SORROW COMES FROM EVADING MOTHERHOOD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3539, 1 June 1912, Page 4

SORROW COMES FROM EVADING MOTHERHOOD.

WOMEN WITH NO MATERNAL INSTINCT.

There seems to he a strange and unnatural type of young woman ing up in our midst.

She belongs, as a rule, to the educated and well-to-do classes, hut she is to he found among the self-support-ing and laboring people, also.

This is the young woman who objects strenuously to motherhood, and who does not hesitate to make hep. ideas known to young men when she is sought in marriage. She will consent to being a wife only as she is assured slie need not hear children. One can understand how a very poor girl, obliged to work daily for a living, might feel that she could unite her fate with a man she loved, even if he were able to give her freedom from the toil and the comforts of a home ; and one can understand how in this situation she would wish to avoid the responsibilities of motherhood until better days came.

But it is not the working girl, mated to the laboring man, who most frequently fights against motherhood. It is the young wife who has comfort, and even luxury, who strenuously objects to bringing children into the world.

There is much said by our religious people and our missionaires of the destruction of female children in China and India.

Among the very poor and ignorant of those lands it is still a common event for the new-born girl to be immediately smothered and told “to go hack and bring her brother.” This is all very dreadful; but there is a practice quite common in America and other Christian lands which is almost as dreadful. It is the destroying of incipient life, to avoid the cares of motherhood. Were all the wives who have committed this crime summoned before our courts it would make an appalling army. One such wife, twenty-five years ago, was always violent when the subject of children was mentioned in her hearing. She declared nothing could induce her to give up her freedom, her good looks, and her time, to the care of a child.

Yet now in advancing years she is living in loneliness, seeking everywhere for some new distraction, and borrowing other people’s children to brighten her life, besides hearing the brand on her face of the woman who has fought against motherhood at any cost—an unmistakeable brand to one who has seen much of the world.

Any young man should pause well before he thinks seriously of marrying a girl who has no maternal instincts.

There are two qualities Avhich a AA'omanly Avoman must possess:— She must love children and siie must have IoA-e and reA-erence for the Creator of the uniA-erse. She need not he orthodox. She does not need a special creed or great knoAvledge of dogmas or aggressKe piety, but she does need faith and reverence to make her a IoA-able and loA'ely woman.

She must possess the humility and the intelligence to be conscious of the wonderful poAver which formed this uniA-erse, or she can never be an agreeable and sympathetic companion for a man through all life’s vicissitudes. A reverent faith in a Avoman is what fra-

grance is to a flower. And the woman avlio does not care for children and who has no maternal instincts is abnormal- she lacks the finer feminine qualities, and a certain hardness. and selfishness Avill be displayed in her nature as time passes.

- It is a Arise Avoman avlio objects to motherhood—if there is a taint in the blood of either family. Children, like fruit, should come from good soil. Where there is a combination of ignorance and poA-erty, children should not be born. But the Avoman avlio objects to offspring because she wants her freedom/ or because she does not like children, is a woman to distrust. She lacks the large, Avholesome, moral qualities Avhich God gave as a foundation for her nature. Benjamin Franklin Avas the sixteenth child in a family of a poor talloav chandler.

Abraham Lincoln Avas born of poor parents.

Both mothers loved children and. made no effort -to destroy the unborn infant.

Any wife who is conscious that she bears another life under her heart wants to think of the great possibility that she may be the chosen medium of Destiny for giving the Avorld a useful being ; a statesman, a philanthropist, a genius or leader of men or a great Avoman to better the race.

Instead of allowing criminal thoughts to occupy her mind toward ridding herself of this life, let her fill her mind with good and great and tender thoughts, .and so make her child what she desires it to be. Napoleon’s mother read Roman history before his birth, and she was filled with admiration of powerful warriors. No one admires warriors today, and the world does not want another Napoleon. But it wants great men and great women, and the mothers of the children to be must come into a realisation of their power to make children what they desire, through parental influence. It is the highest privilege life can offer a human being—this privilege of motherhood-

Nothing else can compare with it. How dare women become criminals to escape it?