| | | | No human affection has been so passionately praised as | maternal love, and none is supposed to be so holy or so | strong. Even the poetic aspect of the instinct which | inspires the young with their dearest dreams does not rank | so high as this, and neither lovers love nor conjugal love, | neither filial affection nor fraternal, comes near the sanctity | or grandeur of the maternal instinct. But all women are not | equally rich in this great gift; and, to judge by appearances, | English women are at this moment particularly poor. It | may seem a harsh thing to say, but it is none the less true | ~~ society has put maternity out of fashion, and the nursery | is nine times out of ten a place of punishment, not of | pleasure, to the modern mother. Two points connected | with this subject are of growing importance at this present | time ~~ the one is the increasing disinclination of married | woman to be mothers at all; the other, the large number of | those who, being mothers, will not, or cannot, nurse their | own children. In the mad race after pleasure and | excitement now going on all through English society the | tender duties of motherhood have become simply | disagreeable restraints, and the old feeling of the blessing | attending the quiver full is exchanged for one expressive of | the very reverse. With some of the more intellectual and | less instinctive sort, maternity is looked on as a kind of | degradation; and women of this stamp, sensible enough in | everything else, talk impatiently among themselves of the | base necessities laid on them by men and nature, and how | hateful to them is everything connected with their | characteristic duties. This wild revolt against nature, and | specially this abhorrence of maternity, is carried to a still | greater extent by American women, with grave national | consequences resulting; but though we have not yet reached | the Transatlantic limit, the state of feminine feeling and | physical condition among ourselves will disastrously affect | the future unless something can be done to bring our | women back to healthier tone of mind and body. | No-one can object to women | declining marriage altogether in favour of a voluntary | self-devotion to some project or idea; but, when married, it | is a monstrous doctrine to hold that they are in any way | degraded by the consequences, and that natural functions | are less honourale than social excitements. The world can | get on without balls and morning calls, it can get on too | without amateur art and incorrect music, but not without | wives and mothers; and those times in a nation's history | when women have been social ornaments rather than | family home-stays have ever been times of national | decadence and of moral failure. | Part of this growing disinclination is due to the enormous | expense incurred now by having children. As women have | ceased to take any active share in their own housekeeping, | whether in the kitchen or the nursery, the consequence is an | additional cost for service, which is a serious item in the | yearly accounts. Women who, if they lived a rational life, | could and would nurse their children, now require a wet | nurse, or the services of an experienced woman who can | , as the phrase is; women who once would have | had one nursemaid now have two; and women who, had | they lived a generation ago, would have had none at all, | must in their turn have a wretched young creature without | thought or knowledge, into whose questionable care they | deliver what should be the most sacred obligation and the | most jealously-guarded charge they possess. It is rare if, in | any section of society where hired service can be had, | mothers give more than a superficial personal | superintendence to nursery or schoolroom ~~ a | superintendence about as thorough as their housekeeping, | and as efficient. The one set of duties is quite as | unfashionable as the other, and money is held to relieve | from the service of love as entirely as it relieves from the | need of labour. And yet, side by side with this personal | reliquishment | | of natural duties, has grown up, perhaps as an instinctive | compensation, an amount of attention and expensive | management specially remarkable. There never was a time | when children were made of so much individual | importance in the family, yet in so little direct relation with | the mother ~~ never a time when maternity did so little and | social organization so much. Juvenile parties; the kind of | moral obligation apparently felt by all parents to provide | heated and unhealthy amusements for their boys and girls | during the holidays; extravagance in dress, following the | same extravagance among their mothers; the increasing | cost of education the fuss and turmoil generally made over | them ~~ all render them real burdens in a house where | money is not too plentiful, and where every child that | comes is not only an additional mouth to feed and an | additional body to clothe, but a subtractor by just so much | from the family fund of pleasure. Even where there is no | lack of money, the unavoidable restraints of the condition, | for at least some months in the year, more than | counterbalance any sentimental delight to be found in | maternity. For, before all other things in life, maternity | demands unselfishness in women; and this is just the one | virtue of which women have least at this present time ~~ | just the one reason why motherhood is at a discount, and | children are regarded as inflictions instead of blessings. | Few middle-class women are content to bring up their | children with the old-fashioned simplicity of former times, | and to let them share and share alike in the family, with | only so much difference in their treatment as is required by | their difference of state; fewer still are willing to share in | the labour and care that must come with children in the | easiest-going household, and so to save in the expenses by | their own work. The shabbiest little wife, with her two | financial ends always gaping and never meeting, must have | her still shabbier little drudge to wheel her perambulator, so | as to give her an air of fine-ladyhood and being too good | for work; and the most indolent housekeeper, whose work | is done in half an hour, cannot find time to go into the | gardens or the square with nurse and the children, so that | she may watch over them herself and see that they are | properly cared for. In France, where it is the fashion for | mother and bonne to be | together both out of doors and at home, at least the children | are not neglected nor ill-treated, as is too often the case | with us; and if they are improperly managed, according to | our ideas, the fault is in the system, not in the want of | maternal supervision. Here it is a very rare case indeed | when the mother accompanies the nurse and children; and | those days when she does are nursery gala days, to be | talked of and remembered for weeks after. As they grow | older, she may take them occasionally when she visits her | more intimate friends; but this is for her own pleasure, not | their good, and is quite beside the question of going with | them to see that they are properly cared for. It is to be | supposed that each mother has a profound belief in her own | nurse, and that when she condemns the neglect and | harshness shown to other children by the servants in | charge, she makes a mental reservation in favour of her | own, and is very sure that nothing improper or cruel takes | place in her nursery. Her children | do not complain, and she always tells them to come to her | when anything is amiss; on which negative evidence she | satisfies her soul, and makes sure that all is right, because | she is too neglectful to see if anything is wrong. She does | not remember that her children do not complain because | they dare not. Dear and beautiful as all mammas are to the | small fry in the nursery, they are always in a certain sense | Junos sitting on the top of Mount Olympus, making | occasional gracious and benign descents, but practically too | far removed for useful interference; while nurse is an | ever-present power, capable of sly pinches and secret raids, as | well as of more open oppression ~~ a power, therefore, to | be propitiated, if only with the grim subservience of a | Yezidi, too much afraid of the Evil One to oppose him. | Wherefore nurse is propitiated, failing the protection of the | glorified creature just gone to her grand dinner in a cloud of | lace and a blaze of jewels; and the first lesson taught the | youthful Christian in short frocks or knickerbockers is not | to carry tales down stairs, and by no means to let mamma | know what nurse desires should be kept secret. A great | deal of other evil, beside these sly beginnings of deceit, is | taught in the nursery; a great deal of vulgar thought, of | superstitious fear, of class coarseness. As, indeed, how | must it not be when we think of the early habits and | education of the women taken into the nursery to give the | first strong indelible impressions to the young souls under | their care? Many a man with a ruined constitution, and | many a woman with shattered nerves, can trace back the | beginning of their sorrow to those neglected childish days | of theirs when nurses had it all their own way because | mamma never looked below the surface, and was satisfied | with what was said instead of seeing for herself what was | done. It is an odd state of society which tolerates this | transfer of a mother's holiest and most important duty into | the hands of a mere stranger, hired by the month, and never | thoroughly known. Where the organization of the family is | of the patriarchal kind ~~ old retainers marrying and | multiplying about the central home, and carrying on a | warm personal attachment from generation to generation | ~~ this transfer of maternal care has not such bad effects; | but in our present way of life, without love or real | relationship between masters and servants, and where | service is rendered for just so much money down, and for | nothing more noble, it is a hideous system, and one that | makes the modern mother utterly inexplicable. We wonder | where her mere instincts can be, not to speak of her reason, | her love, her conscience, her pride. Pleasure and | self-indulgence have indeed gained tremendous power, in these | later days, when they can thus break down the force of the | strongest law of nature, a law stronger even than that of | self-preservation. | Folly is the true capillary attraction of the moral world, and | penetrates every stratum of society; and the folly of | extravagant attire in the drawing-room is reproduced in the | nursery. Not content with bewildering men's minds, and | emptying their husbands' purses for the enhancement of | their own charms, women do the same by their children, | and the mother who leaves the health, and mind, and | temper, and purity of her offspring in the keeping of a hired | nurse takes especial care of the colour and cut of the frocks | and petticoats. And always with the same strain after show, | and the same endeavour to make a little look a mickle. The | children of five hundred a year must look like those of a | thousand; and those of a thousand a year must rival the | tenue of little lords and ladies | born in the purple; while the amount of money spent in the | tradesman class is a matter of real amazement to those let | into the secret. Simplicity of diet, too, is going out with | simplicity of dress, with simplicity of habits generally; and | stimulants and concentrated food are now the rule in the | nursery, where they mar as many constitutions as they | make. More than one child of which we have had personal | knowledge has yielded to disease induced by too | stimulating and too heating a diet; but artificial habits | demand corresponding artificiality of food, and so the | candle burns at both ends instead of one. Again, as for the | increasing inability of educated women to nurse their | children, even if desirous of doing so, that also is a bodily | condition brought about by an unwholesome and unnatural | state of life. Late hours, high living, heated blood, and | vitiated atmosphere are the causes of this alarming physical | defect. But it would be too much to expect that women | should forego their pleasurable indulgences, or do anything | disagreeable to their senses, for the sake of their offspring. | They are not famous for looking far ahead on any mater, | but to expect them to look beyond themselves, and their | own present generation, is to expect the great miracle that | never comes.