| 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 |
| 1 | 73 | 145 | 218 | 290 |
|
CHAPTER XVI.
"
The children came rapidly, one after another, and there happened
what happens in our society with children and doctors. Yes, children,
maternal love, it is a painful thing. Children, to a woman of our
society, are not a joy, a pride, nor a fulfilment of her vocation, but
a cause of fear, anxiety, and interminable suffering, torture. Women say
it, they think it, and they feel it too. Children to them are really a
torture, not because they do not wish to give birth to them, nurse them,
and care for them (women with a strong maternal instinct--and such was
my wife--are ready to do that), but because the children may fall sick
and die. They do not wish to give birth to them, and then not love them;
and when they love, they do not wish to feel fear for the child's health
and life. That is why they do not wish to nurse them. 'If I nurse it,'
they say, 'I shall become too fond of it.' One would think that they
preferred india-rubber children, which could neither be sick nor die,
and could always be repaired. What an entanglement in the brains of
these poor women! Why such abominations to avoid pregnancy, and to avoid
the love of the little ones?
"
Love, the most joyous condition of the soul, is represented as a
danger. And why? Because, when a man does not live as a man, he is
worse than a beast. A woman cannot look upon a child otherwise than as
a pleasure. It is true that it is painful to give birth to it, but what
little hands! . . . Oh, the little hands! Oh, the little feet! Oh, its
smile! Oh, its little body! Oh, its prattle! Oh, its hiccough! In a
7
7
Page
Quick Jump
|