater part of all the social troubles and the sex difficulties of
+adolescence.
+
+_The tiny child of two or three years old, just beginning to perceive
+and piece together the psychological impressions stamped upon it by
+its environment and the mind-states of those around it, is the weakest
+link in the chain of our social consciousness._ Physically, the new
+born babe for the first few days of its life is the weakest link in
+the chain, the most liable physically to extinction, but spiritually,
+socially the link most liable to warping, even destruction, is the
+awakening mind, the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child
+between two and three years old.
+
+The mother or guardian then who desires her son or daughter to face
+the great facts of life beautifully and profoundly should begin from
+the first to mould that attitude in the child. It may appear to the
+unthinking like building castles in the sand even to hint at truths
+which it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers nothing of the
+words used in later years. This is not so. What the child absorbs is
+less the actual words than the tone of voice, the mode of expression
+that spiritually impresses itself upon its own little soul.
+
+Then there comes a later stage for most civilized human beings,
+usually after they are three years old, when there arises the
+possibility of permanent consciousness through permanent and specific
+memory of things seen, done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present
+generation will have some vivid memory, dating back to when they
+were between three and four years old, when they received a strong
+mental impression that grown-ups were lying to them or that there
+was something funny or silly in questions which they asked. Perhaps
+they noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was taken seriously,
+questions about where pussy got her kittens were laughed at. Almost
+each one of us who is to-day grown up then received some grievous
+injury. This time is of great importance in the psychology not only
+of the child, but of the whole adult race arising from the growing up
+of each child, for one's earliest memories are few but very vivid. As
+things are to-day, generally between the ages of three and four or so,
+in the months which are likely to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit
+is wounded by the shock of a serious lie.
+
+When as a mother or father you are with your children it is vital to
+be most careful to answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the
+questions which arise. No one can foresee which question and answer may
+make that terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.
+
+When your little son or daughter is about the age of three or four
+or five, the day will come when you are asked questions about the
+most fundamental facts in human life, and then the answers to these
+questions contain the probability of a lifelong memory. Answer with the
+_truth_.
+
+Many parents are anxious to tell their children the great truths in
+a wise and beautiful manner. But few feel that they know how to do
+it, for it is a most difficult thing to know how to answer searching
+questions about profound subjects, and particularly about those which
+the community wrongly considers shameful. Each mother knows, or should
+know, the temperament and needs of her child, so that the adaptation
+of the advice I give should be varied to suit the individual child. In
+essence, however, children's demands at an early age are remarkably
+similar, and the questions of children on birth and sex differ in form,
+though seldom in substance.
+
+The following conversation between a mother and her little son
+indicates what seems to me the best way first to tell a child who has
+reached the age when he may have lasting memory of the facts that he is
+blindly seeking in his baby questions. It will not suffice to learn the
+answers off by heart; the baby will then soon confound his elders, but
+the substance of the conversation should prove useful.
+
+The very first time the query comes: "Mother where did you get me?" the
+mother must not divert the child's interest, or hesitate, but should be
+ready at once to answer:--
+
+    "God and Daddy and I together made you, because we wanted you.[11]"
+
+    [11] At the request of many readers this conversation was published
+    in the _Sunday Chronicle_.
+
+    "Did God help? Couldn't He do it all Himself?"
+
+    "You know when you and I are playing with bricks together, you like
+    Mummy to help, but not to do it all. God thought Daddy and Mummy
+    would like Him to help, but not to do everything, because Daddy
+    and Mummy enjoyed making you much more than you enjoy playing with
+    bricks."
+
+That may suffice for the time, because little children are very readily
+satisfied with one or two facts about any one subject, and the talk
+could easily be diverted. The little mind may brood over what was told,
+and some time later--perhaps a few days, perhaps even a few months or
+more--this question will come up again, possibly in a different form:--
+
+    "Mummy, when was I born?"
+
+The mother should give the day and say:--
+
+    "You know your birthday comes every year on the 18th of April. That
+    birthday is what reminds us of the day you were born, and each
+    birthday you are a whole year older."
+
+    "I'm five now."
+
+    "Yes, so you were born five years ago on your birthday."
+
+    "Where was I before I was born?"
+
+    "Don't you remember I told you that God and Daddy and I made you?"
+
+    "Yes.... Did you make me on my birthday?"
+
+    "Not all in one day; you took much longer to make than that."
+
+    "How long did I take to make?"
+
+    "A long, long time. Little children are so precious they cannot be
+    made in a hurry."
+
+    "How long did I take?"
+
+    "Nearly a year--nine whole months."
+
+    "Did baby take as long?"
+
+    "Yes, just the same time. Baby is just as precious as you are."
+
+    "I'm bigger."
+
+    "Now you are, but you were baby's size when you were baby's age.
+    You are bigger because you have grown since your first birthday."
+
+Again the subject may perhaps drop, or it may be carried directly
+forward.
+
+    "What is being born?"
+
+    "Being born is being shown to the world and seeing the world for
+    the first time. At the end of nine months after God and Daddy and
+    Mummy started to make you, you were ready to open your eyes and
+    breathe and cry, and be a real live baby, and that day they showed
+    you to somebody and you saw the world. That was being born."
+
+    "Where was I before you finished making me?"
+
+    "Mummy kept you hidden away so that nobody at all should see you."
+
+    "_Where_ was I hidden?"
+
+    "You were hidden in a most wonderful place, in the place where only
+    quite little babies can be while God and their mummies are making
+    them."
+
+    "Show me; I want to go back there."
+
+    "You can never go back; it is only while you are being made you can
+    be there. After your first birthday, you can never go back."
+
+    "Where was I?"
+
+    "Well, you know, little babies that are being made are very, very
+    delicate, and they have to be kept very warm and comfortable, and
+    nobody must see them, and they must be close, close up to their
+    mummies."
+
+    The child may interject, "And their daddies too?"
+
+    "Yes, if they have got loving daddies, the daddy keeps close to the
+    mummy; but while babies are being made it is God and mummy that
+    have most of the work to do. That is why you must always love your
+    mummies and obey them."
+
+The child may be temporarily satisfied, or may continue at once:--
+
+    "But where _was_ it that I was while you were making me?"
+
+    "What is the warmest, softest, safest place you can think of?
+    Mummy's heart: that is all warm with love. The place Mummy hid you
+    while God and she were making you was right underneath her heart."
+
+    "Her real heart--the heart that beats like a clock ticking?"
+
+    "Yes, her real heart, just here."
+
+The mother should lay the child's hand on her heart and let him feel it
+beating.
+
+    "And just inside, right underneath here, Mummy kept you while God
+    was helping her to make you."
+
+The child who has been brought up in a home of love and tenderness and
+beauty will find this a thrilling and beautiful thought, like a little
+boy whom I know personally, and to whom this fact was told in this way.
+Solemnly, and without a word, he went away from his mother into the
+middle of the room and stood deep in thought for several minutes. Then
+he turned, looked round, and rushed across the room, threw himself into
+his mother's lap, his arms round her neck and cried: "Oh, Mummy, Mummy,
+then I was right inside you."
+
+For days afterwards he was filled with a rapturous joy, and at times
+used to leave his play and come to his mother and put his arms round
+her neck, saying: "Oh, Mummy, that is why I love you so."
+
+Whatever form the child's feeling may take, the opportunity should not
+be allowed to pass without a little addition to the conversation, and
+the mother should say:--
+
+    "And you see that is why you must never talk to any one but Daddy
+    and Mummy, or God through your prayers, about such things. As God
+    and Daddy and Mummy, and no one else made your little body, so
+    every thing you want to know about it, all the questions you want
+    to ask, you should ask of them and no one else. You see, you are
+    different from any other child in the world, and as Daddy and
+    Mummy helped to make you, only they know your works. So whatever it
+    is you want to know, or whatever it is that goes wrong, it is Mummy
+    and Daddy who can tell you about it."
+
+Once may be sufficient for a child to be told the greater truths
+it desires to know, but it is seldom that the child will leave so
+wonderful a subject entirely alone after first learning of it, and many
+portions of the beautiful facts will have to be repeated in a variety
+of forms, or in just the same words, as are repeated again and again
+the beloved fairy tales. The child, however, will be quick to know
+the difference between this story and fairy tales, for children have
+an instinct for truth at a much earlier age than grown-ups generally
+remember.
+
+A further series of questions will probably arise when the child is
+about twelve.
+
+The essential difficulties of these later questions, and the shamefaced
+self-consciousness so usual between parent and child will never arise
+if from the first the deep truths have been known to the child.
+
+The child so instructed is not supplied with all necessary facts,
+and instruction of a more specific and exact nature will have to
+be repeated at further intervals throughout its life, but on this
+foundation, further knowledge can be built without having to wipe out
+anything already implanted, without having to contradict earlier
+instruction, or to acknowledge the gravest error of having lied. Life
+teaches much to a quick child trained to observation, particularly
+in the country, where all children should spend much of their time.
+If the little one has been told what has been given in the previous
+pages it will have all the essential truths on to which it will fit in
+for itself the other data which daily life will bring it; thus it may
+garner a harvest of facts one by one.
+
+Concerning the later instruction which will be necessary, the
+information can be given in many ways. Some advocate school instruction
+of children of twelve or more in the physiology of all the members of
+the body, so that the racial powers are treated in their proper place
+in conjunction with the digestive organs, brain, lungs, etc. Some
+parents prefer to give the instruction themselves, for none but they
+can know so well the individual needs of the child.
+
+Much has already been written and is available in the voluminous
+literature about the presentation of the facts to be imparted at the
+various later ages, and almost every book advises comparisons with
+flowers. For the later ages of ten years and after, this is probably
+the best introduction for specific details, but for the first and
+earliest instruction of the baby mind, such direct simple answers as I
+have indicated are, I am sure, the best.
+
+Children whose parents have treated them as I advise in this chapter
+are _essentially safe_ whatever form later instruction may take. They
+will then have the vitality to survive lies, although ever to lie to
+them will be putting a cruel and useless strain on their recuperative
+powers. If the little child is started upon its life with a beautiful
+and true conception of its relation to its mother, and of man's
+relation to woman, it will be unlikely indeed that it will grow up a
+hooligan who flouts his parents or a loose and lascivious destroyer of
+women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Cost of Coffins
+
+  He only is free who can control himself.
+
+        EPICTETUS.
+
+    The imposition of motherhood upon a married woman in absolute
+    despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none
+    the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of
+    Church and State.
+
+        SALEEBY: _Woman and Womanhood_.
+
+
+Why do poor slum mothers buy more coffins than do the same number of
+rich women?
+
+The incredulous may answer this question by asserting that they don't,
+but as a matter of fact they do. The Registrar-General's Report for
+1911 shows that of every thousand births in the upper and middle
+classes, 76.4 babies die, while of a thousand births in the homes of
+unskilled workmen (this would be the class of the "poor" mothers) 152.5
+babies die.
+
+So that it is clear that if each member of this poorest class of
+mothers had exactly the same number of babies as each mother of the
+rich class, she would have to purchase about two coffins for every
+coffin bought by those whose babies are not so prone to die.
+
+There is, however, another fact which completes the proof of my first
+sentence. The upper and middle classes do not have so many children per
+family as do the poorest class. To a thousand married people in the
+upper and middle classes there were born in 1911 119 babies, but to
+the poor mothers--the wives of the unskilled workmen--there were born
+213. So that in addition to buying twice as many coffins per thousand
+children born, these poor mothers have nearly twice as many coffins
+again, owing to the fact that nearly twice as many children are born to
+them.
+
+I wonder if poor women have ever asked themselves if they can afford
+coffins at this rate?
+
+Of course the coffins of these poor little babies are very small, and
+do not require very much wood to make them. But let us think in what
+other ways they cost: To the mother they cost not only all the little
+the baby had eaten, and used in the way of clothes before its death,
+but all the wastage of her own vitality while she was bearing it; she
+could not work so well, at any rate towards the end of the time.
+Home duties had to be somewhat neglected; the older children had to
+go to school dirtier and less cared for; the husband had less comfort
+and fewer smiles; every one in the family was poorer, not only in
+material things and in the work that might make material things, but in
+happiness and buoyancy.
+
+It needs no imagination to realize, when you have once grasped these
+facts, that poor people are much less able to spare the cost of a
+doomed baby than are the better class people. Then why do they so often
+indulge in this tragic luxury? Chiefly through lack of knowledge,
+through ignorance, particularly on the part of the mother.
+
+Often ignorance is blind and unaware that it is ignorance, stupidly
+blundering through life; but this is not always the mother's attitude.
+She may, indeed she often does, passionately desire knowledge and seek
+for it wherever she thinks she may find it in her restricted circle.
+Too tragically often she is baffled in her search.
+
+Some years before the war, when I was lecturing at a Northern
+University, a little incident opened my eyes to this fact. I was young
+and had not encountered this aspect of life before, and it burnt itself
+into my consciousness as one of the most vivid impressions of my life.
+It was this:--
+
+One of my students was a woman who was hoping to qualify as a medical
+doctor, and she was having tea with me and chatting about the events of
+the day. As part of her training she had been assisting the doctor in
+dealing with out-patients at a hospital, and a woman had brought in a
+miserable little baby, which wailed all the time and which the mother
+explained wouldn't put on any flesh or grow into a nice, healthy baby
+whatever she did with it.
+
+The mother, with tears in her eyes, made an intensely earnest appeal
+to the doctor to tell her what was to her unaccountably wrong with the
+infant.
+
+She was a fine strapping woman, and thought her babies ought to be
+large and healthy. She said this was her third or fourth, and the
+others had all died when they were very little.
+
+This happened more than seven years ago. Thank God our racial attitude
+has changed since then.
+
+The doctor put her off with some soothing platitudes, but the woman
+driven to despair said: "I believe there's something wrong with my
+man. If there's something wrong with my man I won't have babies no
+more--it's just cruel to see them miserable like this and have them
+dying one after the other. Won't you, for God's sake, tell me whether
+there's anything wrong with my man or not?" This appeal was met by the
+assurance that there was nothing wrong, and she should go on having
+babies and do her duty by her husband.
+
+My medical woman student said that it was glaringly obvious that the
+baby was syphilitic.
+
+I asked her why she did not immediately tell the mother the truth. She
+shrugged her shoulders and said: "I've got my exam. to pass; if I did a
+thing like that Dr. ---- would stop me going to the hospital. I can't
+afford to take risks like that. Why, he might not only stop me, but it
+would do the other women students a lot of harm too."
+
+This was before the war, and England was less enlightened, less eager
+for medical women's assistance than the war has made her, and it was
+then a fight for a girl to get a footing in the hospitals for the wide
+experience she needed for a general practice.
+
+I vowed to myself that I would never forget that mother, and that some
+day I would batter at the brazen gates of knowledge on her behalf.
+
+Here was a mother with a glimmering of the truth, seeking passionately
+for knowledge from the one person she had a right to turn to for this
+knowledge, and she was put off with lies, encouraged again to bear the
+cost of a hopelessly doomed birth; to risk the agonies of child-birth,
+to bring into the world a creature who for a short spell would be
+tormented and then would cost her a coffin.
+
+By refusing his scientific advice, that doctor in reality sent that
+woman, whose desire to know was stirred, to the gossip of the slum
+alley and the street corner. There she would get a blurred and
+inaccurate, if not actually harmful, idea of what he should have been
+able to tell her in a clean, simple language based on scientific fact.
+
+When this is put down on paper, I feel as though it would be ridiculous
+to begin to point out the monstrous cruelty and the monstrous folly of
+such an action as that doctor's. Yet such action was not isolated, it
+did not depend on one man's warped conceptions of loyalty to another
+unknown man, "the husband." Since the war a public realization of the
+racial destructiveness of such diseases has been increased and the
+woman and her husband would to-day be more likely to receive medical
+treatment.
+
+But even to-day if a mother is truly told that there is "something
+wrong with her man," would she also certainly be told how in wise
+and healthy fashion she can herself supplement what his criminal
+negligence neglected? If a husband is careless and callous a woman
+must save herself and the community from the waste and the misery of
+irretrievably doomed births.
+
+She will indeed be an exceptionally lucky woman if she to-day finds
+in public hospitals doctors to whom she could turn for knowledge
+how _best_ to control conception, though such knowledge is not only
+essential to her private well-being, but essential to her in the
+fulfilment of her duties as a citizen.
+
+This little incident is but one illustration of many aspects of the
+subject. It is not only _disease_ which necessitates restraint on
+parenthood. No healthy woman can bear a long series of infants in rapid
+succession without loss both to them and to herself. This is discussed
+in my _Wise Parenthood_.
+
+Any one who thinks will see clearly that no civilized country, not
+even the richest in the world, can afford babies' coffins. Though they
+are smaller than grown-up people's they are more costly, for they are
+waste and nothing but waste. A grown-up individual, man or woman, has,
+we hope at any rate, given some return to the community in work or in
+ideas for all that his life has cost. But the infant's death is sheer
+unmitigated waste.
+
+If all the mothers who realize this and who feel their need for the
+best help that science can give them, would insist and persist in
+their enquiries for a knowledge of the most reliable results of modern
+science, they would in the end succeed in getting them. There is enough
+knowledge now in the world for the race to transform itself in a couple
+of generations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Creation of a New and Irradiated Race
+
+  Ah, Love! could thou and I with fate conspire
+  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
+  Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
+  Remould it nearer to the Heart's desire.
+
+        OMAR KHAYYAM.
+
+
+On parents' love for the helpless child depends the existence of our
+race. Human parenthood necessitates not only the desire for offspring,
+but the willing care of them during the long years while they are
+helpless and dependent. Were this desire and willingness not deeply
+implanted in us our race would become extinct, as in some strange way,
+the higher type of ancient Greeks vanished from the world.
+
+Not only throughout the lower creatures do we find the responsibilities
+of parenthood increasing as we go up the scale towards the higher, but,
+even in the various grades of highly civilized man, the responsibility
+for the children is ever greater in proportion with the general culture
+and position of the parents.
+
+Not many years ago the labourer's child could be set to work early and
+could very shortly earn his keep; while at the same time the young
+gentleman was an expense and care to his father and mother until he
+had passed through the University of Oxford or Cambridge, and amongst
+some even until he had made his "finishing" world tour. The trend of
+legislation has continuously extended the age of irresponsible youth in
+the lower and lower middle classes, until it now approaches that of the
+middle and upper class youth. A stride in this direction was taken by
+the last Education Act, which has made education compulsory throughout
+the whole country to an age which is nearly university age.
+
+I need not labour the resulting effect of the ever increasing
+prolongation of youth. It is not only apparent but has received
+sufficient treatment from the hands of various authors and thinkers.
+
+Its corollary, however, has still not received that clear and direct
+thought which its significance demands. Parenthood under the present
+_regime_, is not only an increasing responsibility and expense, it
+has become so great a strain upon the resources of those who have for
+themselves and their children a high standard of living that it is
+tending to become a rare privilege for some who would otherwise gladly
+propagate large families.
+
+As Dean Inge reminded us (_Outspoken Essays_, 1919), there was a stage
+in the high civilization of Greece when slaves were only allowed to
+rear a child as a reward for their good behaviour. I find a curious
+parallel to this in the treatment of a section of our society by our
+present community.
+
+Crushed by the burden of taxation which they have not the resources to
+meet and to provide for children also: crushed by the national cost of
+the too numerous children of those who do not contribute to the public
+funds by taxation, yet who recklessly bring forth from an inferior
+stock individuals who are not self-supporting, the middle and superior
+artisan classes have, without perceiving it, come almost to take the
+position of that ancient slave population. It is only as a reward for
+their thrift and foresight, for their care and self-denial that they
+find themselves able (that is allowed by financial circumstances) to
+have one or perhaps two children. Hence by a strange parallel working
+of divers forces, the best, the thriftiest, the most serious-minded,
+the most desiring of parenthood are to-day those who are forced by
+circumstances into the position of the ancient slave and allowed
+to rear but one or two children as a result perhaps of a lifetime
+of valuable service and of loving union with a wife well fitted to
+bear more offspring. While on the other hand, society allows the
+diseased, the racially negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the
+feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community,
+to produce innumerable tens of thousands of stunted, warped, and
+inferior infants. If they live, a large proportion of these are doomed
+from their very physical inheritance to be at the best but partly
+self-supporting, and thus to drain the resources of those classes
+above them which have a sense of responsibility. The better classes,
+freed from the cost of the institutions, hospitals, prisons and so
+on, principally filled by the inferior stock, would be able to afford
+to enlarge their own families, and at the same time not only to
+save misery but to multiply a hundredfold the contribution in human
+life-value to the riches of the State.
+
+The immensity of the power of parenthood, both on the personal lives
+which it brings into existence, and on the community of which each
+individual is to form a part, is not yet perceived by our Statesmen in
+its true perspective.
+
+The power of parenthood ought no longer to be exercised by _all_,
+however inferior, as an "individual right." It is profoundly a duty
+and a privilege, and it is essentially the concern of the whole
+community. It should be the policy of the community to encourage in
+every way the parenthood of those whose circumstances and conditions
+are such that there is a reasonable anticipation that they will give
+rise to healthy, well-endowed future citizens. It should be the policy
+of the community to discourage from parenthood all whose circumstances
+are such as would make probable the introduction of weakened, diseased
+or debased future citizens. It is the urgent duty of the community
+to make parenthood impossible for those whose mental and physical
+conditions are such that there is well-nigh a certainty that their
+offspring must be physically and mentally tainted, if not utterly
+permeated by disease. That the community should allow syphilitic
+parents to bring forth a sequence of blind syphilitic infants is a
+state of affairs so monstrous that it would be hardly credible were it
+not a fact.
+
+Parenthood, with the divine gift of love in its power, with the
+glorious potentialities of handing on a radiant, wholesome, beautiful
+youth should be a sacred and preserved gift, a privilege only to be
+exercised by those who rationally comprehend the counter-balancing
+duties. But so long as parenthood is kept outside the realm of rational
+thought and reasoned action, so long will we as a race slide at an
+ever-increasing speed towards the utter deterioration of our stock
+through the reckless increase of the debased, which is necessarily
+counter-balanced by the unnatural limiting of the families of the more
+educated and responsible, whose sense of duty to the unborn forbids
+them to bring into the world children whom they cannot educate and
+environ at least as well as they themselves were reared.
+
+In earlier generations the child was taught to speak of its parents in
+a respectful and grateful tone as the "august authors of its being,"
+but this right and proper instruction in reverence was coupled with
+an arbitrary disposal of the child, and a certain harshness in its
+training against which the later generations have revolted. As is usual
+the reformers have deviated from rectitude in the opposite direction,
+so that to-day to find children with deep respect for their parents
+is uncommon. Reverence is being exacted by some rather from the
+parent towards the child as a fresh, new and unspoilt being. This too
+often results in spoiling the child, which is an equally foolish and
+hampering proceeding. The child should be taught from its earliest days
+profound respect, reverence and gratitude towards its parents, and in
+particular towards its mother, for of her very life she gave it the
+incomparable gift of life. True parents give the child the best and
+freshest and most beautiful impulses of their lives, and, at the cost
+of bodily anguish the mother bears it, and its parents for long years
+nurture it, sacrificing many enjoyments which they might have but for
+the cost and care of rearing it. This should be realized by the child,
+who then cannot but feel gratitude to and reverence for the authors of
+its being.
+
+The sheer beauty of the world, were there no other gain from living, is
+so great that the gift of eyes and a mind to perceive it should place
+the recipient of that gift for ever in a reverential debt towards the
+pair who gave.
+
+But the value of the beauty of life, and a just appreciation of the
+immense gift which parenthood confers cannot be realized by all.
+To-day alas, millions are born into circumstances so wretched that
+life can scarcely involve a perception of beauty, or a probability of
+moral action and social service. Also many myriads of children are
+born of parents to whom they can feel that they owe nothing, because
+they know or inwardly perceive that they were not desired, that they
+were not profoundly and nobly loved throughout their coming, that they
+were hurled into this existence through accident, self-indulgence or
+stupidity. Yet parenthood which grants life even on these terms is a
+wonderful power, a cruel and relentless force perverted from its divine
+possibilities.
+
+Youth tends ever to right itself if it but escape the taint of the
+profound racial diseases, and the gift of a well-conditioned body is
+the creation of an incomparable set of co-ordinated powers in a world
+in which the potentialities for the use of those powers is magical.
+
+Innumerable are the efforts at present being made by countless
+different societies, official bodies and individual reformers to
+diminish the ever increasing ill-health and deterioration of our race,
+but their efforts are a fight on the losing side unless the fundamental
+and hitherto uncontrollable factors which make for health are there.
+
+Doctors may cure every disease known to humanity, but while they are
+so doing, fresh diseases, further modifications of destructive germs,
+may spring into existence, the possibility of which has recently been
+demonstrated by French scientists who have experimented on the rapid
+changes which may be induced in "germs."
+
+Prisons and reformatories, municipal milk, the feeding of school
+children, improvement in housing, reform of our marriage laws, schools
+for mothers, even schools for fathers, garden cities--not all these
+useful and necessary things together and many more added to them
+will ever touch the really profound sources of our race, will ever
+cause freedom from degeneracy and ill-health, will ever create that
+fine, glorious and beautiful race of men and women which hovers in
+the dreams of our reformers. Is then this dream out of reach and
+impossible; are then all our efforts wasted? No, the dream is not
+impossible of fulfilment; but, at present, our efforts are almost
+entirely wasted because _they are built upon the shifting sand and not
+upon the steady rock_.
+
+The reform, _the one central reform_, which will make all the others of
+avail and make their work successful _is the endowing of motherhood,
+not with money but with the knowledge of her own power_.
+
+_For the power of a mother, consciously exerted in the voluntary
+procreation and joyous bearing of her children is the greatest power
+in the world._ It is through its conscious and deliberate exercise,
+and through that alone, that the race may step from its present
+entanglements on to a higher plane, where bodies will be not only a
+delight to their possessors, but efficient tools in the service of the
+souls which temporarily inhabit them.
+
+I maintain that this wonderful rejuvenescence and reform of the race
+need not be a dim and distant dream of the future. It is hovering so
+close at hand that it is actually within reach of those who to-day are
+in their young maturity; we, at present in the flesh may link hands
+with grandchildren belonging to a generation so wonderful, so endowed,
+and so improved out of recognition that the miseries and the depravity
+of human nature, to-day so wide-spread, may appear like a black and
+hideous memory of the past, as incredible to them as the habits of
+cannibals are to us.
+
+An ideal too distant, too remote, may interest the dreamer and the
+reformer possibly, but it cannot inspire a whole nation. An ideal
+within the range of possibility, that each one of us who lives a full
+lifetime may actually perceive, such an ideal can spur and fire the
+imagination, not only of our own nation, but of the world. It is my
+prayer that I may present such a racial ideal, not only to my own
+people but to humanity. It is my prayer that I may live to see in the
+generation of my grandchildren a humanity from which almost all the
+most blackening and distressing elements have been eliminated, and
+in which the vernal bodily beauty and unsullied spiritual power of
+those then growing up will surpass anything that we know to-day except
+among the rare and gifted few. This is not a wild dream; it is a real
+potentiality almost within reach. The materialization of this vital
+racial vision is in the hands of the mothers for the next twenty or
+thirty years.
+
+If every woman will but consciously and deliberately exercise the
+powers of her motherhood after learning of those powers; if she bear
+only those children which she and her mate ardently desire; if she
+refuse to bear any but these, and if she so space these children
+that she herself rests and recovers vitality between their births,
+and during their coming she lives in such a way as I have indicated
+in the preceding chapters, and if at the same time the deadly and
+horrible scourges of the venereal diseases and the multitude of
+ramifications of racial baseness are eliminated _as they can be_, then
+with a comparatively small percentage of accidents and unforeseeable
+errors, the quality of those born will enormously improve, and by a
+second generation all should be already far on the highway to new and
+wonderful powers, which are to-day almost unsuspected.
+
+What are the greatest dangers which jeopardize the materialization of
+this glorious dream of a human stock represented only by well-formed,
+desired, well-endowed beautiful men and women? Two main dangers are in
+the way of its consummation; the first is ignorance. It is difficult
+to reach the untutored mind, to teach a public hardened and deadened
+to callousness and the lack of dreams of their own; even though if one
+could but reach them it would be possible to make them understand.
+
+A second and almost greater danger is not a simple ignorance, but the
+inborn incapacity which lies in the vast and ever increasing stock of
+degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced who are now in our midst and
+who devastate social customs. These populate most rapidly, these tend
+proportionately to increase, and these are like the parasite upon the
+healthy tree sapping its vitality. These produce less than they consume
+and are able only to flourish and reproduce so long as the healthier
+produce food for them; but by ever weakening the human stock, in the
+end they will succumb with the fine structure which they have destroyed.
+
+There appear then two obstacles which might block the materialization
+of my racial vision; on the one hand the ignorance of those who
+have latent powers. This only needs to be stirred by knowledge and
+the inspiration of an ideal, to become potent. This obstacle is not
+unsurmountable. If one but speaks in sufficiently burning words, if
+one but writes sufficiently contagiously, the ideas must spread with
+ever increasing acceleration. Ignorance must be vanquished by winged
+knowledge. I hold it to be the duty of the dreamer of great dreams
+not only to express them in such a way that cognate souls may also
+perceive them. It is the duty of a seer to embody his message in such
+a form that its beauty is apparent and the vision can be seen by all
+the people. The infectiousness of disease, the contagion of destructive
+and horrible bacterial germs have become a commonplace in our social
+consciousness, and we have forgotten, and our artists have in recent
+years tended ever more and more to forget that the highest form of art
+should also be infectious. Goodness, beauty and prophetic vision have
+as strong a contagious quality as disease if they are embodied in a
+form rendered vital by the mating of truth and beauty.
+
+To overcome mere ignorance in others is, therefore, by no means a
+hopeless task, and it is the valiant work of the artist-prophet. Youth
+is the time to catch the contagion of goodness. To youth I appeal.
+
+The other obstacle presents a deeper and more difficult task. It must
+deal with the terrible debasing power of the inferior, the depraved and
+feeble-minded, to whom reason means nothing and can mean nothing, who
+are thriftless, unmanageable and appallingly prolific. Yet if the good
+in our race is not to be swamped and destroyed by the debased as the
+fine tree by the parasite, this prolific depravity must be curbed. How
+shall this be done? A very few quite simple Acts of Parliament could
+deal with it.
+
+Three short and concise Bills would be sufficient to afford the most
+urgent social service for the preservation of our race. They should
+be simply worded and based on possibilities well within the grasp of
+modern science.
+
+The idea of sterilization has not yet been very generally understood
+or accepted, although it is an idea which our civilization urgently
+needs to assimilate. I think that a large part of the objections to
+it, often made passionately and eloquently by those from whom one
+would otherwise have expected a more intelligent attitude, is due to
+complete ignorance of the facts. Even otherwise instructed persons
+confuse sterilization with castration. The arguments which to-day in
+a chance discussion of the subject are always brought forward against
+sterilization have been, in my experience, only those which apply to
+castration. To castrate any male is, of course, not only to deprive him
+of his manhood and thus to injure his personal consciousness, but to
+remove bodily organs, the loss of which adversely affects his mentality
+and which will also affect the internal secretions which have a
+profound influence on his whole organization. I fully endorse the views
+of the opponents of this process.
+
+It is, however, neither necessary to castrate nor is it suggested by
+those who, like myself, would like to see the sterilization of those
+totally unfit for parenthood made an immediate possibility, indeed made
+compulsory. As Dr. Havelock Ellis stated in an article in the _Eugenics
+Review_, Vol. I, No. 3, October 1909, pp. 203-206, sterilization under
+proper conditions is a very different and much simpler matter and one
+which has no deleterious and far reaching effects on the whole system.
+The operation is trivial, scarcely painful, and does not debar the
+subject from experiencing all his normal reaction in ordinary union; it
+only prevents the procreation of children.
+
+It has been found in some States of America, and as I know from private
+correspondents in this country, there are men who would welcome the
+relief from the ever present anxiety of potential parenthood which they
+know full well would be ruinous to the future generation.
+
+There is also the possibility of sterilization by the direct action
+of "X" rays. At present sterility is known as an unfortunate danger
+to those engaged in scientific research with radium, but it might,
+under control, be wisely used as a painless method of sterilization.
+This may prove of particular value for women in whom the operation
+corresponding to the severance of the ducts of the man is more serious.
+It appears however, not always to be permanent in its effect. In some
+circumstances this may be an advantage, in others a disadvantage.
+
+With reference to the sterilizing effect of "X"-rays, the following
+quotation from F. H. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910,
+is pertinent:--
+
+    A more special cause of sterility in men is one which operates in
+    the case of workers with radium or the Roentgen rays. Several years
+    ago Albers-Schoenberg noticed that the X-rays induced sterility
+    in guinea pigs and rabbits, but without interfering with the
+    sexual potency. These observations have been confirmed by other
+    investigators, who have shown, further, that the azoospermia is
+    due to the degeneration of the cells lining the seminal canals. In
+    men it has been proved that mere presence in an X-ray atmosphere
+    incidental to radiography sooner or later causes a condition
+    of complete sterility, but without any apparent diminution of
+    sexual potency. As Gordon observes, for those working in an X-ray
+    atmosphere adequate protection for all parts of the body not
+    directly exposed for examination or treatment is indispensable,
+    but, on the other hand, the X-rays afford a convenient, painless
+    and harmless method of inducing sterility, in cases in which it is
+    desirable to effect this result.
+
+When Bills are passed to ensure the sterility of the hopelessly
+rotten and racially diseased, and to provide for the education of the
+child-bearing woman so that she spaces her children healthily, our race
+will rapidly quell the stream of depraved, hopeless and wretched lives
+which are at present ever increasing in proportion in our midst. Before
+this stream at present the thoughtful shrink but do nothing. Such
+action as will be possible when these bills are passed will not only
+increase the relative _proportion_ of the sound and healthy among us
+who may consciously contribute to the higher and more beautiful forms
+of the human race, but by the elimination of wasteful lives which are
+to-day seldom self-supporting, and which are so largely the cause of
+the cost and outlay of public money in their institutional treatment
+and their partial relief, will check an increasing drain on our
+national resources. The setting free of this public money would make
+it possible for those now too heavily taxed to reproduce their own and
+more valuable kinds.
+
+The miserable, the degenerate, the utterly wretched in body and mind,
+who when reproducing multiply the misery and evil of the world, would
+be the first to be thankful for the escape such legislation would offer
+from the wretchedness entailed not only on their offspring but on
+themselves. The Labour Party, all Progressives, and all Conservatives
+who desire to conserve the good can unite to support measures so
+directly calculated to improve the physical condition, the mental
+happiness and the general well-being of the human race.
+
+Even to-day almost all the thriftiest and better of the working class,
+and the artisan class in particular, are already in the ranks of those
+who are sponged upon, and to some extent taxed, for the upkeep of
+the incompetent, and it is just from among the best artisan and from
+the middle class that the most serious minded parents and those who
+recognize their racial responsibilities are principally to be found.
+There is throughout the whole Labour movement, as throughout the less
+vocal but deeper feeling of the middle class, a passionate desire to
+eliminate the misery and human degradation which on every hand to-day
+saddens the tender conscience. The limiting of their own families to
+meet the pressure of circumstances will never achieve their desires.
+The best to-day are making less and less headway, and the inferior are
+increasing more and more in proportion to them.
+
+Directly, however, the need for such legislation as I have outlined
+above is realized, and such legislation is passed, then the tide will
+be turned. Then, at last, we shall begin to see the elimination of the
+horror and degradation of humanity, which at present is apparently so
+hopeless and permanent a blot upon the world. And then, and then at
+once, will the positive effects of the conscious working of love and
+beauty and desired motherhood begin to take effect. The evolution of
+humanity will take a leap forward when we have around us only fine and
+beautiful young people, all of whom have been conceived, carried and
+born in true homes by conscious, powerful and voluntary mothers.
+
+Meanwhile the prison reformers, psycho-analysts, doctors, teachers and
+reformers of all sorts will be going on with their reforms, and will be
+claiming this and that wonderful improvement in the school children,
+and they will probably never realize that it will not be their reforms
+which have worked these apparent miracles; it will be the change in
+the attitude of the mother, the return to the position of power of the
+mother, her voluntary motherhood, the conscious and deliberate creation
+by the mother and her mate of the fine and splendid race which to-day,
+as God's prophet, I see in a vision and which might so speedily be
+materialized on earth.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+
+A. PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD.
+
+B. ON BIRTH.
+
+C. SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+PHYSICAL SIGNS OF COMING MOTHERHOOD
+
+
+Sometimes a woman is doubtful whether or not she is about to become a
+mother, and may be too shy to ask those with whom she is associated.
+She should, if it is possible, seek the advice of a highly qualified
+midwife or medical practitioner, but this is not always possible, and
+it may be useful for her to know the following signs:--
+
+The first and most widely recognized indication that conception has
+taken place is "missing a period" or the cessation of the menstrual
+flow, while, at the same time, there is no ill-health. A woman may even
+feel unusually bright and well.
+
+There is generally an increase in the size of the breast, followed
+as the months progress by a very noticeable increase in the size and
+bright blue colour of the veins round the breast, and also a darkening
+in colour and a changing from pink to brownish tint of the area round
+the centre of the breast.
+
+After the third month, there is visible a steadily increasing
+enlargement of the lower part of the body, but, as this also happens
+with some forms of illness, this alone and without the other signs is
+not proof that motherhood has commenced.
+
+"Quickening" or the movements of the child, are a much better
+indication of motherhood, and these are generally to be perceived about
+the twentieth week, or roughly half-way through the whole period of
+prenatal life; but see further the remarks in Chapter XIII, p. 113.
+
+The perception of the child's heart beats is absolute proof of coming
+motherhood. These may be perceived after the fourth or fifth month
+quite readily by a nurse or other observer, though the mother herself
+can but seldom perceive them.
+
+"Morning Sickness," which is so often experienced, and in most books
+for the "expectant mother" is quoted as one of the first signs of
+pregnancy, _should never occur at all_--see Chapter XI--although
+unfortunately it is true that it does frequently occur in women who are
+bearing children under present conditions.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+ON BIRTH
+
+
+The usual agonies of child birth vary greatly in extent according
+to the structure of the woman. But, as was shown in Chapter II, the
+tendency already is present, and probably will increase, for this to
+be an almost intolerable strain upon the woman. Tardily indeed have
+efforts to relieve her agonies in child birth been made; Queen Victoria
+took a grave and adventurous step when she bore one of her children
+under chloroform. Chloroform, however, only deadens consciousness at a
+comparatively late stage in child birth, and its use through the many
+long hours, even perhaps sometimes days of agony which precede the
+later stages is not often possible. It is, therefore, for some types of
+women a very insufficient narcotic.
+
+Natural "painless Child Birth" is, of course, the ideal, and is claimed
+to be the result of the "fruit and rice diet," see _Tokology_ by Dr.
+Alice Stockham, but although this greatly reduces the pain for many,
+and undoubtedly makes the months of pregnancy easier, it cannot make
+birth anything but a torture if the proportion of the child's head to
+the bony arch is above a given limit. The "Christian Science" claim
+for not only painless but bloodless birth has been reported to me, but
+never at first hand, and I have not yet had the first-hand statements
+of women who are said to have experienced it.
+
+"Twilight Sleep," a comparatively recent discovery, has been much
+advocated, much praised and much blamed. There may be types of women
+who find it advantageous, but the fact that it necessitates going to
+a nursing home, away from home, is very much against its use under
+ideal circumstances. For those who have no home, or a sordid and
+overcrowded one, a nursing home may be a place of refuge. "Twilight
+Sleep" (scopolamine-morphine) is, however, for the more sensitive type
+of woman, an extremely unreliable drug, which may frequently take no
+narcotic effect upon the patient, who suffers added agony as the result
+of relying upon it, and it may be very dangerous for the child.
+
+There is also the method of birth through the soft part of the body,
+avoiding the birth of the child through the bony structure altogether.
+This operation is described as Cesarean section, and involves incision
+both through the abdominal walls and through the walls of the womb.
+For some women with very small bones Cesarean section is necessary if
+they are to produce living children. Even for women who, by paying
+the price of agony, can produce children by normal birth, this method
+may be found very advantageous. I see a possibility of its widely
+extended future use. In hundreds, perhaps thousands of years hence when
+the child's head will be proportionately even larger in comparison
+with the mother's bones than it is to-day, it may indeed be the only
+method which will stand between the higher human races and their total
+extinction.
+
+There is a certain amount of rather gossipy opinion that women who are
+spared the full torture of child birth do not have equally passionate
+love for the child. This, however, is nonsense. Love depends far more
+on the mother's desire for parenthood at the time of the child's
+conception and her feelings towards it all through the months of
+waiting than on the hours of birth, although the appealing weakness
+and fascination of a baby may win a deeper love than the mother-to-be
+expected to feel for her child.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX C
+
+SUGGESTIONS FOR CALCULATING THE DATE OF ANTICIPATED BIRTH
+
+
+The leading authority in the _Manual of Human Embryology_, edited by
+Franz Keibel and Franklin P. Mall in two volumes, London, 1910, says:--
+
+    "In ancient times it was generally believed that the duration
+    of pregnancy in man, unlike that in lower animals, was of very
+    uncertain length; and it was not until the seventeenth century that
+    it was more accurately fixed, by Fidele of Palermo, at forty weeks,
+    counting from the last menstrual period. In the next century Haller
+    found that if pregnancy is reckoned from the time of a fruitful
+    copulation it is usually thirty-nine weeks, and rarely forty weeks
+    in duration. In general these results are fully confirmed by the
+    thousands of careful data collected during the nineteenth century."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "However, from thousands of records it is found that the mean
+    duration of a pregnancy varies in first and second pregnancies, is
+    more protracted in healthy women, in married women, in winter, and
+    in the upper classes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "From these figures it is seen that most pregnancies take place
+    during the first week after menstruation, and that the duration
+    of pregnancy is longer if copulation takes place towards the end
+    of the intermenstrual period. And this is explained if we assume
+    that in the first week, especially the first few days after the
+    cessation of menstruation, the ovum is in the upper end of the
+    tube awaiting the sperm and that conception immediately follows
+    copulation. When the fruitful copulation takes place in the latter
+    two weeks of the month the opposite is usually the case; the sperm
+    wanders to the ovary and there awaits the ovum; and, therefore, on
+    an average, pregnancy is prolonged in this group of cases, when
+    determined from the time of copulation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In determining the age of human embryos it is probably more
+    nearly correct to count from the _end_ of the last period, for
+    all evidence points to that time as the most probable at which
+    pregnancy takes place."
+
+On the whole it is generally found that 280 days (_i.e._, 40 weeks)
+can be reckoned as the average period during which the child develops
+internally if the date is counted from the first day of the last
+menstrual period and 269 days if estimated from the date of actual
+union.
+
+Leuckart tabulated results from a large number of births which took
+place within the first ten months of marriage, and found that there
+was a maximum number of births on the 275th day, then a decrease and
+a second maximum on the 293rd day. Nevertheless, in spite of careful
+reckoning, there are, as will be recognized, many sources of error, and
+medical men and nurses are often wisely cautious of giving any exact
+date for an anticipated birth; sometimes too cautious even to suggest
+the week within which the birth will take place. I have known a good
+many mothers, however, who were much more accurately certain about this
+point than their attendants, and have found that the birth took place
+exactly on the day they anticipated. As an illustration of this, I give
+the answer from one of my correspondents, both of whose children were
+born on the exact day she anticipated. I asked her how she estimated
+these periods, and she said:--
+
+    "I simply took old Dr. Chevasse's rule which he gives in _Advice to
+    a Wife_; you know how he puts the date of conception and opposite
+    it the probable date of birth. I went by the first union after the
+    last period. It so happened that my husband was seedy and there
+    was no union for a fortnight after the end of the period. I took
+    that first union as the date of conception and looking up the date
+    in Chevasse and the corresponding date of birth opposite, I found
+    it to be August 20th, and sure enough on August 20th he was born.
+    With the second boy, the union took place the day after the last
+    period, and I took that as the starting date and against it I found
+    January 21st and on January 21st he arrived in spite of the doctors
+    insisting in each case that it would be three weeks earlier. What I
+    do is, I always make a mark in my diary against the date of first
+    union after every period. Then when I had missed a period and so
+    knew that there was probably conception, I could at once tell the
+    probable date."
+
+The table Chevasse quoted from Galabin is as follows--
+
+  From Jan. 1st to Oct. 1st = 273 (274) days, add 5 (4) days
+    "  Feb. 1st to Nov. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Mar. 1st to Dec. 1st = 275         "    "  3      "
+    "  Apl. 1st to Jan. 1st = 275         "    "  3      "
+    "  May  1st to Feb. 1st = 276         "    "  2      "
+    "  June 1st to Mar. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  July 1st to Apl. 1st = 274 (275)   "    "  4 (3)  "
+    "  Aug. 1st to May 1st  = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Sep. 1st to June 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Oct. 1st to July 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Nov. 1st to Aug. 1st = 273 (274)   "    "  5 (4)  "
+    "  Dec. 1st to Sep. 1st = 274 (275)   "    "  4 (3)  "
+
+
+  _Printed in Great Britain by_
+  UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+The following apparent errors have been corrected:
+
+p. 2 "hearts' desire" changed to "hearts desire"
+
+p. 26 "undertsand" changed to "understand"
+
+p. 73 "incapacities is," changed to "incapacities, is"
+
+p. 124 "diappointments" changed to "diappointments"
+
+p. 130 "parent this" changed to "parent: this"
+
+p. 148 "agggravation" changed to "aggravation"
+
+p. 150 "ffower" changed to "flower"
+
+p. 154 "want to to" changed to "want to"
+
+p. 218 "ignorance" changed to "ignorance."
+
+p. 233 "Franz, Keibel" changed to "Franz Keibel"
+
+
+The following possible errors have not been changed:
+
+p. 4 millenium
+
+p. 34 co-incidently
+
+p. 132 August 24 1893
+
+p. 235 follows--
+
+
+The following are used inconsistently in the text:
+
+lifelong and life-long
+
+overstrained and over-strained
+
+prenatal and pre-natal
+
+shamefaced and shame-faced
+
+X-rays, "X" rays and "X"-rays
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Radiant Motherhood, by Marie Carmichael Stopes
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