the unmarried mother
“the british empire has invested thousands of its best lives to purchase future immunity for civilisation. this investment is too great to be thrown away.”—right hon. d. lloyd george.
one of the most pressing questions that we shall have to face in the near future is the attitude and practical action which, as a people, we are going to adopt towards the unmarried mother and her child. i have so far said almost nothing upon this problem of illegitimacy, though the whole difficult question is connected with, and is, in fact, closely dependent for its solution on, the conclusions we arrived at in the preceding chapter on sexual relationships outside of marriage; we then realised the moral advantage that would result from an open avowal and the regulation of all sexual partnerships, with the fixing, as far as this is possible, of a standard of conduct to be expected and claimed from those who enter into them. i have left over this question of the child on purpose that we may give it special consideration. no other matter is of greater significance to my book on motherhood than is this, and none is deeper in my own interest or, in my opinion, of more urgent importance.
it is really impossible to evade it much longer. there is obviously something ridiculous, at a time when the fateful importance of child-life is being forced more and more upon our attention, to repeat our conventional, unimaginative and inconsistent judgments.
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we are learning new and sharp lessons. terrific war losses are teaching governments to consider the necessity of preserving the new generation even to its last and meanest members. at last the movements to improve the condition of illegitimate children, for which many of us have for long struggled in vain, have received new impetus. what humanity has been powerless to do, the most ancient of all inhumanities—war—has suddenly accomplished.
and it is well. we cannot go on as we have done before. we call motherhood holy, and yet we have sanctioned the sacrifice of mothers, driving them to crimes, to abortion, to child-murders and to death; we have sent them into sweated industries; we have turned them out onto the streets, forcing them to choose between starvation and prostitution. we have permitted the yearly destruction of tens of thousands of little children, born into a hard and barren world without the slightest provision for their physical and mental needs. at the same time, the fact has been hammered into us of the declining birth-rate. this has gone on and on, but we have done nothing that the evils may be stopped and life take the place of unnecessary death.
i cannot understand an attitude which simultaneously condemns the non-maternal woman, who does not wish to be a mother, accusing her of sin in shirking the duty of bearing children, and then brands the unmarried mother to infamy. by the cruelty of our law and the short-sightedness of our “moral” attitude we have worked to make life a martyrdom for the unmarried mother, and for the children born out of wedlock, who are smirched by us with the shame of their illegitimate birth, and thus are forced downward in the hard struggle of life.
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and such foolish and cruel action has all been done in the name of morality! let us tear the mask from the lying face of our social conscience. we need a clean clearance of a moral attitude that really is profoundly immoral.
let no one make a mistake. in pleading for these unhonoured mothers and their children, i am not advocating illegal parentage. there is a sin of illegitimacy, as presently i shall show. irresponsible parentage must always be immoral. it is, however, the parents who behave illegitimately, not the child, since it can never be the fault of any child that its parents have brought it into the world. i would wish for every child that it should be born within the happy safeguards of a true monogamous marriage. but i cannot close my eyes to the facts of life. i know that we shall not be able to make it impossible for extra-conjugal procreation to take place: love-children will be born. and what we, in our curious moral muddle-headedness, forget is that by penalising the mother we cannot escape the penalty being paid by the child. our attitude in the past has been a reproach to our social intelligence.
i am very far indeed from any desire to lessen parental responsibility. and if i want the harshness of our law and our moral attitude changed, it is first of all because i wish to make it possible for unmarried parents—the father as well as the mother—to give adequate protection to their child. if they do not do this willingly, i would use the pressure of the law and a strong public opinion to bring them to their duty. under present conditions this can never be done. it is because our harshness does no good that i condemn it.
the iniquity of our bastardy laws and public opinion[260] concerning illegitimacy both reflect the anglo-saxon habit of mind, which persists in ignoring all social problems arising from the sex relation. we have never yet squarely faced the question, we have just pushed it into the darkness, and pretended it was not there. it has even been a kind of disgrace to bring it forward; and the evil and the waste is so hidden up that most of us have been quite unaware of its immense existence among us. but we cannot thus escape from what we have done, or rather have left undone.
the fact is, that all our thought on these questions has been obscured by the puritan view of punishment, based on the assumption that harshness in the treatment of sexual offences will make for a higher standard of morality. do we really believe this? surely the underlying fallacy of our morality has always rested here—in our desire to crucify the offender. we forget that, by doing this, we but open the way to make easy, even if not inevitable, the committal of further sin. by our attitude we drive men to desert the girls made pregnant through their lust, and open the way for them to escape from responsibility for their sexual sins and to disown their fatherhood; we do everything that we can to encourage unfit parenthood.
few people want to do wrong; they drift into wrong; the circumstances are too hard or their wills too weak to resist. we are suffering a great deal of confusion from demanding from men and women a rule of conduct in sex without taking any care that the conditions of life render such conduct practicable. in the last chapter i tried to make plain how short-sighted has been the attempt to force all types into a single mould. the plan i there outlined for an open acceptance of honourable unions outside of permanent marriage, would cut at the roots of many of[261] these problems, and, in particular, by lessening the sufferings from enforced sexual abstinence, would render much less frequent those disgraceful and hidden unions which result in illegitimate births; it would also materially reduce the dire results of venereal diseases, and would be, in my opinion, more beneficial and far-reaching than anything that yet has been proposed. i would affirm again that i am not advocating license of conduct. it is necessary to proclaim allegiance to the god of morals, who has proclaimed for ever “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not.” but it is necessary also to understand that repressive terrors may drive men and women into greater sins.
our bastardy laws act directly in this immoral way. the child born of unmarried parents has been branded under christian teaching as “the child of sin,” and condemned from its birth as a member of an unclean caste. but, from the point of view of practical morality, this identification of the child with the sin of its parents is wholly unjustifiable.
the urgent duty that rests upon us all is the duty of taking action to prevent the penalty for the sin of illegitimate parentage being paid by the child.
it is common sense, after all.
we have to remember that the birth of every child—and it matters not at all whether the birth is legal or illegal—is always the introduction of a new individual into the community. birth is not a personal fact only, but a social fact, in which the state cannot fail to be concerned.
the effect in increasing the infantile death-rate and the misery caused in physical and mental unfitness in the children who survive, are the result of our blind action. this is what we have to change. for it is such social waste that[262] makes our cruel bastardy laws so absurd. after all, you cannot go on indefinitely encouraging the production of wastrels. it is the practical question of health and social well-being that we need to consider in reforming our laws.
the practical aspects of the question are serious. illegitimacy has a far closer relation than is generally understood to the racial wastage which it helps to feed. certainly it looms large as a factor in social disintegration—in the degeneration which leads to the streets and to the prison, and the ever-increasing hosts of the submerged. the minority report of the royal commissioners on the poor law 1909, for instance, estimates (no definite statistics having been kept!) that in the united kingdom in each year are born over 15,000 children in the poor law institutions, and of these 30 per cent. are legitimate and 70 per cent. illegitimate. the yearly harvest of these shame-branded children appears almost incredibly great. roughly estimating, in great britain (excluding ireland) there are 50,000 illegitimate births in each year—that is to say, about one million of these children are born in this land in a single generation. nor is this all. in england, unfortunately, still-born births are not required to be registered; were these recorded the illegitimate birth-rate would be much higher than the present statistics show. in those countries where the records are kept, the number of still-born illegitimate births is always higher than it is for children born under the protection of marriage.
and to this vast host of helpless children we, in this land, give almost no protection. in the english law they have no father. they are filii nullius—nobody’s children; without kin; they have no rights of inheritance. all through life they are branded. the child in england is not legitimised even on the subsequent marriage of its parents. in[263] scotland this injustice is not found. the illegitimate child becomes legitimate by the simple and natural process of its father marrying its mother. can the cruelty of our english law have any positive value? it is difficult to think so. aside from sentimentality, aside even from the value or worthlessness of punitive measures, here is a law that stands as a direct obstacle against right and responsible conduct.
and what is the result? the infant mortality rate, high as it is for the children of married parents, is doubled and more than doubled in the case of illegitimate children. three times as many children born out of wedlock die before reaching adolescence, as compared with those children born under the protection of the law. think just a little of the real significance of this alarmingly high infant death-rate; these tell-tale figures are the proof of our failure. do they not speak of a waste of infant life which, if for practical reasons only, we cannot suffer to go on? this fact of england’s need for children should drive us on to action. here, as in many other cases of indifference, we have failed to recognise that life—the one thing without which all else must perish—has been slipping from us by our carelessness, in a way that threatens the whole future and well-being of our race.
in many towns in england the illegitimate death-rate of infants under one year has increased, and still is increasing to an extent that ought to give alarm. in london the illegitimate infant death-rate is more than twice as high as the legitimate. the exact figures vary in different boroughs: thus in poplar the number of legitimate infant deaths per thousand is 121.5 as against 281.24 illegitimate, whereas wandsworth has 97 as the death-rate of legitimate children and 276 for illegitimate. in the city of manchester,[264] where the death-rate of legitimates is 169, that of illegitimates is 362. in one division (clayton) it is 583, in another (blackley) it is as high as 667. bristol, again, has a legitimate death-rate of 124 per thousand and an illegitimate of 349; leicester, 130 against 377; cardiff, 124 against 349; while cambridge, with a legitimate death-rate as low as 81 per thousand, has an illegitimate rate of 276.
the meaning of these figures is plain: the unmarried mother cannot give proper care to her child, as a rule she cannot feed it, and, deprived of its natural nourishment, it is more likely to die, and, if it lives, it will be less strong to meet life. this is proved by the vital statistics, which show that the illegitimate babies, unlike legitimate babies, are not stricken with death in the first week of infant life; they die more frequently in the second month than in the first, and more frequently in the third than in the second month. illegitimates at birth are equal to legitimate children; indeed, from these statistics they would seem to be born stronger. it is evident that the high death-rate among them is caused only by defective nutrition and want of sufficient care. in other words, these children are killed needlessly by our neglect. for the sin of their deaths rests upon each and all of us, until we rise up and refuse to accept conditions that permit children to be born only to die.
and while you grasp the offence of these facts, do not be consoled by thinking that this open infantile slaughter is the only or indeed the greatest, evil that follows from our indifference. no statistics can do more than shadow the extent of the wrong; motherhood brought to despair—the child-murders that fortunately remain hidden, the secret abortions, the concealed births, the still-born children[265] who might have been born alive. we have suffered these things. but it is the race that pays and rots; the penalty for our sins of neglect is paid by these innocent little ones.
let me at this place insert a brief digression to point out one particular that it is very necessary for us to remember. there are many types among these unmarried mothers, as many as there are among married women; and some would be good mothers did we allow them the opportunity, others would not be good mothers under any circumstances, because they are weak in character and are incapable of maternal sacrifice. now, the problem of the saving of the child is quite a separate one in these opposite cases: in the one instance everything ought to be done to keep the child with its mother, in the other the one safeguard is to keep the child wholly out of the mother’s power.
i will give the reader four cases from my own knowledge to make this fact clearer; they will, i believe, speak more forcibly than any mere statement of my own opinion.
the first case shows illegitimacy at its very lowest—motherhood made a crime. the facts were told to me by a doctor friend on whose word i can rely absolutely. a company of five or six men were gathered in some outbuildings of a country farm, among them was one who was half-witted. in an adjoining barn was a girl, also half-witted. the men joked one with another; a bet was made, and the half-witted man was sent to seek the girl. this he did, and as the result of this hideous act a child was born and lived. i do not know what became of it.
in the second case also the woman was quite unfitted to be a mother, though her character and the circumstances were as different as possible. this time the mother was highly born and educated. though i knew her fairly well,[266] i was unacquainted with her family history, which probably would show many features of great interest. she was of neurotic temperament, and belonged to the type i have classed as the siren woman. she had several lovers, as she was strongly sexual. by one of these men, and by mistake, a child was born. the father refused to accept the responsibilities of his fatherhood, though he did not deny that the child was his. the mother also had no love for it, and the little one would have been neglected and probably would have died. but, when about two months old, the child was taken from its mother and cared for and most tenderly loved by one of the woman’s lovers. he left her, as her indifference to her child killed his affection, but he took her child to bring up as his own son.
the third case is more usual, and shows us illegitimacy as it most commonly occurs. the events happened in the north of england, where once i lived. the girl was well known to me. she was of respectable parentage, and very beautiful; she would have made a good mother. the father did not live in the same village, and i did not know him; but i heard he was young and strong; he was the gardener at the place where the girl was servant; probably the child would have been healthy. but the girl was sent from her situation as soon as her condition was known to her christian (!) mistress; later she was driven from her home by her fanatically religious (!) father. thus hounded to death and to crime she sought refuge in a disused quarry; she was there for two days without food. it was winter. when we found her, her child had been born and was dead. afterwards the girl went mad.[92]
i will add no comment, because i feel quite unable to write calmly. i can only record my belief that under a[267] more moral public opinion and saner social organisation such crimes of mothers against their children would be impossible. infanticide is committed always, i believe, under the biting pressure of want and despair.
the last case is in sharp contrast with all the others, and shows responsible motherhood outside of marriage. the woman here is strong and passionate and deeply maternal, but, unable to marry the man she loves, because he is married already, but to a woman who has no desire to be a mother, she chooses, therefore, to bear his child. i know several similar unions. some of these have been temporary, some have lasted, but in each case the woman has had strength of character and a social position which have made it practicable for her thus to assert her right to motherhood. such cases we may leave alone. i do not think any one of us should condemn such action. the immense pity is that women of this strong maternal type should by any cause be kept from marriage. they are the fittest wives and mothers.
the relation between marriage and illegitimacy is a very close one; any cause that hinders early marriage must tend to encourage the increase of illegal unions.[93][268] the question is, however, a very difficult one. and i am not fully convinced of the wisdom of permanent marriage being undertaken at so young an age that chance births would be prevented; at any rate, the danger would be great until our young women and young men are more sanely educated in sex. the young have very little understanding of their own need, and no experience of life; and for this reason a way might be opened up that, after marriage, would lead to even more harmful looseness of conduct. already numerous illegitimate births are the result of unhappy marriages. this happens, perhaps, most frequently among the working classes, though i am not sure, and it may be only that among them the facts of such births are more openly known. the fear of another child to the too-hard-worked mother is often very great, and this (when the means to prevent conception are not known) causes her to refuse to have intercourse with her husband, which all too frequently sends him to another woman.
unmarried mothers are overwhelmingly preponderant among the economically weak, in particular, among servant girls, factory workers, laundry hands, waitresses, and all classes of day workers. this does not necessarily prove greater looseness of conduct among these classes, and the more numerous illegitimate births are, of course, explained to a great extent by the fact that among the better-educated girls means to prevent conception are used; illegitimate births are also very frequently hidden. this, in particular, happens where both parents belong to the upper classes of society. it is also frequent with the gentleman father and the mother of a lower social class.
and here, before i go further, i must again give warning against the over-hasty view, that men and their uncontrolled[269] passions are alone responsible. this opinion, once held by me in common with most women, i have been compelled to give up. seduction cannot, i believe, be accepted, without very great caution, as the chief cause of illegitimate births. it is so comfortable to place the sins of sex on men’s passions. but i doubt very much if any woman can be made a mother against her own will. i am inclined to believe that excitement and escape from dulness, as also the joy in receiving presents, are the principal motives that at first lead girls into illegal relations.[94]
we find that paternity is acknowledged most frequently in those cases where the father belongs to a lower social level, where he loses less by open behaviour. in these classes the man, unless prevented by a pre-existing tie, usually marries the mother at a later period, and he does not despise her. the woman’s sin is not as a rule taken too tragically. if the father of her child does not marry her, it is quite possible for her to find another husband, who, as a rule, acts as a father to her love-child. for these reasons the least moral and economic dangers, alike to the child and its mother, occur when both the father and the mother belong to the working classes. this is not, however, always true.
the whole question is a difficult one; the further we inquire, the more strongly does this appear. we learn that there is no one type of the unmarried mother, no one cause of the evil of illegitimacy, no one remedy that will cure it. we cannot wisely be too hopeful. but this is not an excuse for our indifference. our system of ignoring this question and of forcing the unmarried mother into shame, with its[270] incredible short-sightedness and culpable lack of help and discrimination, is proved out-of-date, because we now know that it is useless. it does not prevent illegitimate births, for no law can change the sexual nature of men and women. as things stand with us at present, honourable or even decent conduct in illegal sexual relationships has a poor chance of being cultivated; but those who realise that this is the case are still very few.
it is because i have come to realise this that i have urged, with all the power i have, an open recognition of these hidden relationships as the only way to save them from disgrace and shame. i hope to have made it clear that i am not thinking of lessening responsibility in asking for a change in our law. i am not at all advocating any sentimental legislation; we have had quite enough of that. it is an intelligent insight that considers causes and their effects that we need to-day in the administration of our laws.
all thinkers are coming to see the waste of the old system. the modern tendency is to place remedy in lieu of punishment. thus, we need scarcely doubt that we are approaching the acceptance of a more truly moral code, based on the need of protection for the child.
it is this, and this alone, that should guide us in the reform of our laws. the life of every child must be safeguarded, not on sentimental or even on ethical grounds, but for the sake of the health and efficiency of our race. this practical morality is what we need. the state must have healthy children, and by any negligence in working to this end it inflicts serious charges upon itself, and at the same time dangerously impairs its efficiency in the future. the nationalisation of healthy children is of much[271] greater importance than the nationalisation of education.
it has needed the catastrophe of war to force upon modern states a just recognition of their obligations to motherhood and the child-life upon which their very existence depends. to a surprising and gratifying degree the position of the illegitimate child is being discussed in all countries, and practical remedies are being found for some of the worst evils, by associations for the protection of motherhood and by changes in the law. much wise legislation already has been passed by progressive states.
among ourselves, however, little has as yet been done.[95] why is this? i know that reforms that matter are not easy to make. our legislators seem to me as blind fighters, dealing blows that sometimes hit the mark by chance, but more usually miss it. the difficulty of bringing about any change in our laws is certainly very great, for respect of the law is, perhaps, the guiding principle of english life. so far any movement towards reform has been in the hands of private individuals, and only the few have cared at all. and there the matter rests, and there it will rest, until our politicians are by us driven into action. it is this for which i am hoping. for i do not believe that great changes in things that really matter are often brought about by acts of parliament. parliament may register the reforms, may try to modify or check them; it does not create them. it is public opinion that does this. when we really care for the injustice with which we treat the illegitimate child, our bastardy laws will be changed. till then we shall go on as we have done, enunciating moral[272] platitudes in which few of us believe and raising sentimental limitations, but we shall be content to muddle on, careless of the evils we are sowing by our carelessness.[96]
yet i do not despair; a change is coming. the widespread interest, and also the more practical and moral view taken by the majority of people, during the agitation on the supposed existence of the “war-babies,” were to me a very hopeful sign. it is true the agitation was short-lived: soon we were told it was unnecessary. nothing was done. the lesson must be driven deeper and then public opinion will awaken to the knowledge that the conditions causing illegitimacy and its disasters are present in times of peace as well as in times of war.
in the meantime, it may be salutary for us to know the action that other countries are taking in this question. certainly we have much to learn. our law, in this matter of protection for the unmarried mother and maintenance for her child, lags far behind that of other countries, and is one example only, out of many, of our hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses.
for the most enlightened legislative advances we have to look to scandinavia, the birth-land of ellen key. surely it is due to her beneficent influence that the position of the bastard child and its mother has been faced with a quite[273] new practical efficiency; and as a result constructive legislation has been wisely undertaken, which will fix the rights of the illegitimate child and enforce responsible conduct upon both its parents.
in norway a bill, prepared by the department of justice, was laid before the storthing in 1909, “whose simple but revolutionary intention was to give every child two parents. it aimed to equalise illegitimate children and legitimate children before the law: that is, to give the illegitimate child the right to a father.”[97] this bill, as one might expect, met with opposition; it was adopted as law only in 1915.
i wish it were possible for me to give in detail all the bill’s wise enactments. even its title, law concerning children whose parents have not married each other, is significant. the unjust stigma “illegitimate,” as applied to the innocent child, has been discarded. this gives the clue to the intention of the bill. it is concerned (1) with the welfare of the child, saving it from social disgrace and the position of legal disadvantage which hitherto has been the lot of half-parented children; (2) with the fixing of both parents’ responsibilities, so that no man or woman may escape the results of their sexual acts.
undeniably here is a law that at once is moral as well as practical in its aims. and the double accomplishment is not so difficult as might at first thought appear. no cumbersome rules are laid down, difficult of application and likely to fail in their working; indeed, what most impresses one is the obvious simple common sense of these measures.[274] were i younger, i should feel sure that now norway has shown us so splendidly what to do in this matter, and how easily right can be done, england and all other countries would hasten to act in prompt and glad imitation; but life has taught me that it is just the very simple things to right what is wrong that as a rule we never do.
let us glance at the norwegian bill. i can give only the briefest summary of its principal clauses.
(1) a child whose parents have not married each other has a right to the surname of its father.
(2) the child is entitled to demand from both his parents adequate support and education. the amount to be contributed by each parent for support to be dependent on the economic position of the father and to be decided by the authority appointed for that purpose. the cost of the child’s education to be borne as far as possible by both parents.
(3) on the death of the parents, the child to have full rights of inheritance.
by these means the child born without the protection of marriage is given special protection by the law, so that in general his position is the same as that of the legitimate child. and in this way the child is saved, while the parents are punished for their careless sin in the one wise way, by forcing them to undertake the same responsibilities they would have had to fulfil to their child if they had not acted illegitimately.
but more even than this is necessary; the child must be saved for healthy life before birth, as well as being maintained and educated after it is born, and this can be done[275] only by taking care of the mother. the norwegian bill, therefore, provides for this to be done; the father is to bear his right share of the responsibilities of the birth.
thus, the man has to pay the expenses of the woman’s confinement; his obligations in this respect extending to providing maintenance during three months of pregnancy and six weeks following confinement, which maintenance may be extended to a period of nine months if the mother keeps the child with her and nurses it for that length of time.
but the most revolutionary clause of the bill relates to those cases where, owing to the loose character of the mother, or for other reasons, paternity cannot be fixed. the promoters of the bill, knowing that it is just these children who most need protection, has provided for their fatherhood in the following simple, but wise, manner: where it is not possible to fix with certainty the man who is the begetter of the child, the responsibilities and obligations of the father shall rest upon any man who has had sex relations with the mother at such a time that in the course of nature he might be the father of her child. in those cases where several men have had intercourse about the same time with the mother, then each of them will be accounted, in part, as the father, and must contribute to the child’s support, the amount to be paid by each to be determined by the authority prescribed. and the same rule will hold with regard to the confinement expenses of the mother.
it would be difficult to over-emphasise the far-reaching effects of such an enactment. so far the plea, “there were others,” what the law calls the exceptio plurium, has served to free men from all the responsibility for irregular connections. under the scandinavian law there is now no[276] such way of escape. anonymous parenthood at last is recognised as a crime against society. the only plea now allowed in norway to any man is that he has had no sexual intercourse with the mother, otherwise he becomes liable for the child’s support, which he may have to bear alone or in partnership with other men who are also adjudged to be possible fathers. here is a law to re-establish the father’s responsibility. it also closes one of the widest doors whereby profligacy has been made easy. casual and transient unions will no longer be able to be entered into without any thought of the consequences.
is an act of such clear morality as this one impossible for us in england? i fear that at present it is.
what, then, have we done in this christian land for the unmarried mother and her child? it is little enough that hitherto has been held to be necessary. the father, if he can be caught and his paternity proved, may be compelled to pay a few shillings weekly to the mother for aliment. under no circumstances can he be made to pay more than five shillings; this sum is deemed to be sufficient whatever his financial or social status. moreover, the payments for the child cease when it reaches the age of sixteen; and the law makes no provision that the child must be trained for a livelihood. no help whatever is claimed to ensure for the mother proper conditions during her confinement and the necessary rest before and afterwards to enable her to nurse her child. further trouble arises for the mother from the costs and difficulties of the law. improvements have of late been made in this respect; but much more waits to be done.[98] the difficulties that have hindered moral and[277] responsible conduct are really little short of comic. it would seem that the object of our bastardy laws was rather to protect the father and to render profligacy easy than to aid the child or its mother. i ask, is this justice? is it even common sense?
one plain result is that a small percentage only—it is stated by some to be as low as five per cent.—of unmarried mothers ever apply to establish paternity and claim alimony from the man. it is much easier for the woman to go on to the streets; the army of prostitutes every year is recruited by many thousands of these girls. the punishment for the sin of an illegitimate birth falls on one partner in the act; the man escapes his payment.
the barriers that have been placed in the path of the unmarried mother afford certain proof of how greatly we are in need of further changes in the law. these should be made at once. other countries are realising this and are not failing to act. take, for instance, the lands of our allies, where, in france, action at last has been taken regarding the famous napoleonic edict, la recherche de la paternité est interdite. in 1913 this prohibition was quietly expunged; and, in certain cases, the child born out of wedlock now has the right to its father’s name and nationality, and to half the property which would have descended by law to a legitimate child. again, a law has just recently been passed by the russian duma by which[278] the father of an illegitimate child is made responsible for the birth: he must keep the mother until such time as she is fit to earn her own living.
in australia, where women possess a larger share than elsewhere in making and administering the law, much practical attention has been given to these matters and a number of reforms have been made which act directly in helping the child. thus, in south australia, paternity may be proved by the mother before the birth of the child; when this is done, the father must furnish security, by order of a magistrate, that he will find lodging for the mother for one month before and one month after her confinement, as well as pay the doctor and the nurse, and provide clothing for the child. after the child is born, the father pays a weekly sum, at the decision of the magistrate, to the mother for its maintenance. children are legitimised on the marriage of their parents. in new zealand (again a land where women’s influence is strong) an illegitimate child is now registered in the name of the father, where paternity is proved.
changes in the law, all favourable to the legal position of the child, have been made in denmark, in sweden, and in switzerland. in this last country the bastard has all the rights of a child born in marriage, when once paternity has been recognised. and if the mother fails to find the father, the child himself, or his guardian, can take proceedings. a similar law, recently enacted, is now in force in sweden: in denmark the father supports the child up to the age of eighteen; he provides for the mother for one month before and one month after the birth of the child. the money for such help is paid to the mother by the authorities, and is afterwards claimed by them from the[279] father. this may seem of small importance, yet it is our carelessness in such details that, in great measure, causes the utter futility of our laws.
i would ask you to consider very carefully these different wise and practical measures. do they not show more common sense than our methods? are they not more in line with the modern spirit—the spirit, that is, of intelligent seeking for the advantage of the child? and here at length do we not see the way that in the future may lead us to more moral action and greater justice in the framing of our laws? a wider knowledge has grown with our inquiry and an understanding of what we have to do.
the welfare of the child is the one consideration that matters.
i must drive this fact home again, even though i risk wearying my readers with repetition: our present immoral laws are practically equivalent to freeing the man from his obligations as a father; they drive unmarried mothers to death and prostitution; they are the direct cause of infanticide. again i would urge practical and prompt action, which alone can bring us nearer to moral conduct by making responsibility a necessary condition of all sexual relationships, however carelessly and transiently they are entered into.
first, and i think most important of all, the law should take notice of the desire of the parents. in all cases where parenthood is acknowledged openly by the father as well as by the mother, and guarantees are given that the duties of the parents will be fulfilled, the child should be legitimised, receive the name of the father and be qualified to inherit from him, even if the parents are unable, or do not wish, to marry. this opportunity of right conduct once[280] given to the parents by the law, i believe that many men would voluntarily take this course and gladly acknowledge their fatherhood.
in all other cases in which paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged i take the first and most important duty of the law to be the appointment of guardians. i believe that nothing else is quite so urgently needed to safeguard the fatherless little one. i do not think the illegitimate child safely can be left without supervision in the care of its mother. those who talk here of the mother’s right to her child are being misled by sentiment. these mothers are, as a rule, incapable of giving adequate care or any form of training to their children. i would go further than this and say that, in entering into such a union with a man, and thus depriving their child of a father willing to acknowledge his fatherhood, they have proved already their unfitness for motherhood. but this is not to say that the mothers must be punished, rather it is the more necessary that they must be helped, supported, and guarded, just because of and in proportion to their weakness, for this is the only way of salvation for the child. and, for this reason, the law, as it affects the unmarried mother, must be made easier in its working. all artificial difficulties preventing the mother from obtaining alimony must be removed. no longer should the law make it easy for any man to escape his sexual responsibilities. it is immoral to countenance laws that make profligacy easy.
we must, therefore, claim—
(1) the removal of the present limit of the father’s payment to “an amount not exceeding 5s. per week.” the alimony paid should vary according[281] to the means and social status of the father: in all cases it should include some kind of training to enable the child to earn its own living; until that time the payments of the father should continue. and if the child should be physically or mentally deficient, so as to be unable to support itself, the father must continue his aid for all its life.
(2) a further charge should be made upon the man for the support of the mother for a period, certainly not less than one month before and three months after the birth of the child. he should be compelled to pay for a doctor and a nurse for the mother, and provide clothes for the child.
(3) the father’s responsibility should be truly recognised so that, if the mother is driven to commit any deed of violence against the child, he must be held accountable with her and punished, should he have known of her condition and refused to help her.
(4) in the case of the death of the mother, it should be possible to bring an order against the father or the supposed father. the mortality in childbed in these cases is much higher than among married women, and it is clearly unfair that the mother’s death should leave the child unprotected, without any power on the part of its guardians to compel the father to fulfil his parental responsibilities.
(5) the father against whom an order has been made must be prevented from leaving the country unless he has first paid a sum sufficient to discharge[282] his obligations or has made suitable arrangements for payments during his absence.
probably all these conditions could better be secured if paternity was proved before, instead of after, the birth of the child. registration on the part of the woman at the time of conception would be the best way to prevent the crime of anonymous paternity.
there is much more that ought to be done. we shall still be far behind the reforms of norway. but the carrying out of even these simple demands will lead us a great step forward in practical morality. can we, i ask myself, who in this twentieth century no longer are quite ignorant as to the factors that act in the making of fit citizens, who know that of all causes tending towards degeneracy, bad ante-natal and early life conditions are the greatest, can we pursue our policy of carelessness as if this knowledge were not ours? a recognition of the claims of the child is being forced home by our need. no longer can we afford to be careless of the life of the future. a new sense of our responsibility—a responsibility not to punish sin, but to prevent sin—is surely dawning on our social conscience. and as soon as we understand, we must hasten to reform our inhuman bastardy laws.
