Herself by Edith Belle Lowry (e books free to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Edith Belle Lowry
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This letter certainly indicates that the writer has a good amount of common sense. The trouble is she has become over-impressed with the possibilities of pain, and never has been told the wonderful truths that would overcome this fear. If love is the greatest thing in the world, fear and its companion, worry, certainly are the greatest curses of humanity. And the most pitiful part is that this fear and worry usually result from ignorance which a little instruction at the right time could dispel so easily. It is the unknown things that we fear. When any trouble actually comes we find strength enough to meet it, and, anyway, it usually is not half as bad in the reality as in the prospect. Young girls hear so much about the pains of childbirth that this fear overshadows the natural longings for motherhood. It is not until motherhood is an actual fact that they realize the happiness is worth all the cost.
But this fear is not what actually makes many childless homes. They often are unpremeditated. A large percentage of the sterility in the world is due to the results of indiscretions that are the outcome of ignorance. One great factor in childless homes is the prevalence of the black plagues. It is estimated that forty-five per cent. of sterile marriages are due to that seemingly mild disease which is regarded as no worse than a cold and which has been contracted either by the man or the woman. This disease does not disqualify the woman alone, as was formerly thought, for recent investigations have proven that twenty-five per cent. of the sterile marriages are due to sterility of the male. Oh, the innumerable women who have submitted to unpleasant treatments and even operations in the hope of overcoming sterility when all the time the fault was elsewhere! The microscope has proven that even though a man may seemingly be healthy and capable of sustaining the marriage relation, yet his efforts are valueless; for the spermatozoa, the life-giving element, are dead, due usually to an inflammation which accompanied an attack of this seemingly mild disease,—gonorrhœa.
This disease is responsible for many of the one child marriages. How often we see a family with only one child, this child born during the first year of married life, then there are no more pregnancies. The woman probably has contracted a disease from her husband and, during the period immediately following the birth of her baby when the entire generative system is in a condition to easily become inflamed, the tubes have become closed. Another pregnancy is very unlikely.
Another factor in sterility is abortions. So many times we hear a young married woman say, "I do not want a child the first year, but after that I would like one." In order to carry out her desires it is not uncommon for an abortion to be performed during the first few months. In many cases an inflammation follows this interference and the tubes become closed permanently. Then when the woman is ready to have a child it is impossible. Girls about to enter marriage should be cognizant of this possibility and not take any risks, for few women would do anything voluntarily that would condemn them to childless lives.
This morning I received a letter which says in part, "I am a young school teacher and do not know lots I should, but will come to you for advice. Now I am engaged to the dearest boy in the world. I will do my best to be a good wife and do my duty. But my health is not so very good and I want to put off motherhood for awhile. Will you kindly tell me some remedy that will keep me from becoming pregnant? I have long wanted to ask someone but always was afraid. Mother never tells me anything."
This is the type of question that is asked every physician many times. Those who do not ask, wish to—and blame physicians for not telling the things they want to know. What is my answer to such a question? Just this:
There is in effect a federal statute making it a felony punishable by $5,000 fine and five years at hard labor to impart any information whatever relating to the preventing of conception. The information may concern a thing, an instrument, or it need not be any material substance at all—only a "method." I obey that law as I am not foolhardy enough to walk into absolute danger.
Every day we see examples of heart-breaking misery caused by lack of knowledge of the proper means of prevention. The limitation of the number of offspring has become an important problem to be considered. There are thousands of families that would be perfectly happy if the number of offspring could be limited. There are thousands of young men who would be glad to get married but are afraid to do so for fear of having a family larger than they could supply with the necessities of life. These same young men, because they are not married, frequent questionable houses and often contract one or more of the venereal diseases.
There are thousands of women who have become semi-invalids because of a too prolific offspring. The babies came so fast the mother had no opportunity to regain her health and strength. There are other thousands of women who are made invalids because of attempts at abortion, or have been driven into early graves by these attempts, while some have actually killed themselves.
There are thousands of children half starved because their parents are unable to supply them the necessities of life. There are other thousands of children below par mentally and physically because of the fact that the mother was weak from too frequent child-bearing. There are other thousands of children born of syphilitic, tubercular or epileptic parents who never should have been born at all because they came into life so handicapped and had to fight against such severe odds that they, after a brief struggle, met an early death. There are children brought into this world amidst cursing who never hear much else.
We find it necessary to regulate the parentage of our domestic animals in order to insure a good race. But children can come by chance. The most degraded of men is allowed to beget children of his kind. There is small chance for race improvement under such conditions. The same laws hold true as to the future generation of humans as are true of animals or plants.
Human beings are not mere animals and they should be allowed to decide how many children they should have. Furthermore, the present laws do not attain their object. We all pretend to obey the laws but everyone knows that in every city there are many women, and men also, who make an excellent income from performing abortions. I would venture to say that in Chicago alone there is at least one abortion performed every hour—and Chicago is not so very different from other parts of the country in this respect. The ways and means to prevent pregnancy are sold and are bringing a rich reward to their manufacturers. But the advertisements are so carefully worded that the law is not violated. But the interested understand. If the manufacturer or his agent were accused of selling anything to prevent pregnancy, he would simulate great surprise and possible indignation. He doing such a thing! Impossible! Why, he is selling a simple hygienic device or drug used in the treatment of certain diseases.
If we have laws, let us obey them; but if we do not intend to obey them, let us stop being hypocrites and remove them from the statutes. If the law remains let us make it far-reaching enough to include those who now are so flagrantly violating it. But if means for the prevention of pregnancy are necessary to the health and happiness of the human race, let us change the laws so we can have the best of these preventives and allow reputable physicians to give whatever information they can to prevent this wholesale misuse of a law by the unscrupulous,—the law-breakers.
A recent investigation carried on by one magazine proved that the knowledge of how to prevent conception would not mean race suicide, as some fear. As reported in this magazine, the college girls and professional women who no doubt had given these subjects careful consideration, desired children more than did those whose experience had been a poor home and a large family. The average number of children desired by the well-informed woman was four. That would not mean race-suicide! It would mean that children were given a fair start in life by being desired and planned for before their conception. Every true woman desires a home and children but she does not wish to be driven into motherhood. Every true man desires a family but he does not feel justified in bringing children into the world to be half starved and with no advantages of education.
What is the solution of the problem?
Until our marriage laws are so adjusted that there are no unequal marriages, the question of divorce always will be eminent. The ever present agitation about uniform divorce laws and the divorce problem cannot be settled until there are more stringent marriage laws. Trying to settle the divorce question without first settling the marriage question is like trying to keep chickens in a small yard surrounded by enticing fields without first constructing an adequate fence.
Divorce is the concession of society to its inability to solve the marriage problem. Anyone can get married! Mere children can meet on a pleasure excursion and in a moment of fun or infatuation walk over to a justice of the peace and be married. In some states not even a license is necessary. A large proportion of the marriages in the world are consummated without a proper consideration on the part of either bride or groom as to the responsibilities of the marriage state. Many of the marriages are made simply as a matter of convenience—in order to inherit property, for social position or in a spirit of pique. Such marriages are not natural marriages and are in violation of the right spirit of the law of marriage. The much quoted saying, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," surely does not apply to these marriages; for that very admission would be a condemnation of the wisdom of God. He surely never would give his sanction to many of the marriages contracted in a spirit of lust or of greed.
It is as impossible to keep mismated people together as it is to keep chemical incompatibles together. No chemist would try to keep chlorate of potash and sulphur together even if they did, by some accident, happen to be in the same locality. It is just as impossible to keep two incompatible people together and not expect an explosion. The law may keep such people legally bound, but it cannot keep them so mentally or physically. A prominent reformer is reported to have said that fully one-third of the married population of New York City is unfaithful to the physical obligation. And New York is not so very different
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