We have reached this truth then. The urgent duty that rests with the law and with us all is the duty of taking action to prevent as far as it is possible, and in every way that we can, the penalty of its illegitimate birth being paid by the child.

VII

Now, this is not going to be done as easily as it may seem; and before it can be done, in my opinion, we shall have to clear our minds from a serious error, to which we cling with feminist tentacles in order to indulge the sentiment so passionately clung to by women-reformers of the mother's right to her child.

You will have noted how strongly I have insisted on illegitimacy being the sin of the parents—of the mother even more than of the father—and have refused to use the word in connection with the child. I have done this, as must already be plain, for a clear reason. I wished to mark the separation of the child from its parents' sin. I did not do it from a perverse refusal to accept what is usually accepted. Clearly it is absurd to brand the child "illegitimate," since it can never be the fault of any child that its parents brought it into the world. Let us talk, if you like, of illegitimate mothers, also of illegitimate fathers, but never again of the illegitimate child. The penalty of the parents' sin must not be paid by the child. I cannot emphasize this too often or too strongly.

The child must be saved by special protection.

Now, it seems to be taken for granted by all modern reformers that the best way to do this and to serve the interests of the child is to make even closer than it is at present the connection of the mother and the child, keeping them more certainly together, except in the few cases when such a course is clearly absolutely impossible, and under all circumstances regarding the separation of any mother from her baby as "an exceptional and deplorable necessity."[166:1]

What I have said already will make it abundantly evident that I cannot accept this view. I feel convinced that it is founded on a feeling of sentiment for the mother rather than on a desire for justice to the child. This tendency to confuse two separate issues has been marked in all the numerous recent discussions of the unmarried mother. I have heard the strongest indignation expressed by feminist speakers whose sentiment bubbles from them like a pan of porridge boiling over. "The child should be brought up in the atmosphere of the mother's love"; "Mother and child should not be separated," this is the opinion repeated again and again, and always without qualification as to the character of the mother. Even those few workers who realize the situation much more as it presents itself to me, from the standpoint of the child's welfare, and therefore advocate the placing of all illegitimately born children under "authorized protective oversight," yet cling to the sentiment that it is "best for the child to remain with its mother." They apprehend the difficulty of the mother's character—or rather want of character—but they do not take the necessary bold step out of this net of sentiment, and face the truth that, in many cases, the first and great enemy from whom those ill-used little ones have to be protected is their mother.

Unmarried mothers are overwhelmingly preponderant among the frivolous and weak-willed. This will be an unpopular statement to feminist sentiment; few women are honest in facing this question, though probably they do not know that they are dishonest. We women need to be more careful in accepting the over-hasty view that these illegitimate mothers in any large numbers are good girls who have been led astray by men. This view, once held by me in common with most women, I have been compelled to give up. Seduction cannot, I am sure, be accepted without very great caution as a common cause for illegitimate births. My experience has taught me that nervous instability, the result often of monotonous or too exhausting work, leading quickly to a desire for excitement and effort to escape dullness, as also love of finery and joy in receiving presents, are the principal motives that lead girls into illegal relations. And what I want to make plain is this: a characterless girl, irresponsible, without care for the future, drifting, snatching at pleasure, taking the easiest course—this is the girl who bears a child illegitimately and this is the girl incapable of becoming a good mother.

This characterless irresponsibility of the average unmarried mother is known to every social worker. The difficulty is dwelt upon in the reports of rescue homes and police-workers. I have read many separate articles which refer to it. "Temperamental instability," as it is fittingly called, inevitably makes capable motherhood impossible. True, these unmarried mothers may, and frequently do, "pour out a wealth of pent-up affection on the child," but often she will do this for half-an-hour and neglect it for days afterwards. Those who talk here of the "mother's right to her child" are being misled by sentiment. Women of the prostitute type, whose love and tears are on the surface, must not be judged too tenderly as capable of great improvement. The child may "steady the mother for a time,"[169:1] but the mother will probably by her carelessness, bad example, helplessness and inefficiency unsteady the child for life.

And it is this that matters. Yes, matters to you, my readers, and to me and to us all. The child illegitimately born is to become a future citizen; and it is not good for society to permit its mother to endanger its future. We—the other members of Society—must object to such a possibility, we cannot allow it to be tolerated on any grounds of sentiment. We object from humane care for the child, but also from patriotism and enlightened self-interest; for the consequences of the mother's unguided mistakes in training must fall on someone, and in this country they fall chiefly on the rate-payers.

I shall not wait to give you the many and overwhelming facts and figures that I could bring forward in support of these statements. To-day all the pitiful statistics of illegitimate births are widely known; at least they are known intellectually, though I doubt their being known emotionally, which is quite another matter and whips our indifference into action. Only the workers in the darkest places of our great cities know how large illegitimacy looms as a factor in the social disintegration that leads to the prison, to the mad-house, to the hospitals, to the casual wards, and to the streets. Only the eye of the scientist can vision in the relation of the unhonored child to its mother the seed of that evil which one day shall become the dishonor of the dishonorable man.[170:1]

VIII

I can foresee an objection that will be made: it will be urged that much of what I say of the unfitness of the average unmarried mother to train her child is equally applicable to the average married mother. True: I agree. There is, however, this all important difference. The child of the married woman is not placed, either by circumstances or by the law, in the power of its mother. It has a second parent: even if the father is dead and its mother is the only parent, the home is watched by grandmother, by grandfather—perhaps by four grandparents, by sharp-eyed aunts and encouraging uncles; probably there are brothers and sisters, cousins, great-aunts and great-cousins. There will also be a more or less extensive circle of criticizing friends. Thus the baby is surrounded from its birth by watchers—a veritable host of unpaid inspectors. Now, you see my point and understand the immense difference. It is the terrible loneliness of the child born illegitimately, outside the safe publicity of marriage, without relations, belonging by right to nobody, that makes the power given by law to its mother so dangerous.

That is why I would plead, with every power that I have, that we leave sentiment behind us as we approach this question. We are a hopelessly sentimental nation, and we cling to platitudes as a half naked beggar will cling to his tattered shirt. We collect moral antiquities. Inherited and worn-out ideas, psychological fossils, moral survivals, these must be treasured only in romance; they must be deleted from life. Every moral rule, every sentiment, as also every institution, must be tested, from period to period, to see if it works still in a practical and healthful direction to help the individual to do right and for the betterment of the race.

IX

We English are sentimental.

Perhaps it is worth while to wait a moment to ask the cause of this deeply-acting English sentimentality. It rests on two qualities, our moderation and our exclusiveness. But the precise causes of these qualities are not so certain; the English are romantic, but our moderation prevents us being too impulsively romantic; on the other hand, our homely feeling for reality does not lead us to investigate reality too deeply. We dislike the sordid and the "not nice." We are imaginative and passionate, but our imaginations and passions are carefully balanced by reasons and calm reflections. We are kindly, but not to the extent of saintlike self-sacrifice; also we are selfish, but again not to the extent of brutal egoism. Our exclusiveness makes "Birds of a feather flock together" and at the same time fosters our ignorance of, and indifference to, the existence of any other species of bird. Thus the good know nothing of the bad; the people who drink, play bridge, dance and have a fashionably good time, for instance, have hardly heard of the meeting-frequenting, soul-worrying reformers who live in Garden Suburbs. Thus in England there is very little to disturb a comfortable feeling; protected by our moderation and exclusiveness, there is no force inside from ourselves, or outside from observers, to make us revise our position, consider the right or the wrong of our moral attitude, to give up our illusions of comfort. That is one reason why we so often stand aside from the ugly reality of things as they are, "hold high the banner of the ideal," which is the untruthful way in which we allude to things as we want them to be.

X

Now, all this leads up very directly to the special aspect of the problem we are considering. We have to realize just what are the results likely to follow from the close relationship of mother and child in the case of the illegitimately born. Personally, I am certain that in most cases the situation is one of quite appalling dangers.

I cannot feel sure that even the most helpful supervision of the mother, if she and her child enter a hostel, or other institution, can, in the majority of cases, save some hurt, if her character is unsteady, being given by her to the child. We are only just now coming at all to understand how immensely fateful to the whole later development are the first few years of infant life, and further, how everything is colored—it would be truer to say "decided"—by the character and actions of the mother; how any hurt done, or mistake made then, can never be undone. Even an unwise expression of too fond and emotional affection may act to cause ruin in the after years. All who have even a slight acquaintance with the enlightening work of Freud, will know the folly of "trying to save the illegitimate mother through the agency of the child."

Let me state the case quite plainly: There are different types among these unmarried mothers, just as there are among married mothers, some would be wise mothers did we give them the necessary help and opportunity, but many would not be wise mothers under any circumstances or with any amount of help, because they are weak in character and are incapable of child-training. Now, the problem of saving the child is quite a different 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 state sadly, but without hesitation, and from my own experience, that in innumerable cases the salvation of the child depends more than anything else on its complete separation from the mother. I cannot countenance sentiment that blinds our intelligence. How can it be wise to recommend in cases where the character of the mother "seems to warrant a separation," that "periodic visiting by the mother needs to be fostered."[175:1] Again, what must happen if the baby is in the care of the trained nurse by day, but at night is given up to the untrained and often untrainable mother, who goes out to work but returns to the hostel to sleep?[175:2]

You will tell me the mother wants to have the child. That is right and good from one point of view—that of the mother; but from the other—the point of view of the child—it cannot work out well. The child switches hither and thither between various treatments and quite opposite influences. And with the child's terrible candor it shows the hurt it is suffering and says always, in effect, though not in words, "I wish you would all agree as to how you want me to grow up."

I may state the question in this way: Do we want the child to grow up like its mother or do we want to save it from being like her?

To answer this simple question will help us more than at first we may see. Frankly, our confusion here in fixing what we want is the cause which, in my opinion, more than anything else must bring failure to what is being done, and being proposed to be done, to help the illegitimately born child. Our sentiment causes us to confuse what is good for the mother with what is good for the child, and, because of this, we are failing to grapple with the most warring element in the whole difficult problem of saving the child; we shall have to face and deal successfully with this certain fact of the very common unfitness of the unmarried mother, before we can do the one simple and right thing and prevent the child from having to pay the penalty of its parents' illegitimate act. We are brought back always to this: the saving of the child as the one plain duty before us.

XI

In a previous section I dealt with the harmful way in which circumstances and the law, acting together, place the child born out of wedlock wholly and terribly in the mother's power. But there is a further aspect of the situation now to be considered. I wish to show how destructively that power may act, stimulated in some cases by an unwise affection as well as in others where no mother-love seems present, and act for years to hurt and even destroy the child. To establish this and make the facts plainer, I will now tell in detail a few cases of illegitimate motherhood from my own knowledge. You will see then exactly what I mean and how dangerous to the child is the power held by these unwatched mothers; the facts of the case will, I hope, speak to you more emotionally, and therefore more forcibly, than any further statement of my own opinion.

Case 1.—A baby girl was born to a young mother of unstable though not altogether bad character. The father was a gentleman: he did not seduce the girl. He paid the expenses of the confinement and afterwards, and with the mother's consent, placed the little one with good country people, paying for her support. For more than a year and a half the baby lived with its foster mother and grew up a very healthy and joyous little girl. The real mother visited the child and showed most emotional love for her. One day, without reason and without warning, she took the child away. The foster-mother appealed to the father; he did all in his power to have the child returned, and finally, when the mother refused, said he would make no further contribution for the support of the child. He knew the mother was unfit to bring up the child, but he could do nothing to prevent her action. The mother took the child to another town. What she did with the little one is not fully known, but when, after nine months, the foster-mother traced her, she was in a most pitiable condition of dirt and neglect, and, what was much worse, she was terribly frightened. Quite plainly she had been beaten and ill-used. The mother was not poor, so that cannot be made an excuse.

The foster-mother offered now to adopt the child and bring it up as her own. Her offer was accepted by the mother, but with the provision, which unfortunately was granted, that she should still come to see the child. Her visits always affected the child unfavorably.

During the next three years the little girl found renewed health and peace in her happy adopted home. Then her enemy—her mother—again took her away. For a year she kept this delicate, nervous and well-brought-up child with her in London under very adverse circumstances. Then she went off, leaving her daughter, now five years old, with no proper person to care for her and quite without means of support.

Case 2.—A girl of loose character, but not a regular prostitute, found herself pregnant. She did not know certainly who among her lovers was the father, but she decided on one man, who she knew was not the father. He was rich and kind, or rather as she told me "he was a softy." Accordingly she told him the baby was his. He arranged for the confinement, afterwards he took the baby and the mother to live in the home of his mother. They were kindly treated in every way, and the baby flourished. But the mother was bored by goodness: one day she went off: she did not take the baby. Unfortunately she left a letter—not I fear from conscience, but from mischief and a desire to insult goodness—telling the man she had tricked him and he was not the father of the child. The man was angry, disliking the knowledge of his having been duped; his mother was still more angry. Once more the child was the sufferer. It was sent away from the happy and rich home to an institution.

Case 3.—A working-class girl, belonging to a respectable country family, gave birth to a baby girl. The father was a soldier, but the girl did not know his name or where he was. During her confinement and afterward she remained at home with her mother and brother. The baby was ailing and became ill. The brother told his sister, the mother, that she must take it to the Infirmary in the neighboring town. She objected on the ground that she would have to go in with the baby. However, the brother insisted and arranged to meet her and the baby at the Infirmary gates the following evening. His sister was there, but not the baby. She told him that a friend was going to take care of the baby for her. The baby was never heard of again.

Case 4.—This time the mother was highly born and educated, but she belonged naturally to the promiscuous type of lover: she ought to have been a prostitute. She had many lovers and was strongly sexual, not passionate so much as voluptuous. By one of her lovers, and by mistake, a child was conceived, and though attempts were made to get rid of the mistake, a boy was born, fairly healthy. The father, a modern tired profligate, refused to accept the responsibilities of his fatherhood, though he did not deny the child was his, and continued as one of the lovers of its mother. The mother showed no sign of maternal love; the little one was much neglected and probably would have died, but, when about two months old, he was taken from the mother and cared for and most tenderly loved by one of the woman's other 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.

Case 5.—A record of this very revolting case appeared recently in the daily papers under the heading "L8000 Baby's End." I copy the story as it was told in the "Daily Mail": the date I do not remember.

"The love affair of a middle-aged painter, Charles Godin, with his model Georgette Belli, aged 16, has led to a remarkable charge of murder. Georgette became a mother, and when the painter died a few months later he left the child L8000.

"The girl married a young man named Emile Gourdon, and the baby was placed in the care of a grandmother. Later, when the young mother wished to get back her child, the grandmother refused to give it up on the ground that the young couple meant to destroy it in order to inherit the money, and produced letters and telegrams in support of her suspicion. Georgette, however, got an order from a court for the surrender of the baby, and went to live at Marseilles with her husband.

"One day, while walking on the jetty, the woman appeared to stumble and the child fell into the sea and was drowned. The couple have been arrested, the woman, it is alleged, having pretended to faint in order to make away with her child."

Now, I know that these five cases I have recounted are not exceptional, though some of their sordid details may be specially disagreeable. Give but a moment's attention to the facts that stand out, and at once you will grasp what is wrong. We are demanding too much from these unmarried mothers, and, by leaving the full power of parenthood in their weak hands, are jeopardizing the child's safety; we are also encouraging conditions harmful to society. It is like leaving a loaded gun in the hands of a little child. These cases speak for themselves. In No. 3 and No. 5 the child was killed by the direct act of the mother; in the former case there was some excuse from the harsh rule that the sick baby of an unmarried mother cannot be received into a hospital unless the mother goes in with it (the reason of this, of course, being that the mother will use this means of ridding herself of the baby) and will never come to reclaim it; but in the horrible case of No. 5 there is no ray of excuse. This case is especially interesting because it makes so abundantly plain the terrible need there is for the immediate establishment of safe legal adoption. In cases No. 2 and No. 4 we have the curious situation, by no means so uncommon as many might think, of the wrong man acting the part of father to an illegitimately born child; in the one case this was done through the trickery of the mother and was but temporary, the child suffering, while in the other case, more interesting and less common, vicarious fatherhood was voluntarily adopted. I would ask you to note that in none of the five cases was bad motherhood caused by poverty and homelessness. So frequently it is said: "Give these mothers a chance, and their mother-love will blossom like the rose"—or some similar and unproved tosh. It is not true. The good mother may be a bad mother by adverse circumstances, this I acknowledge readily, but that the most favorable circumstances can make the bad mother into a good mother, I emphatically deny. This is why it is so unsafe and so wrong of society to leave the child unprotected and unwatched, for the mother to do with it what she likes.

The first case, because it shows so clearly the adverse action of the mother's influence is, in my opinion, most instructive among the five cases I have given. Such changeableness on the mother's part, and interference with the child is just what is likely, and most often does take place, and will go on taking place, until the law protects these children by effective guardianship. I would specially point out that this mother was not in the least indifferent to her baby. If you had talked to her, probably your sentiment would have burned and glowed about the hardness of her case in being separated from her baby, and you would have said wonderful platitudes about the beauty of a mother's love. And yet the shameful hurt she did to her child can never be undone. Her undisciplined love was the cause of the child's undoing.

I have now, I hope, made it sufficiently plain why the illegitimately born child should no longer be considered as belonging to the mother, but should be recognized as a member of society, and, as such, entitled to protection, so that it may suffer as little, and not as much, as is possible from the disadvantages of its illegal birth. This is plain justice. Yet before it can be done we shall need an immediate and great reform of our bad and antiquated bastardy and affiliation laws. We shall need also a change of heart.

XII

I shall be asked what changes I would suggest. The answer is not easy: it is not so much a question of altering this regulation or that, of removing hindrances and giving increased help; that is good, but more is needed: we want a change of the entire system: the firm understanding that the clear aim before us is to place the child, as nearly as this can be done, in the same position of advantage as it would have had if it had not been illegally born. If there must be punishments, let them fall on the parents, never on the child.

Now, how can this best be done? In the space I can devote here, it is possible only to throw out a few suggestions.

First, and I think exceedingly important, the law should take account of the attitude of the father. In all cases where the paternity of the child is acknowledged openly by the man and with the mother, and guarantees are given that the duties of both parents will be faithfully fulfilled, the child should be legitimized, receive the name of the father, be qualified to inherit from him, and in every way given the same rights as the legitimate child, even if the parents are unable or do not wish to marry. This opportunity of right conduct once given to men by the law, I believe that many, who are fathers illegitimately, would voluntarily take this course and gladly acknowledge and fulfill the responsibilities of their fatherhood.

In all other cases, in which paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged, I take the most important duty of the law to be the official appointment of guardians. I believe nothing else is so urgently needed to protect these fatherless little ones. Such guardianship[187:1] could be provided without great difficulty or expense if each illegitimately born child, not openly acknowledged and willingly provided for by its father, was made a ward of the Court of Summary Jurisdiction in the district in which it lived and thus placed under authoritative supervision. The child would, by the authority of the Court, be boarded out (1) with the mother in all cases where her health, character and previous records were such as to make this arrangement the best for the child, (2) in hostels, either with the mother or without her, (3) with paid foster-parents, (4) with adopted parents. In every case regular visitation of the child would be necessary, and the child must not be removed from one home to another or any change made with regard to it without the authority of the Court, which shall have power (1) to appoint guardians, either in addition to, or substitution for the mother of the child; (2) to approve any scheme for the education or training of the child, and at all times and in all ways to exercise authority in every matter pertaining to the child's welfare.[188:1]

I would wish for a further restriction, which, however hardly it may seem to bear on the mother, is, in my opinion, most necessary for safeguarding the child. It is this: If the child by the decision of the Court is boarded out with foster parents, permanently adopted or placed in a home apart from the mother, no interference or even visiting by the mother shall be permitted except at the discretion of the Court.

I would suggest that in every town or rural district guardians should be appointed (preferably a man and a woman) either paid or voluntary, but officially appointed: all that is needed is an extension of the duties of the Collecting Officer, appointed under the Affiliation Orders Act of 1914. This officer already takes out of the mother's hands the work of collecting the weekly payments granted under a maintenance order, and he also has certain powers of enforcing payments from a defaulting father. But at present his taking action is dependent on the desire of the mother. His duties ought in all cases to be compulsory. They would be (1) to help the mother before and after the birth of the child; (2) to seek out the father and urge a voluntary acknowledgment of his paternity, and, when this cannot be gained, to see that the law is rightly administered so that full alimony may be obtained; (3) to watch over the interests of the child and see that the decisions of the Court are carried out without interference from the mother.

The kind of help given would have to be varied and must be made suitable to each individual case, but every child would be a ward of the guardians in the district in which it lived, and would be regularly visited. I would suggest further that there should be placed over these visiting-guardians a Government-appointed, permanent, highly salaried official—a kind of over-guardian-parent or Consultant, who would supervise the work of the ordinary guardians in difficult cases, and advise as to the best means of administering the law. This high official ought, in my opinion, to be a woman.

Such a scheme as I have outlined (briefly and, I know, inadequately) would achieve the three-fold purpose of (1) safeguarding the child, (2) guiding and helping the mother, (3) fastening responsibility on the father. If wisely administered by guardians, acting with sympathy and understanding, it could hardly fail to achieve the desired result of protecting the child. Every illegitimately born child would be placed in a position of safety.

As a preliminary step, and pending legislation, it would be an excellent plan if groups of interested people, or societies, were to form local representative committees to appoint voluntary Visiting-guardians. By this means the plan could be tried, and some kind of responsible and authoritative guardianship at once undertaken. We ought to do this now, for death and suffering to the little children are going on while we delay.

There is no more for me to say.

The saving of these little ones is a plain duty upon me and upon you, my readers. Let us clear hardness from our minds and sentiment from our hearts; both will equally lead us astray. The child is the real care of the State and of us all; it is the child who is dependent; the child who has been sinned against; the child we have to protect. Save these babies from death and from life that is worse than death; give these children a right start in life. Let no illegitimately born child be able to say in after years, "I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded."

FOOTNOTES:

[151:1] Freud.

[153:1] The illegitimate percentage of total births for the first half of 1918 was 6 per cent., in 1914 it was 4.24 per cent.

[154:1] See article by Havelock Ellis. The New Statesman, May 25th, 1918. Also Prinzing, whom Ellis quotes.

[158:1] In an article which appeared in Maternity and Child Welfare, in 1918, I first brought this question forward: the article was in answer to a discussion which had previously taken place in that useful and excellent little journal on the Unmarried Mother and her Child. I shall use some portion of what I then said in this essay, because I think my arguments would be weakened if I tried to re-write them.

[161:1] I do not include the father here, because under the English law the mother is the only parent.

[166:1] See Pamphlet issued by the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, page 8.

[169:1] These and similar statements are brought forward as reason for keeping mother and child together. I need scarcely say they leave me unmoved.

[170:1] See an excellent article on "The Love Child In Germany and Austria," English Review, June, 1912.

[175:1] Article on "The Illegitimate Child," Maternity and Child Welfare, September, 1917. One of the articles I was asked to answer.

[175:2] This is the plan advocated by the National Council for Unmarried Mothers.

[187:1] Some years ago the city of Leipsic started an admirable scheme by which illegitimately born children automatically became the wards of officially appointed guardians.

[188:1] An excellent scheme has been drawn up and issued as a pamphlet by "The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children"—Occasional Papers V. Illegitimate Children.



Sixth Essay

FORESEEING EVIL[193:1]

BEING CONCERNED WITH PASSIONATE FRIENDSHIPS, AND HOW RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT MAY BE ESTABLISHED IN SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE.

"A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished."—Pro. xxxvii. 12.

I

All over the world women are restless; perhaps, in no direction is this shown more alarmingly than in the attitude of many modern girls toward marriage and motherhood. There is dissatisfaction brewing in sexual matters as well as in every other department of life, and only the hypocrites cry "Peace" when there is no peace.

I have said so much about this restlessness of women that I do not want to labor the question, rather I wish to consider what to me seem the results as they are finding expression in the relations of women and men. It is, of course, a subject much too difficult to allow arbitrary judgments, all I can do is to jot down a few remarks, rough notes, as it were, on what I have seen and thought.

And first, I would ask the reader to remember those many sex-conventions that in the past have gathered around women's lives. I need not enumerate them, they are known to you all, but what I want to emphasize is that, though so many of them have been removed their influence persists. Always the customs and beliefs of a past social life live on beneath the surface of society; in a thousand ways we do not recognize, they press upon the individual soul. We cannot without strong effort escape from the chains of our inheritance. In the nations of the West, where the bridegroom's joy with his bride is never spoken of except as a subject fit for jests, where celibacy has been extolled and marriage treated as "a remedy for sin," where barrenness instead of being regarded as the greatest possible evil is artificially produced, where the natural joys of the body—the sex-joys and the joy of wine and food have been confused with disgraceful things—it is there that a perpetual conflict lurks at the very heart of life; hidden it becomes more active for evil.

Always times of upheaval and change afford opportunities for escape in violent expression, and while we bewail the disorder and confusion, the many sexual crimes that are overwhelming us, we ought to take warning at our folly in having set up for ourselves the new fashionable god of "escape from sex."

Women are the worst sinners. At every opportunity the women of my generation have been insisting on "the monstrous exaggerations of the claims of sex," breaking away violently from the older obsessing preoccupation with their position as women, but only to take up new evasions—fresh miserable attempts at escape. What began as a war of ideals became before long a chaos. It has had the effect not at all of minimizing the power of sex, but just as far as the deeper needs and instincts have been denied, has there been a deliberate turning on the part of the young to the reliefs of sex-excitements. The servitude of sex is one of the essential riddles of life. Personally I do not feel there is any simple solution. The conflict, broadly speaking, lies in this: our sex needs have changed very little through the ages, now we are faced with the task of adapting them to the society in which we find ourselves placed, of conforming with the rules laid down, accepting all the pressing claims of civilized life, conditions, not clearly thought out and established to help us and make moral conduct easier, but dependent much more on property, social rank, and ignorance,—all combining to make any kind of healthy sex expression more difficult, which explains our duplicity and so often prevents the acceptance in practice of the code of conduct upheld by most of us as right. I think it is a particularly intolerable state of affairs. It is not pleasant to find oneself out as a moral hypocrite.

The primitive savage within us all always will make any kind of excuse to break out in its own primitive savage way. We are just too civilized to face this, and, I think, there can be little doubt that our conduct has been hindered by many of the modern intellectual suppressions. The convention that passions and emotions are absent, when in reality they are present, to-day has broken down as, indeed, it always must break down everywhere, leading in thousands of cases individual young women and men to disaster, making us all more furtive, more pitiful slaves of the force whose power we are not yet sufficiently brave to acknowledge.

Much of our civilization has revealed itself as a monstrous sham, more dangerously indecent because of its pretense at decency. It is something like those poisoned tropical forests, fever-infested, which were in the land of my birth, beautiful outwardly, with great vivid flowers, high palms, towering trees of fern, all garlanded with creepers and lovely wild growth,—glades of fair shadow inviting to rest, yet poisonous so that to sleep there was death.

II

We have yet to find our way in sexual things. The revealing knowledge that Freud and his followers have given to the world shows us something of our groping darkness; there is much we have to relearn, to accept many things in ourselves and others that we have denied. We must give up our cherished pretense of the sexual life being easy and innocent, we must open doors into the secret defenses we have set around ourselves. None of us know much, but at least we must begin to tell the truth about the little we do know.

Now, this self-honesty may sound a simple thing. It is not. Few of us even know how hard it will be. It will call for the greatest possible courage to tear away the new, as well as the old, bandages with which we have blinkered our eyes, walking in shadow so complete that some of us have lost the very power of sight, like the strange fishes that live in the gloom of the Kentucky caves. Honesty will demand a real conversion, a change in our attitude to ourselves and to one another. We shall have, indeed, to reassure ourselves of the sincerity of our intentions, to begin as the first necessary step to accept ourselves as we are and to give up what we desire to pretend we are, to learn to be truthful to ourselves about ourselves.

Better to know ourselves as sinners, than to be virtuous in falsehood. We must grow up emotionally; want things to seem what they are, not what we want them to be. Afterwards we can perhaps go on to help others.

III

There is a further danger to which I must refer, for it is one that, in my opinion, is very active for disaster. I find a tendency among most grown-ups, especially among teachers and advanced parents, who ought to know better, to place too firm a reliance on moral teaching and sexual enlightenment as a means of saving our daughters and our sons from making the same mistakes in their lives that we ourselves have made. Like those drowning in deep waters where they cannot swim, we have clutched at any plank of hope. You see, so many of the old planks—religion, social barriers, chaperons, home restrictions, and so many more, on which our parents used to rely, have failed us, broken in our hands by the vigorous destroying of the young generation, and, therefore we have clutched with frantic fingers at this new fair-looking life raft, in pursuit of the one aim to protect our children. Myself, I have done this. It is with uttermost sadness I have to acknowledge now that I do not believe we can help the young very far or deeply by all our teaching. Not only do they want their own experience, not ours, but it is right for them to have it. The urge of adolescence carries them away out of our detaining hands.

But that is not to say we are to push them into dangers. I believe we make the way too hard for the young with much of our nonsense about liberty and not interfering. You know what happens in a garden where the gardener does interfere with his hoe? I have been forced back, often reluctantly, into accepting the necessity of boundaries. I want right conduct to be defined, and defined widely with possible paths, so that the young may have a chance of finding their way.

We have, I am sure, to set up new conventions, establish fresh sanctions and accept prohibitions, to rebuild our broken ramparts and render safe and pleasant the city within. Do we fail to do this, we leave the young to stumble among the ruins we have made. And do not let us be hypocrites and profess surprise when they fall. The knowledge we are forcing on them, often against their desire, will not save them. With all our efforts we can but teach them intellectually; a form of knowledge, which shatters like thin glass, with a very slight blow, when it comes in contact with the emotions. Thus I am driven back to the truth, established already in an earlier essay, that the one sure way to deliver the young from evil is to lessen their temptations.

You see hidden sin is always more attractive than open sin; for one thing, it is easier to begin, and the beginning of sin is usually drifting; secrecy also supplies adventure, and the excitement that is desired by the young so passionately in the dullness of life.

IV

There never was an age when so many diverse types of young women flourished, sometimes they are rather puzzling to the middle-aged observer.[200:1] With so many of them there is a kind of forced levity, a self-consciousness that prevents them from being either simple or serious. All the clever ones seem to think that by talking in generalizations, you can avert the plain issues of life. Their conversation is full of meaningless remarks, such as "the bondage of sex," "the superstition of chastity," "freedom in the marriage bond," "the sacrifice of women," "stifling convention," and so on, which they go on repeating because that is the terminology of their set. They have no conception of realities at all, only of abstract situations. Impossible to tell what are their pseudo-emotions; a sort of sterile intellectualism, shown in their shirking of sex responsibility. They wish to ignore the real difficulty of marriage; they accept love, but only with conditions. The one thing they face practically is work, and the two activities don't conflict in their estimates, because their minds are too choked with conceptions to admit facts. They are faithful to their training by G. Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, in thinking that by stating a situation and arguing about it, you can shirk the need of dealing with it.

Some women want to wipe the sex-side of life out. They cannot. They preach that work and human experience (whatever that may mean) will weaken sex-desire. It does not. Desires may be inhibited, not destroyed, corrupting in quietness they wait opportunity to revive, insistent, clamoring.

Other young women try deliberately to keep love light. Shrewd enough to understand the heavy claims of serious passion, they prefer affairs of the senses only; episodes that are a secret detachable part of their lives. They want love as an experience, and to provide the always desired excitement, but they want as well to remain free to take up other aspects of life. And while condescending to fascinate men while deliberately seeking attention, they still hold themselves in hand; intending to exploit life to the uttermost, they find sex amusing, but they fight always against its being a vocation.

There is, of course, a reason for this. The young are more reckless and lawless, they do more and go further than the last generation, and this is but an outward expression of disorder within, in my opinion, to be traced back to the passionate need felt by the young for love. So that whenever this love-desire is unsatisfied, or falsely satisfied, the dynamic need causes a kind of ferment, which sours love so that it becomes desire to be considered. If a woman is not important to others, she becomes important to herself, and this unconscious self-glorification is so devouring, so little based on anything that can possibly satisfy the need that is its cause, that it creates a hunger that can never be appeased, so constant are its demands for nourishment. It is difficult to say how far this insatiable egomania will take our young women. Some men are also empoisoned with it.

Both these types are modern; opposed to them is another type of young woman, more feminine, easier to explain, but also thwarted, restlessly demanding an outlet. These women do not want to furl their sex, they seek lovers to whom they may surrender themselves, but they suffer from a formless discontent that rots into every love and prevents them finding satisfaction. Eternally they are unsatisfied, without knowing why.

It is another modern disease and has little connection with flirting and lightness of character, though often the two are confused. Too restless to be faithful, born spiritual adventurers, these worshipers of emotionalism set up elaborate pretenses of pure friendships, ignoring the hot glow within: they love romantically, but rarely are strong enough to obey their inclinations. Such women are out on an eternal quest, and every now and again, they believe they have found what they are seeking. Then they discover they have not found it, so their search is taken up anew; while often the social scheme drives them into dangerous corners, forces them to turn from their quest or to use mean weapons of deceit, does not give them a chance.

These romantic seekers of love, suffering continual frustration from the evaporation of emotional interest that defies their own needs; the many types of efficient workers, alert, hard, self-satisfied, not wholly cynical, yet with a touch of something that borders on cynicism, submitting almost with a secret repugnance to the mysterious but supreme bond which holds the sexes miserably together; and the prostitute woman of all kinds, out to seize every advantage from men, ruthless, living upon sex—these are, it seems to me, the three main types of women resulting in our so-called civilization of to-day, from our repressions and falsehoods, our indefinite wills, from our confused ideals and failure in living; and it is hard to say which is the most harmful, which is the most wronged, which is the most unhappy, the furthest removed from the type that is eternal—the ideal woman, satisfied and glad, whom a happier future may again permit to live.

V

It was Mr. Wells who said in one of his novels, "suppose the liberation of women simply means the liberation of mischief." "Suppose she is wicked as a sex, suppose she will trade on her power of exciting imaginative men."

Something very like this has been happening in the world to-day.

We are all to pieces morally. The consciences of many people are their neighbor's opinions, and the removal of so many young girls and men from their home surroundings, their relations and old friends, has greatly slackened the watchful safe-guarding of morals, so that any slightest infringement has not been at once observed and quickly punished. The important barriers of difference in class, in social positions, and in race have also broken through. Conditions in the five war-years and most of the arrangements of society have discouraged morality very heavily, and the wise thing for us to do in the matter is not to grow eloquent about sin, but at once to do intelligent things to make right conduct easier.

An organized freedom and independence for women has certainly had startling moral results. The reasons are obvious enough. It is a necessary consequence of our modern insistence on individual values; the harping of one generation on freedom, which has caused our young women, in many directions, to carry their ideas of freedom far beyond the accepted conventions of our ordinary civilized human association. It has been shown as manifestly true that for all ordinary young women that intimate association with men, fellowship in the workshops and factories and in play, turns them with extreme readiness to love-making. Now, I am very far from wishing to blame women; rather am I glad that what I have asserted, for so long and against so much opposition, about the elementary power of sex in women, has been vindicated by themselves.

Life for women so often has been wrong and discordant, and the wretchedness has been greatly increased by the way we have left, in the immediate past, the force of sex unregulated and unrecognized, thereby causing much of the modern companionship of women with men, of girls with boys, to be really a monstrous sham, maintained and made exciting by false situations that often have closed around the two like a trap.

There are, and always have been, far more women and girls than we like to acknowledge who are by their inclinations sexually promiscuous. It is just conventional rot to talk of sex impulse being weaker and quite different in women from men; of constancy as the special virtue of women. Sometimes it is, but oftener it is not. It depends on the type of woman. A great and possibly increasing number of girls to-day regard love affairs in very much the same way as they are regarded by the average sensual man, as enjoyable and exciting incidents of which they are ashamed only when they are talked about and blamed. Such girls very rarely give trouble to men or make scenes, they don't care enough; that, I think, is why they always find lovers. It is also why it is easy for them to have secret relations. With no sex-conscience, such girls, even when quite young, exhibit a logic and a frankness that sometimes is rather startling. They seem to have no modesty, though many of them are prudes; they have no consciousness of responsibility; they feel no kind of shame. Such libidinous temperaments have been common at all times and in all societies, if in stricter periods so many women did not follow their inclinations with the openness now so frequent, it was simply out of fear; possibly they took more careful precautions against discovery.

There are as well as these wantons, girls of a different type, who are more contradictory and difficult because of a less simple sexuality, but who are equally, even if not more, harmfully destructive in the utter misery they often create. This is the type of girl who ripens to a premature and too emotional sexuality, and who, though still keeping herself physically intact, is spiritually corrupt. The spiritual masochism of a woman may lead to depths of cruelty rarely understood.[208:1]

Many other nobler types of women have been playing with vice. Many wild impulses have found strange expressions. Women have been very like children playing at desperate rebels, who take up weapons to use far more deadly than they knew. All this playing with love is detestable, all of it. It shows a shameful shirking of responsibility. Women are the custodians of manners in love, and very many, who have not dreamt of the results of their slackenings, have been urging on the young to a riotous festival, extravagant and disquieting.

It must, I think, be acknowledged that a vast impatience on the part of women has made conduct less decent and less responsible. Lovers are more reckless, even sometimes more consciously and vulgarly vicious. Women of profound and steadfast emotional nature are rare. The great majority now, perhaps, are not entirely light-minded, but they are less serious, more noisily determined to do what they want, and get what they can both out of men and out of life.

And the great fact that stands out from all this—the great need for our private personal good as well as the public good—is the need of the young for guidance and regulation, the necessity for refixing of moral standards in sexual conduct, of formulating a code of good manners, to meet the present needs. Nothing else, in my opinion, can avert even greater disasters of license in the future, than those conditions we are now facing.

VI

New wine is being put into old bottles and the wine of life is being poured out and wasted. The old convention that irregular love is excusable in the case of the man, but always to be punished in the case of the woman will never again be accepted, at least not by women. It is not women's ideas so much that are confused as their emotions, and wills. Their impulses are not focused to any ideal. They are driven hither and thither. That is the essential failure to-day. The irregular unions, now so common, are but the more intimate aspect of a general attitude toward life. Many women who have entered them, have done so rather in a mood of protesting refractoriness than from any serviceable desire; already they find themselves left after transitory passionate friendships in difficult situations in which there is as yet no certain tradition of behavior. And in this way, there is left open an inviting door to those who are weak, as well as to those who are corrupt, to behave irresponsibly and commit every kind of uncleanness.

Where is this wild love going to end?

These dissatisfied women of strong sexuality, and women of the other types I have noted, must either marry or must continue lawless careers of unregulated promiscuity, each one acting according to her own fancy, curbed only by the will of her lover or lovers, and the circumstances in which she is placed: there is at present no third course.

Now, the moralist, who does not face facts, would have them all marry. Certainly this is an easy way to settle the matter, but is it wise? is it even right? Moreover, even if this were possible and there was no surplus of women, would this solution be acceptable to these women? I am doubtful if it would. Many of them who want a lover do not want a husband, they make a surprisingly clear distinction between the two. There is, as I have before said, a hardly-yet-realized change in woman's attitude: they are beginning to take the ordinary man's view of these affairs,—to regard them as important and providing interest and pleasure, but not to be exaggerated into tragedies. They deliberately want to keep love light and dread the bondage of any deep emotions.

Now, such an attitude is not good for marriage, and, indeed, there can be no manner of use in forcing into the marriage bonds those who are unwilling to accept its duties of permanent devotion. Some other way, more practical and more helpful, must be found. We shall have, I am convinced, to broaden our views on this question of passionate friendships between women and men, to reconsider the whole position of sexual relationships apart from marriage, in order to decide what may be permitted, to regulate conduct and fasten responsibility, to open up in the future new ways of virtue. And in attempting, thus, to face squarely the difficult situations before us, I can find only one clear simple and honest way to act.

VII

We come, then, to this: how can the way be made plainer for those women and also men who are unsuited for marriage and do not wish to devote their lives to its duties?

I believe that if there were some open recognition of honorable partnerships outside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, with proper provision for the future, guarding the woman, who, in my opinion, should be in all cases protected; a provision not dependent on the generosity of the man and made after the love which sanctioned the union has waned, but decided upon by the man and the woman in the form of a registered contract before the relationship was entered upon, then there would everywhere be women ready to undertake such unions gladly, there would, indeed, be many women, as well as men, who, for the reasons I have shown, would prefer them to marriage.

There is (I must again insist upon this), whether we like it or not, a new kind of woman about, who is to snatch from life the freedom that men have had, and to do this, she knows, if she thinks at all, that she must keep marriage at bay. For marriage binds the woman while it frees the man, and this injustice—if so you like to term it—is dependent on something fundamental; something that will not be changed by endowment of motherhood, an equal moral standard in the marriage laws, or any of the modern patent medicines for giving health to marriage and liberty to wives. There is an inescapable difference in the results of marriage on the two partners. I mean, marriage holds the woman bound through her emotions, while it liberates the man through what he receives from her. The woman gains her greatest liberation only from the child, but again that holds her bound. Perhaps this is the way nature will not let women get away from their service to life.

Sometimes there is the necessity of purifying by loss. I do not believe in changing the ideal of marriage so that its duties are less binding on women, already we have gone too far in that direction. Thus, I think it better to make provision for other partnerships to meet the sex-needs (for we can cause nothing but evil by failing to meet them) of those women who, desiring the same freedom as the man, would delegate the duties of wife and mother to the odd moments of life, and choose to pursue work or pleasure unvexed and unimpeded by the home duties and care of children. Marriage also is a trust; we are the trustees to the future for the most sacred institution of life.

VIII

A society parched for honesty cannot suffer the ignominious and chaotic conditions of our sexual lives to go on as they have been lately among us, for it is plain to me that our moral code—that marriage itself cannot stand, and, indeed, is not standing, the strain of our dishonesties. Our social life is worm-eaten and crumbling into rottenness with secret and scandalous hidden relationships; these dark and musty by-ways and corners of sexual conduct want to be spring-cleaned and made decent. Never before have we needed so urgently to put our house in order. We must begin to tidy up and begin soon. If we cut out some parts of the labyrinth, we shall give the young a surer chance of finding their way out of the rest of the labyrinth.

IX

An open recognition of unions outside of marriage would prevent the present easy escape on the part of so many men and women from responsible conduct in these unregulated relationships. It is because I believe this that I am advocating this course, which will not make immorality easier, but rather will impose definite obligations where now none exist.

This proposal is not made lightly. I am not advocating such a course as being in itself desirable or undesirable. I am attempting merely to estimate the drift and tendency of the times, considering those forces which for long have been in action and, as I think, must continue to act with even greater urgency in the difficult years that are before us.

I must affirm how necessary, in my opinion, is some kind of fixed recognition for every form of sexual relationship between a woman and a man, so that there may be an accepted standard of conduct for the partners entering into them. Regulation is more necessary in sex than in any other department of conduct, for the plain reason that we are dealing with a force that pierces the slashes through our conscious wills, holding us often helpless in its power; a force which often finds its momentum in atavisms stored up through countless ages before ever society began; a force merely glossed over, as it were, by a worn smudge of civilization. And to-day "the smudge" has grown more than ever ineffective.

May not something be done now, when we are being forced to consider these questions, to make some wider recognition possible. Partnerships other than marriage have had a place as a recognized and guarded institution in many older, and in some ways wiser, societies, and, it may be that the conditions brought upon us after the World War may act in forcing upon us a similar acceptance. I believe that, in face of much that is happening to-day—the terrible disorder, like spreading-sores, infesting our sexual lives—such a change would work for good, and not for evil, that it would not destroy marriage, but might re-establish its sanctity.

X

I can anticipate an objection that probably will be raised. Why, I shall be asked, if sexual relationships are to be acknowledged outside of marriage, preserve marriages at all? This question can be answered confidently. Marriage in its permanent monogamous form will be maintained because the great majority of women and men want it to be maintained. The contract-partnerships I have suggested will be powerless to harm wedded love, of which the child is the glorious symbol. No law is needed to protect this beauty. There will always remain a penalty to those who seek variety in love, in that unrest that is the other side of variety.

It is the highest type of men and women who will seek to marry and be best and happiest, if living together as faithful husband and wife, as devoted father and mother, I do, however, hold, that there are others—women and men—without the gifts that make for successful parenthood or happy permanent marriage. I would recognize this frankly, and let those who do not desire marriage be openly permitted to live together in honorable temporary unions.

Surely it is the wisest arrangement for the man and woman worker who do not want children, and, not wishing for the bondage of a continuous companionship, desire to pass their lives in liberty. It is possible that in some cases such friendship-contracts might serve as a preliminary to marriage, while, under our present disastrous conditions, they might also be made by those who are unsuitably mated and yet are unable, or do not wish, to sever the bond with some other partner. Such contracts would open up possibilities of honorable relations to many who now are driven into shameful and secret unions.

In this way much evil would be prevented. As time went on, hasty marriage would come to be looked on with disapproval, and many unions would be prevented that now inevitably come to disaster. And this would leave greater chances of marriage and child-bearing for others and more suitable types; while further, these sterile unions would, by their childlessness, act to remove for ever from the world those unsuited to be parents. It is this last result that matters most.

XI

The whole question of any sexual relationships outside of marriage in the past has been left in the gutters, so to speak, of necessity made disreputable by the shames of concealment. Much of this would be changed. Moreover, prostitution, and also the diseases so closely connected with prostitution, would be greatly lessened, though I do not think sexual sins would cease. There will always be, for a very long time at least, men and women who will be attracted to wild-love. This we have to recognize. No one, however, need be driven into the dark paths of irresponsible love.

It is the results that have almost always followed these irregular unions that have always branded them as anti-social acts. But irresponsible conduct, such, for instance, as the desertion of women, which is made easy by the condition of secrecy under which they now exist, would be put an end to. And by doing this would follow another and, perhaps, even greater gain. The recognition of these partnerships would prevent the ostracism which even yet falls on the discarded mistress. There are many women who dread this more than anything else. A woman is hounded out of decent life, if the facts of her history become known; honorable love is closed to her, too often she finds the easiest and pleasantest life is that of the streets.

One reason why extra-conjugal relationships are discredited is, because the difficulties placed around all who enter them are so numerous that, as a rule, it is the weak, the foolish and the irresponsible who undertake these partnerships. Of course, this is not always true. Men and women, against their wills and often before they know, become entangled in a net of furtive and dishonorable acts. Squalid intrigues are the shadow that I want to eliminate out of existence. But make these partnerships honorable, and the men and women who enter into them will act honorably. I do not see that we can forbid or treat with bitterness any union that is openly entered into and in which the duties undertaken are faithfully fulfilled. It is our attitude of blame that so often makes decent conduct impossible; forces men and women into corners where there is no escape from embittered rebellious sin.

XII

I have sought to put these matters as plainly as may be in the conviction that nothing can be gained without honesty. Anyone who writes on such a question is, I know, very open to misconception. It will not be realized by many that my effort is not to lessen responsibility,—to weaken at all the bonds between the sexes, rather my desire is to strengthen them; but, I know, the form of the bonds will have to be made wider. We shall have more morality in too much wideness than in too little.

Matters are likely to get worse and not better. And the answer I would give to those who fear an increase of immorality from any openly recognized provision for sexual partnerships outside of permanent marriage is that no deliberate change made in this direction can conceivably make the moral conditions of our society, in the future, worse than they have been in the recent past. As a matter of fact, every form of irregular union has existed and does exist to-day, but shamefully and hidden. It is certain that they will continue and that their numbers will not lessen, but increase.

The only logical objection that I can think of being advanced against an honorable recognition of these partnerships is that, by doing away with all necessity for concealments, their number is likely to be much larger than if the old penalties were maintained. I doubt if this would happen, but, even if it were so, and more of these partnerships were entered into; it is also true that recognition is the only possible way in which such union can cease to be shameful. We have, then, to choose whether we will accept recognition and regulations, unless, indeed, we prefer the continuance and increase of unregulated secret vice.

There is no other choice, at least I can find none; no other way except to establish responsibility in all our sexual relationships. Secret relationships must be contraband in the new order.

FOOTNOTES:

[193:1] Some parts of this essay appeared, in 1913, in the English Review. The article created some interest at that time, especially in America, where it was published (with two other articles from the English Review) in a little book, "Women and Morality." My opinions have changed little since I wrote it. In my last book, "Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes," I again treat the subject in a chapter entitled Sexual Relationships outside of Marriage. I am now strengthened in my certainty that responsibility must be fixed and regulated in all sexual relationships if moral health is to be restored.

[200:1] A clever novel, "Three Women," by Miss Netta Syrett, gives an illuminating picture of modern womanhood.

[208:1] See I. Bloch, "Sexual History of our Times," pp. 320-322.



CONCLUSION

WITHOUT VISION

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."—Pro. xxix. 18.

I began this book on Armistice day, and am ending it on Peace day. This period of about eight months has been a time of great disillusionment. Even those little inclined to be deceived by the customary exaggerations of politicians, and little disposed to believe in sudden conversions, had hoped that the immense effort of this Great War was to awaken the deadened conscience of the world; to leave a permanent improvement in social and international relations; making class and individual and sex competition, as also national rivalry, a less pronounced feature in the new order; replacing greed by desire for service, war by a League of Nations to enforce justice. But a war of justice was followed by a peace of trickery and injustice. The victors (if not every one of them, still collectively) claimed their spoils as in earlier wars. Clemenceau's desire for vengeance triumphed over Wilson's principles in the center of the world stage.

More than ever we search the future with anxiety. Amid the confusions and compulsions, the changes unavoidable in this time of uncertainty, it is immensely more difficult to act wisely. In the old days it all seemed so much easier, as if life could be shuffled, like a pack of cards, into new arrangements. War has made a difference to the whole of life, shattered everything, as it were, in our hands, made the daily duties of most of us much harder. We have been robbed of serenity.

When you stand at the threshold of this new difficult world, knowing, as I do, that the milestones marking the backward path tell you, with certainty, that the greater part of your life and your work lies behind you, then, in these waiting days of urgency, you will want to hold a reckoning with yourself and with life, in humility to question everything, your own faith and what you have tried to teach to others with all the honesty you have.

My task has been a difficult one, and it is made much more difficult by reason of the uncertainties of our outlook, because there are now so few principles accepted by all of us as true; every principle is faced by a counter principle. It is so much easier to have fixed standards of conduct than to argue every case that occurs. We have failed in every direction to establish ideals fine enough and complete enough, and useful enough to hold our imagination and our wills. Everyone seems to be more or less at loose ends of conflicting purposes. Morals now are like clothes, made to measure and to fit each wearer. Too often, in important particulars, they change as easily and foolishly as the fashions change.

I wish to bring people back to a disciplined freedom; to a recognition of their own needs and the needs of others—the deepest desires of life. A morality based on individual values is breaking down in every direction, under the temptations and unsettlements, increased and hastened by the war, but brought about primarily by profit seeking, by the struggle of everyone doing as he likes, by a society so large, so ill organized and so hurried that personal intercourse gives way to mechanical relationships.

My position is all the more difficult as, while inclining more to the spirit of those who, in relation to the moral questions I have dealt with, are conservative, I yet regard very many of our accepted conventions and our laws as productive of evil. I realize the way in which they act so disastrously in hindering the spiritual and physical health of our society. I am, therefore, eager for certain very wide-reaching reforms.

I have not great patience with abstract theories of right and wrong, rather I would test every law and every institution by its usefulness in helping men and women. However imperfectly I have succeeded, I have set this aim of helpfulness steadfastly before me in every proposal I have made for changes in our marriage laws and in the hindering laws which regulate personal conduct. I do not want to discuss and consider humanity, life, or anything else as I would like them to be, but, as honestly as I can, I would observe and then help them as they are.

So many calamities and so much sin that could be prevented are listlessly accepted by us as inevitable. New ideas and needs are entangled among old; there is much of the new that is desirable to preserve, much of the old that needs to be reformed. I would wish to oppose two tendencies: I would prevent the too ready acceptance of the fashions of the day, and I would also prevent a too loyal obedience to the prejudices of yesterday. I would unite the intelligence of the modern with the passion and sincerity of the ancient.

Such is the immensely difficult task that must be faced by every one of us to-day. All of us are charged with heavy responsibility. Ours is a greater inheritance than ever before there has been in the world. We have all of us become responsible in a new and sterner way; to unite in our search to find the new right paths. Three generations of industrialism have created hideous abuses; we have to end them. With our wider vision and more knowledge, with the lessons we have learned, with the pain of our suffering, and our sacrifices still branded on our hearts, we have to unite one with the other and all of us together to renew and to justify life. We have to remake the world.



APPENDICES

TABLE 1.—Summary of the Position as regards the Employment of Women, April, 1914.

—————————————————————————————————— Increase in the Estimated Percentage Employment of Women Number of Women since July, 1914. of to Total ————————————- Women Number of Percentage Approximate employed, Workpeople of these Increase July, 1914. employed, employed in in OCCUPATION July, 1914. July, 1918. Numbers. —————————————————————————————————— Industries 2,176,000 26 25 537,000 Government Establishments 2,000 3 9,098 197,000 Gas, Water, Electricity (under Local Authorities) 600 1 724 4,000 Agriculture 80,000 9 11 9,000 Transport 17,000 2 459 78,000 Tramways 1,200 2 1,466 18,000 Finance and Banking 9,300 5 660 63,000 Commerce 296,000 29 71 354,000 Professions (mainly Clerks) 50,500 28 118 57,000 Hotels, Public Houses, Cinemas, Theaters, etc. 181,000 48 14 25,000 Civil Service, Post Office 60,300 24 78 59,500 Other Civil Service 5,500 9 1,809 99,500 Other Services under Local Authorities 196,200 34 16 31,000 —————————————————————————————————— Total 3,276,000 24 47 1,532,000 ——————————————————————————————————

———————————————————————————— Numbers of Percentage Women of Women stated by to Total Employers Number of to be Workpeople directly employed, replacing April, OCCUPATION Men. 1918. ———————————————————————————— Industries 531,000 36 Government Establishments 187,000 44 Gas, Water, Electricity (under Local Authorities) 4,000 9 Agriculture 40,000 13 Transport 79,500 10 Tramways 17,000 34 Finance and Banking 59,500 40 Commerce 352,000 53 Professions (mainly Clerks) 22,500 61 Hotels, Public Houses, Cinemas, Theaters, etc. 44,500 61 Civil Service, Post Office 64,000 52 Other Civil Service 89,000 57 Other Services under Local Authorities 26,000 47 ———————————————————————————— Total 1,516,000 37 ————————————————————————————

TABLE II.

The Employment of Women in the Main Groups of Industrial Occupations, April 1916, 1917, 1918.

Women Increase (+), Decrease (-), stated by Estimated since July 1914, in the Employers number of number of Women employed. to be Women replacing employed April, April, April, Men, April OCCUPATIONS July, 1914. 1916. 1917. 1918. 1916.

Metal Trades 170,000 + 149,200 + 295,300 + 385,000 194,000 Chemical Trades 40,000 + 34,300 + 66,000 + 63,000 81,000 Textile Trades 863,000 + 19,200 + 14,500 - 19,000 65,000 Clothing Trades 612,000 + 12,800 - 44,700 - 37,000 46,000 Food Trades 196,000 + 17,100 + 25,000 + 30,000 62,000 Paper and Printing Trades 147,000 - 700 - 5,100 - 4,000 21,000 Wood Trades 44,000 + 14,000 + 21,000 + 34,000 26,000

All Industrial } Occupations, } including some not} 2,176,000 + 284,700 + 483,600 + 537,000 510,000 specified above }

TABLE III.

Analysis of Pre-War Occupation of Women made by Special Inquiry, January 1917.

PRE-WAR OCCUPATION

Household Duties, and not Present Same previously Textile Clothing Occupation. Occupation. occupied. Trades. Trades.

Metal Trades 53,249 18,927 3,408 4,635 Chemical Trades 14,634 52,407 6,226 17,941 Textile Trades 6,378 4,730 1,377 3,695 Clothing Trades 38,256 9,334 1,000 8,430 Wood Trades 4,439 3,764 783 1,490 Leather Trades 7,682 2,179 695 1,372 Rubber Trades 7,897 4,055 1,119 1,561 Others 4,003 3,115 400 669

Total 136,538 98,511 15,008 39,793

Other Total Present Other Domestic Industrial stated and Occupation. Industries. Service. Occupations. classified.

Metal Trades 12,458 12,502 5,449 110,628 Chemical Trades 20,879 44,438 17,079 173,604 Textile Trades 2,320 2,531 1,054 22,085 Clothing Trades 5,745 4,970 3,643 71,378 Wood Trades 2,626 3,950 1,196 18,248 Leather Trades 1,782 1,311 822 15,843 Rubber Trades 2,104 2,393 1,030 20,159 Others 1,233 1,897 875 12,192

Total 49,147 73,992 31,148 444,137

TABLE IV.

Showing Changes between July, 1914, and October, 1918, in Numbers of Girls under 18 employed in Various Occupations.

Numbers on Gross OCCUPATIONS WITH— July Oct. Increase. Decrease. 1914. 1918.

(1) Very large Increase.

Building and Construction 1,500 6,000 4,500 ... Metal Trades 45,000 108,000 63,000 ... Chemical Trades 11,000 25,000 14,000 ... Woodworking Trades 10,500 20,000 9,500 ... Other Trades 26,000 37,000 11,000 ...

Total in Industry 94,000 196,000 102,000 ...

(2) Large Increase, but no serious problem.

Mines and Quarries 1,500 4,000 2,500 ... Agriculture 12,000 18,000 6,000 ... Professional Occupations 5,000 11,000 6,000 ... Postal Service 10,000 14,000 4,000 ... Municipal Gas, Water, and Electricity ... 1,000 1,000 ... Municipal Tramways ... 1,000 1,000 ... Other Local Government Service 5,000 8,000 3,000 ...

Total in Class 2 33,500 57,000 23,500 ...

(3) Small Increase.

Food, Drink, and Tobacco Trades 49,000 53,000 4,000 ...

TABLE V.

Number of Children and Young Persons convicted of Indictable Offenses in Juvenile Courts in large Cities and in the Metropolitan Police Area from 1914-1917.

INDICTABLE OFFENSES. 1914 1915 1916 1917

Manchester 435 708 767 750 Liverpool 1,169 1,545 2,013 2,196 Leeds 191 256 295 385 Bristol 106 207 331 279 Birmingham 368 423 504 625 Newcastle 86 177 222 234 ——— ——— ——— ——— 2,355 3,316 4,132 4,469

Metropolitan Police District 1,778 3,069 3,858 3,856



APPENDIX II

SOME STATISTICS REFERRING TO THE ILLEGITIMATELY BORN CHILD.

1. Births.

About 50,000 illegitimate children are born yearly in the United Kingdom. Consider what this means. In the course of a single generation of twenty years one million of these unprotected little ones are born, branded because their parents have acted illegitimately.[235:1]

The exact figures for England and Wales[235:2] during the past five and a half years are as follows:

Illegitimate Percentage Year Total Births Legitimate Illegitimate Total

1913 881,890 848,981 37,909 4.29 1914 879,096 841,767 37,329 4.24 1915 814,614 778,369 36,245 4.44 1916 785,520 747,831 37,689 4.79 1917 668,346 631,336 37,010 5.54 1918[235:3] 332,547 312,587 19,960 6.0

It should be noted that in England still-born births are not 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 very high, sometimes twice as high—as it is for children born under the protection of marriage.

2. Deaths.

An unusually high infant mortality is found everywhere among illegitimate children. In general, the illegitimate rate is twice as great as the legitimate. Two unprotected children die for each protected child.

1912-1916 DEATHS PER 1,000 UNDER 1 YEAR.

All infants under 1 year. Legitimate. Illegitimate.

1912 95 91 121 1913 106 104 213 1914 105 100 207 1915 190 105 203 1916 91 87 183

The mortality of unmarried mothers is proportionately great.

"The ratio of illegitimate to legitimate mortality in the first week of life has increased from 170 per cent. in 1907 to 201 per cent. in 1916. These facts have a somewhat ominous aspect and suggest that infant welfare organizations might well devote special attention to the first days of the life of illegitimate children."—(Report of the Registrar-General for 1916.)

The Law of Affiliation and Bastardy. (Brief Summary of the Law in England and Wales.)

The mother is the legal parent. The child is not legitimized on the marriage of its parents. The child has no rights of inheritance from either parent. Where paternity is established the father is liable for support (or alimony). In Scotland the marriage of the mother with the father legitimizes the child. In Ireland the mother is not allowed to claim alimony herself—she must go into the workhouse and the guardians must sue for her.

To Obtain an Affiliation Order.

By the Bastardy Laws Amendment Act, 1872, the mother must apply to a justice of the peace for a summons to be served on the man alleged by her to be the father of her child. The cost of this summons is 3/6 with an additional 2/- for delivery if beyond the limits of a city borough. The cost of the affiliation order, when obtained, is 9/-. The application for the order may be made before the birth of the child or within twelve months after the birth. It cannot be done after that time unless (1) the man has acknowledged his paternity by paying money for the child, (2) the alleged father has left England, in which case a summons can be served any time within 12 months after his return.

The Affiliation Order.

The maximum amount that up to the present time has been allowed under an Affiliation Order is 5/- a week, such payments to continue until the child reaches the age of sixteen years. The justices determine the exact amount the father shall pay. It also rests entirely within their discretion to make any allowance for the mother's expenses at the time of birth. In fixing the sum the justices are supposed to act having regard to all the circumstances of the case, and often the payments were fixed as low as 2/6 or 3/6 per week before the passing of New Act 1919.

THE END