THEDanger and Immodesty,&c.LETTER I.
In times, when every winter brings scenes of prostitution from the privacy of darkness into the public light of day; when our ladies of quality, and women of fashion, instead of being as remarkable for their virtue, as for their beauty, openly cast aside every sense of shame, and barefacedly encourage the addresses of men, who, avowedly, can have no intention but to involve them in guilt; it is the duty of every honest man to endeavour to trace the evilto its source, in order that, by pointing outthe foul springwhich corrupts the stream,the fountain may be cleared, and the contagion which rages from it, lessened, if not entirely removed.
Boarding schools are, beyond doubt, seminaries, where the minds of girls areearly polluted. Let the mistress of the school be ever so virtuous, prudent, and attentive, the vicious girls (and some such there always must be among a number) will find sufficient opportunities to taint the tender minds of unsuspecting innocence. Nothing can be more destructive than bad example; and, unfortunately, the human mind is too ready to copy those which are vicious—andthe viciousare more importunate and solicitousto corrupt, thanthe virtuousare to gain proselytes to goodness.
Though I believethe first seeds of viceare imbibed at a boarding school, yet Iby no meanslook on that education as the great cause of these frequent adulteries. If principles of virtue have been inculcated in infancy, they may yet, with proper care, bud out afresh under good culture—and flourish under the influence of good advice, when those noxious weeds are choaked up, which were planted by bad examples, but which may wither on the cause being removed.
It is to the almost universal custom ofemploying Men-midwives, that I attribute the frequentadulterieswhich disgrace our country.
Ignorancehas spread thisshamelesscustom. Ignorance leads people to suppose mensaferthan women—Ignorance ofwhattheMen-midwivesdo, leads modest womenat firstto submit to employ men; andit is ignorancewhich leads husbands [who love their wives] to recommend, nay even sometimes force them on their wives. They know not what stripes they are preparing for themselves—they know not that they are removing the corner stone on which the virtue of their wives is founded—and all this ona mistakenprinciple—the idea that men are safest.
The Almighty, through kindness to his creatures, has so ordered the labours of women, that even the honest part of theMen-midwife tribe confess, that, in thirty years practice, a person might probably never meetwith a single casewhere a good woman might not have done the business. This confession was made to me by an eminent man-midwife, after a practice of thirty-six years. How else would the world have been peopled? The men havebut latelycome into fashion. In praise ofScotlandandIrelandbe it spoken,the women of those countries are still too modest to employ them. What is the consequence?Adulterieshappenvery seldom in those countries; and every farm-house swarms with strong, healthy,well-limbedchildren. If Men-midwives were requisite to bring children into the world, what would become of the wilds of America—the plains of Africa? Even theHottentot womenare too modest to employ men—they leave that abandoned customto our English ladies—yet they are so fruitful they furnish slaves to the globe. It is a notorious fact, that more children have been lost since women were so scandalously indecent as to employmen, than for ages before that practice became so general. Women havea tenderness of feeling for their own sexin labour, whichit is impossible men can ever equal them in. Byhaving feltthe pains, and the anxieties attending child-birth, they know how to sympathize in a woman’s sufferings.Theirfeelings, therefore, arenatural. They lead them to be patient—they prompt themto allow nature to do her ownpeculiar work. They never dream of having recourse to force—thebarbarous, bloody crotchetnever stainedtheirhands withmurder. Therenever reallycan be occasion for a male operator, but when a deed must be done which my soul shudders at the idea of, and which I shall not mention—but thanks to God, such instances do not occur in a century!—To my knowledge, a lady was twice delivered in different parts of the country of England, by common women-midwives, and both those cases wereas unnaturaland difficult as it is well possible to imagine—she and the children did well—if she had employedmen, it is more than probable,the children, at least, would have expired under the crotchet—or been maimed by the forceps!
And how should this be otherwise! a longun-impassionedpractice,earlycommenced, andcalmlypursued, is absolutely requisite to give menby art, what women attainby nature.—Dr. Hunter, very wisely, very justly has said, that “Labour is nature’s work.”—Natureought to be sufferednine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand,to do her own work. All the knowledgeyoungmen can possibly obtain, must be fromdeadbodies—for is it in common sense to suppose, that a young lad can explore the secret recesses of Venus, so as to bephysicallywell acquainted with those parts inlivingfemales? No—fires must quickly be raised, which unavoidably will confuse all his discerningreasoningfaculties—andartmust instantly be lost innature. Dr. Hunter, indeed, and one or two men besides,may perhaps, by thehelp ofcoldconstitutions, and dint of very long practice, do their businessnearly as wellas women—by leaving allto nature—but, if my life and fortune here, and salvation hereafter, depended on the life of any pregnant woman, and that of her infant, I would stake all I held valuable on her being attended by any old woman midwife in England, in preference to any man in the world. Whoever reads Nihel’s Midwifery, will be satisfied of this truth, thatwomen are infinitely safer than men.
Who can wonder at the profligacy of the times, when it is known that even women of character soon become so callous to the bashfulness which ought to characterize their sex (from being habituated to the familiarities of their Men-midwives) that they will not scruple informing a male visitor, without even blushing, “I was not very well for some days in the country—so I came to town on purpose to be satisfied by Dr. ⸺ that I was in a good way—the dear manhas told me thatthe child lies right—and I am perfectly easy.” Monstrous! that a lady can pretend to any degree of modesty, and yet,not contentwith havinga strangeman attending herfor hourswhen in labour (most of that time intimately acquainted witheverypart) she can, without any compunction, send for a man, and admit him without reserveto the most unboundedliberties, at a time too, when she isas ableto walk, anddo every other actof life, as if she was not pregnant! Pray let me ask her ladyship,howdid “The dear man,”—“sweet Dr. ⸺,”find outhow the child lay?—By meanssufficient to taint the purity, andfully the chastity, of any woman breathing!—I will boldly affirm, that, whoever admits a man to thoselicentiousfreedoms, cannot pretend to answer for whatmaybe the consequences. Ifthe lastcircumstance does not take place, it must be owing, either to an extraordinary insensibility in the man, or to the woman’s not suiting his taste, having such choice of beauties to visit. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that the fictitiousGoddess of Chastity, Diana herself, was on earth, and employed me to satisfy her doubts, during the months of pregnancy prior to labour—and her mind of course, at first, free from the smallest tincture of guilty ideas—yet, if I chose it, I couldso bewilder her reason, that she shouldlose sight of every principle of virtue—and notbe ableto refuse me whatever I chose to desire.—When a man is in free possession of the Citadel, and all the out-works surrendered at discretion, it is then too late to attempt guarding the town from plunder.
But supposing these advantages are not always taken (which I dare say they are not) it cannot be deniedwith truththese visitations from Men-midwives, remove in a great measure, the horror of those intrusions on the advanced posts of virtue, which are its greatest safeguards—and serveto prepare the wayfor the addresses of gay young men, who make it their businessto seduce married women into the paths of infamy.
If any lady, desirous of exculpating herself from my censure, pleads that “she never admits a Man-midwifeto familiaritiesbut whenin actual labour”—I answer, that, evenin actuallabour—a woman has many intervals of ease, for many minutes together quite free from pain—in those intervals, her mindcannotmaintainits spotless whiteness—in thoseintervals she cannot butbe conscious, that thedoctoris infringing on thehusband.
But I believe there are very few women who confine the Doctor’s familiarities to the times of real labour. Lady ⸺, Mrs. ⸺, acquiesce in whatever he thinks right during all the months of pregnancy—and must he not bemorethan man, orless than man, who,roving luxuriouslythrough all thehiddencharms of beauty, can help being inflamed by passion?—and,if inflamed by passion, he may proceedon certainties... he has anunerringtell-tale under his inspection, which gives himaninfalliblecue, when he may safelythrow aside the mask, fearless of any repulse.
Shew some sense of modesty, ye Duchesses, Countesses, &c. &c. and those inferior women, whomye have debauchedby your bad examples, will again imitate ye, in forsaking these Scandalous practices. Blush, ye women of fashion, to own that any man, besides your husbands,is admitted to liberties with your persons. No longer talk of “dearDoctor Hunter,” “angelicDoctor—” “enchantingDoctor—.” ... For my own part, if I was a married man, I declare it would bea matter of the utmost indifferenceto me, whether my wife had spent the nightin a bagnio—or an hour of the forenoon locked up with a man-midwife in her dressing room.—Letthisshamelesscustom be abolished, and then virtue will fly back again to our metropolis, with all her train ofgenuine self-approving pleasures—and England beonce moreas much famed for the chastity, as for the beauty of its women.
Adieu, Mr. Printer—you have received this letter from a sincere admirer of female modesty: Without it “beautyceases being lovely, or wit being engaging.” Whoever possesses it cannot be enough esteemed and regarded—whoever is deficient in it cannot be sufficiently despised and slighted. YeEnglishfair,it oughtto be your characteristic!but while your fathers, husbands, and brothers are unprincipled, corrupted senators—you think you have a right to deviate fromyour point of honour, sincethey shew you the example in their’s.
To conclude—true modesty is incompatible with the idea of employing
A MAN MIDWIFE[2].
[2]Except when thosevery rare instancesoccur, which do not happen once in two thousand labours.
[2]Except when thosevery rare instancesoccur, which do not happen once in two thousand labours.
[2]Except when thosevery rare instancesoccur, which do not happen once in two thousand labours.