JEALOUSY.
No influence, excepting the desire to dislodge and so murder the unborn, has so damaging an effect on the character of the child as jealousy. I have but toooften seen the workings of this emotion and its consequent evils.
I once lived in the house of a good-hearted young Irish woman, the mother of two girls, respectively two and five years old. The younger was a happy, rollicking little dot, needing small care, and finding amusement in everything about her.
The older child, a coarse, distorted likeness of her mother in form and feature, presented a strong contrast to her sister. There was a sly, malicious expression in her light blue eyes—at times a vicious leer so horrible in childhood. I used to watch her at my leisure, and have seen her deliberately stick a pin into her sister and push her down, standing silently pleased to see she was hurt.
“Do you see how different in disposition your two girls are?” I one day asked the mother.
“Oh! sure, I do, Miss,” she replied, “and I don’t see why the good God give Katy thim ways she has. She angers me that much sometimes, that I could just kill her, I could, when I see her wid me own eyes pinch the baby, and the darlint looking up as innocent, smilin’, wid the tears in her eyes, as if she didn’t believe it, nohow.”
“Did you live here among these beautiful hills before Katy was born?” I asked.
“Shure an’ I did, Miss, and me husband worked in the factory yonder.”
“The scenery is so lovely round here, that if, as you say, you have a good husband, you ought to have been happy all the time. Were you quite as happy when you were carrying Katy as you were with Molly?”
“Happy, is it, you say, Miss? an’ shure whin me husband was tuk up wid another woman, how could I be happy? An’ he a spending his money on her, too, an’ the wages got lower, an’ it’s not the money that riled me neither, it’s me as was but a few months married, an’ in a strange counthrie, and he a riding more nor three times wid her in a chaise, it is. Och! but he’d been over and larnt the wicked ways before iver he brought me here. Faith, me heart was broken, it was, an’ I hated that woman so, I was longing all the time to lay me hands on her. I’d liked to have murthered the old divil, an’ I wanted to go to the factory an’ inform on her, but me husband cursed me, and threatened to kill me if I did.”
I knew her husband, and he was a very fair specimen of the better class of Irish laborers. He behaved himself very well, I thought, and was never tired of playing with the baby Molly. It was by slow observation I discovered that illicit relations make a man cruel, brutal to the wife he deserts.
“And was he still behaving so badly while you were bearing the baby Molly?” I asked.
“The saints be praised, no, Miss. The woman movedaway a bit after Katy was born. Bad ’cess to her, and Pat giv’ up his bad ways afther, and trated me rale well, too. The baste of a woman niver come back, an’ I tuk no more throuble consarning her.”
“That was sensible and kind, too, in you,” I said; “but it would have been better for poor Katy if she had gone sooner. You see, you put all your hatred of that woman into Katy, and she is not so good or so pretty in consequence.”
“An’ do you mane to say, Miss, that God could make me Katy bad, an’ me a sufferin’ too?”
“Well, but did not she lie right under your heart when you were longing to lay hands on that wicked woman? All your feelings went with the blood that nourished her every day through all those months. It was a sad chance for her, poor child.”
It was some time before the good creature could accept an idea so foreign to her crude opinions on the subject. But she saw at last how it must be. She promised to control her temper (she was again pregnant), and I advised her not to be severe in her treatment of poor Katy, but to give her a little garden in the poorly-fenced lot, with some cheap seeds to plant to occupy her mind; and for herself, she should not dwell on Katy’s looks and imperfections, but enjoy Molly all she could, and sing every day some of her sweet Irish songs.
During courtship it is the habit of the mind to avoid all topics on which disagreement is anticipated. This comes of a longing for sympathy, and a fear of losing whatever degree of it is possible between the parties. It is a dangerous course, and imperils future happiness, because after marriage all disguises are sure to be dropped, and the want of harmony in opinion and feeling becomes at once prominent.
Under such circumstances an excellent young man of our acquaintance, whom we will call N., became the husband of a lady of equally admirable, but wholly different character, by name C. A few months of married life sufficed to reveal the width of the gulf between them. It could not be ignored. Their estimate of individuals, actions, looks, were always at variance. Shrinking from the pain of dissent, C. learned to limit her conversation to the very simplest matters of household occurrence, then to the baby, who seemed to have inherited all the inharmony of the alliance, never content, always awake.
Other children were born to them, capable, conscientious children, wanting serene affection and contentment, as only love can beget love. So the years went on, when circumstances threw N. almost daily into the society of one of those women who appeal directly to the passions of a man—a handsome animal, with no scruples of conscience as to the misery she might bringon another woman. N. felt more at home in the company of one below his own plane, than with one who was above it, and plunged at once into what is politely termed aliason.
While this affair was at its height, C. found herself pregnant; and her husband expressing his annoyance at the prospect of another child, and dreading the effect on the child of her own desolation and sense of wrong, she would have rejoiced could she have brought on the menstrual flow. Finding this an impossibility at so early a stage, and unwilling to risk injuring the child later on, she made up her mind to do her “level best” and bear it. By sheer force of will, and by the most passionate prayer for help from Above, to enable her to live above her surroundings, to save her from bearing malice; shutting her eyes to the cruel insensibility of N. and his affinity, keeping them open to the needs of others, she lived day by day, working, aspiring, dreading lest her efforts should fail to save her child, determined that heshouldbe saved.
The effect of her high endeavor astonished even herself. She had lifted him above the clouds and put himen rapportwith greater good and wiser wisdom than came to the other children. His nature proved to be hopeful and trustful, with more affection to bestow on the mother who had thus struggled for him, than sonsusually feel for mothers, and more force of intellect than easier conditions would have ensured.
Could any instance more fully prove the mother’s peculiar power in moulding the constitution of her child? The father’s thoughts were all engrossed with his mistress. The mother’s persistent, intelligent, unselfish aspiration alone saved her son from being the spiritual brother of poor Katy—the child of malice.
The following illustrates the fearful consequences of sexual indulgence during pregnancy:
“Charlotte and I were school-mates and dear friends ever since I can remember anything,” said the young woman. “Our parents had been friends before us. I think we were equals in every sense, except that Lotty was handsomer than I. We became engaged and were married on the same day, when I was twenty-one and she twenty-two years of age. Our husbands are both honorable and kind men, and so far as our married lives are concerned, we have both been well situated.
“In about the usual time after marriage we found ourselves pregnant, and as we lived not far distant from each other, we made our babies’ wardrobes in company, anticipating, with much pleasure, the already dear children.
“We had passed the fifth month, when Lotty, for the first time, alluded to her most private life with her husband, saying she was so glad that she could respond so fully to his demands. It had not been so at first, but now the relation occurred almost every night, and she experienced quite as much emotion as he did, to his very great satisfaction.
“I made an exclamation of surprise, and then was silent. My own experience had been entirely opposed to hers, but I knew nothing of right or wrong in such matters; I had nothing to reply.
“In due time, to our great delight, we each held a daughter in our arms. Other children followed pretty close on their track, and our meetings, though no less cordial, became less frequent. The years flew past on swift wing. Our eldest children were thirteen years old; mine a refined, conscientious, reliable girl; hers too mature bodily, and with a rather handsome, but positive, sensual face. In order—as they intended—to check the forwardness of her manners, she was sent to boarding-school. Here she climbed out of the window at night, and having had an intrigue with a boy belonging to an academy near by, was expelled from the institution. The parents entreated, bribed, threatened, with no signs of improvement on her part. Finally, when this poor child wanted two months of reaching her fifteenth year, she left her home, and of her ownfree will became the inmate of a brothel. Once or twice, through the help of a detective, she was recovered; but only to escape again to follow the life that suited her organization.
“Her father’s head was bowed with grief. The mother became hard and irritable, growing to hate the child who had brought on them so much sorrow and shame. I grieved for them, but I never understood the case till I heard you speak of the mother’s power over her unborn child. Now I see that Maria was the victim of her parents’ ignorance.”[2]
[2]Dr. Sanger, who is authority on the subject of prostitution, says that the observation of years among the abandoned class, has led him to the conclusion that only one woman in a thousand is brought to adopt the life of a prostitute from the same sensual proclivities that make a man consort with the abandoned. Seduction by a lover, followed by the rejection of society, poverty, inability to labor, desire for elegant clothing, and various other causes, have brought the other nine hundred and ninety-nine into this bitter degradation. The young girl alluded to above was one of the exceptions. Since while pregnant—women, sad to say, have been constantly forced to yield their persons to the lusts of the husband, they have in spirit rebelled against the unnatural demand, instead of heartily assenting.
[2]Dr. Sanger, who is authority on the subject of prostitution, says that the observation of years among the abandoned class, has led him to the conclusion that only one woman in a thousand is brought to adopt the life of a prostitute from the same sensual proclivities that make a man consort with the abandoned. Seduction by a lover, followed by the rejection of society, poverty, inability to labor, desire for elegant clothing, and various other causes, have brought the other nine hundred and ninety-nine into this bitter degradation. The young girl alluded to above was one of the exceptions. Since while pregnant—women, sad to say, have been constantly forced to yield their persons to the lusts of the husband, they have in spirit rebelled against the unnatural demand, instead of heartily assenting.
I will briefly refer to another instance where the child so fatally endowed was a boy.
The sisters of this boy—women of some presence—werealready married, and mothers, when their mother found herself pregnant at forty-five. The husband was much gratified at the prospect of becoming a father at sixty, and expressed this satisfaction in frequent relations with his wife. It so happened that their pecuniary circumstances were easier than at any previous time, and the wife employed “help,” which relieved her of all the severer household duties. She was not an intellectual or cultivated woman, and the unaccustomed leisure did not prove a boon, since it left her with unspent strength to meet and respond to the demands made upon her quite up to the time of the infant’s arrival. Thus, you see, the boy had imparted to him over-active amativeness, combined with small mental activities. How should he when a man restrainhispassions, when during all his ante-natal life his parents had put no restraint on theirs? He did not. He showed himself a low bully among his school-mates, and the dread of the younger girls, before he had reached his “teens.” After that, his sensual, brutal behavior actually repelled his boy-companions. When a man, he barely escaped being the inmate of a prison, as he had been already of worse places.
The man who is dominated by this one quality is very often handsome, magnetic, and attractive to women. He boasts privately, if not publicly, of his conquests, holding no reputation sacred.
Perhaps to common observation he is a gentleman, and you hear of his liasons in a whisper. Alas! for the wives of these gay cavaliers. They lead a lonely life, since he spends the best of himself—his suave manners and good nature—in fact,allof himself elsewhere.
Suddenly and all unexpectedly you hear that this attractive man, not forty-five, is sinking down with some insidious disease. It is called neuralgia in the head, or paralysis, and the doctor has the promise of a long job. It is, in fact, softening of the brain, caused by excessive passional excitement and the undue drain on his vital forces. He may live years, his digestive organs holding out better, because having drifted into idiocy there is no longer any wear and tear of the mind.
This man has been “successful” with women, and this is the finale.