AMAND ROUTH, M.D., P.R.C.P., ON MOTHERHOOD. 61 



Wallis that any scheme to give pensions as a legal right to 

 mothers of illegitimate children would often prevent the moral 

 reclamation of the mother. 



Legislation is needed to establish a satisfactory scheme. 

 Hitherto divergent views as to what points should be embodied in 

 a Bill have been the cause of failure, as in the attempts to carry 

 through the recent ill-named Bastardy Bill. 



Marriage without Motherhood. 



We have also to consider the modern view that motherhood 

 in married life may be justifiably avoided, or limited in various 

 degrees. 



Of recent years, and especially during and since the war, 

 earlier marriages, sometimes even before the partners were 

 really mature, have occurred with remarkable frequency, but 

 unfortunately many of these young couples have agreed to 

 avoid parenthood during the first few years of marriage. Others 

 have decided to do so after the birth of one or two children. 



It is stated that the neo-malthusianism marks an advance 

 in the subordination of nature to the spirit. But this is a 

 false sophistry. These practices do not assist men or women 

 to master their instincts and passions. Such practices are not 

 associated with control of the sexual instincts, but allow full 

 or even excessive licence, accompanied by suppression of the 

 normal results. 



The control is not of the instincts but of the natural physio- 

 logical processes. The methods adopted are not only morally 

 wrong, but physically and mentally harmful. 



As I have elsewhere stated,* I do not believe that artificial 

 avoidance of conception can be habitually carried out (apart from 

 continence) without the probability of serious disturbance of 

 health in both parents. 



My advice to those incHned to have over-large famihes is 

 to adopt at least Nature's spacings of about two years' interval ; 

 to those who have too few children, to reconsider their personal 

 and national obligations, and if under medical advice con- 

 ception becomes unadvisable, let it be avoided by longer periods 

 of abstinence rather than by unnatural or artificial methods. 



* Official Report of the Church Congress at Leicester (pp. 154 to 161), 

 1919. London: Nisbett& Co., Ltd., 22, Berners Street, W.l. 



