VI THE SUPERFLUOUS FEMALE

“Life begins with the female organism and is carried on a long distance by means of females alone.”—Lester Ward.

The old saying that girls are easier to rear than boys has been already referred to and commented on, and its truth has been established by statistics. It is true also that girls are easier to carry through the period of pregnancy.

One reason is that they are carried higher in the uterus than boys, so that serious bearing-down feelings are rarely experienced in girl-gestation. Doubtless, too, the greater pressure upwards against the digestive organs accounts for the more frequent nausea experienced during girl-pregnancy.

In most cases where hitherto hopeless sterility has been relieved it has been through the birth of a daughter—“Nature’s weakest growths have quickest spring.” In the far fewer cases where a boy has been born, the former sterility has generally been due to some slight anatomical disability rather than to any local delicacy or disease.

A powerful proof of the safe pregnancy of girls lies in the fact that girl miscarriages are of very rare occurrence. Out of every hundred babies who miscarry, as I have already noted, eighty are boys. Among fifty letters received recently from women who wanted sons, no less than eighteen spoke of mishaps of four-month male children, two mentioned miscarriages with a female at five months, and in eight others miscarriages during the first few weeks had occurred or were suspected. Doubtless a vast number of male abortions occur at or about the third month and at a time corresponding to the menstrual period.

Female abortions, on the other hand, generally occur at the end of the fifth month, possibly as the result of shock or accident, but more commonly owing to disease. They are often caused by a syphilitic condition of the womb, or by a tainted father. In Aberdeen I noted a woman who had given birth to two healthy boys, but with her first-born—a girl—she had miscarried at five months; her husband suffered from syphilis. In another case a woman produced a healthy boy, but the next child—a girl—aborted at five months. I have collected numerous cases of girl-miscarriages happening at the same length of fœtal existence, and all due to severe accidents or abortive methods, when they were not the result of a syphilitic condition.

There are innumerable cases to prove that a hereditary taint on the father’s side is more likely to affect his daughters than his sons, provided the mother is healthy. In the case of a Viennese family, I noted that the two girls both showed the signs of a tainted father, whereas the three boys were as strong and healthy as their mother.

A case in which I was much interested was spread over a number of years. It was that of a poor country woman, who, when I first met her, had a healthy family of four girls and a baby boy of ten months. After that she gave birth to a girl who wasted away at two months with some tubercular trouble; from that time on the mother had continuous pains in her left side. However, at the end of a year, she was confined of another tuberculous girl who lived only eighteen months, and ten months later still she gave birth to yet another girl-child premature and still-born. After this the poor mother became seriously ill. The pain in her left groin was almost unbearable, and continuous discharge caused her at last to seek surgical advice. At the end of some months of drastic treatment for tubercular trouble in the left ovary, the patient was completely cured, and two years later she gave birth to a little son. Though apparently free from disease, he was rather small and weakly and, when a year old, died of whooping-cough. But a year later the mother, having now become a robust woman, produced a fine and lusty boy who is now nearly four years old.

The explanation would, I think, be as follows. The father, a consumptive-looking man with a tubercular family-history, transmitted the trouble to his fifth little girl, who in her turn infected her mother’s left ovary, and it was only after the birth of two more sickly infants that the disease became acute. As a result of the surgical removal of the diseased left ovary, the woman was left with a single normal right ovary, which was brought into renewed activity by the extinction of its rival; hence the birth of the two sons.

Here is another case which goes to prove that a son will readily inherit a disease latent in his mother. An apparently healthy mother bore a son who soon developed symptoms of the chronic asthma from which he still suffers. Five years later the same woman bore a healthy girl, and finally two years after that she again became pregnant, and showed symptoms, for the first time in her life, of distressing attacks of asthma. After giving birth to a healthy girl, she died of exhaustion caused by one of these attacks. Here it will be observed that the boy alone partook of the latent maternal disease whilst the baby-girl, like her little sister, has grown up quite strong and healthy, and entirely free from the complaint.

Then again the extreme rarity of the premature dislodging of a female fœtus tends to prove that:

1. A more or less healthy womb will harbour a girl-child; whereas it requires a very strong and vital uterus to carry a male to its full term and viable. Thus a lady writer:

I have to lead a very quiet life and I am very anæmic; each of my babies—I have three little girls—arrived two or three weeks too soon. My period is very profuse, and always five days “early”.... I wish I were stronger and could bear a son.

Another letter runs thus:

I am terribly anæmic, my periods always “early” and far too profuse.... I have had four girls; none of their births were normal.... I had an operation to my bowels after the first; severe colitis after the second; and had to be curetted after the third; and since the fourth confinement I have been very ill and have had my appendix removed. My doctor told me I was not the type to have boys, as I am very small and delicate especially internally.

2. In very many cases, female children are born to any given selection of couples who otherwise would not have parenthood. It is unfortunate, but I can count on my fingers the cases of obstinate and apparently hopeless sterility that have been relieved by the birth of a boy. In far the majority a girl has been the result. Lady B. wrote as follows:

I have been married many years, and have never had a sign of the child for which I long.... The doctors tell me I am fearfully anæmic, and nothing I do seems to help....

She was a very nervous and excitable patient, and gave me much trouble for many months. Finally she became pregnant immediately after the period, and in time produced a fine healthy girl. I have not kept trace of her history, but I do not think she has had further offspring.

3. Since so many women are inclined to produce one child only, and since miscarriages are more common among male children, there is a large predominance of girls as first or only children. I have collected statistics of hundreds of such cases.

4. There are more sets of girl-twins born than boy-twins; since the former, being easier to rear if premature, more easily survive their birth. Similarly in twins of mixed sex (and these are of more frequent occurrence than any) the boy is the more difficult to rear than the girl.

A usual form of in-breeding in human beings or animals is the predominance of female progeny. This is especially noticeable with toy-dogs of various descriptions; out of every litter there may be only one male dog, frequently none. I have heard several complaints on account of this anomaly. In pedigree “catteries” the same condition has been freely observed.

In Turkey there is a vast predominance of girls born, and the death-rate amongst boys is stupendous. Though all the women are married, it is rare to find anything but small families among the well-to-do classes, and where there are many wives, one child apiece is the usual result.

It is now becoming more generally recognised by students of this branch of science that the first child is usually inferior to the second or third, and accordingly, when a nation is largely composed of enfants d’essai, as the French call them, race degeneracy and possibly even depopulation are not far off. This explains why the one child system has proved so calamitous to a country like France, which is vainly struggling in the vice-like grip of the Malthusian theory.

Another evil closely concerning the birth-rate of females is that of illegitimacy; many more girls than boys are born out of wedlock. In 1922, 60,000 illegitimate infants were born in Great Britain, and among these there were 106 females for every 100 males, which is almost exactly the reverse proportion of the legitimate birth-rate. For this state of affairs there are several reasons:

1. Large numbers of them are first children, and of these 70 per cent. are girls.

2. In such confinements too little care is generally given both to mother and child, and the male child, having a larger head and being therefore more difficult to bring into the world, is frequently still-born. That, moreover, half the still-born children are not registered, may further help to account for the disparity.

3. A male abortion is fairly easily brought about, but female issue is infinitely more difficult to get rid of.

4. Illegitimate children have obviously less chance of surviving than those born in wedlock, since their upbringing is necessarily rather irregular. Boys succumb more readily than girls to the evils which attend upon their undesired presence in an unfriendly world.

And here, by way of digression, I would point out that much misconception prevails regarding the normal prevalence of illegitimacy in England. It is not necessarily the product of either poverty or of city life. It is far more common in rural districts than in urban areas, and, even in cities, it is by no means the poorest parishes that produce the most illegitimate children. The urban artisan class as a whole is far more rigid in observing the sanctities and prescriptions of marriage than any other section of the community. In the country there are many more families who live comfortably with the illegitimate baby in their midst, and only a minimum of shame or compunction is experienced either by the mother or grandparents.

The fact that some 60,000 illegitimate children annually appear in England is well calculated to destroy some of our pharisaical complacency. In such a godly country, one would somehow have expected better things. It is true that in Germany, where the population is to that of England as 5 to 3, the illegitimate births are as 5 to 1—and that in Austria, the illegitimate birth-rate in 1916 was as high as 50 per cent., but both these countries, like many others, are burdened with impossible marriage-laws, and many are the obstacles in the way of a legal union for every citizen, rich or poor.

“God sends not ill; if rightly understood, all partial ill is universal good.” We must economize our babies; whether born in wedlock or out of it, every child has a right to some share of our consideration, and every mother, whether married or single, should have the right to demand such care as will save the children she bears from death in infancy.

It is estimated that 70,000 children are actually still-born each year, and there is little doubt that a very large proportion of these could be saved by a national scheme for the protection of mother and child. What we need is a kind of institution which would ensure that undesired male infants were privately removed from their surroundings and brought up under proper supervision and care. Thus only could we save the greater part of those boy lives at present thrown away, and which ought to go to fulfil the needs of our under-populated dominions, crying for settlers. The girl-babies could more safely be left with their mothers, or to the hazard which seems to regard bastard girls more kindly than boys.

It may seem something of a digression to add that, with regard to the causes of illegitimacy a very potent factor might be found in the countless public-houses of every town and village in the country. Remove excessive drink, and two-thirds of the immorality in the world will likewise disappear. This would prove especially true in Great Britain, where the ideals of morality are high, and religion is still a real safe-guard.

Shakespeare said: “A man who goes to bed drunk begets a daughter.” Whatever the theory on which he based this assertion, there remains very little doubt that many unwanted lives are brought into existence as a direct result of over-indulgence. It has often been stated that the ill-kept public-house is one of the greatest disseminators of consumption. How much might also be said of drink in connection with the spread of venereal disease!

But my main point is that intemperance means a high illegitimate birth-rate, which in its turn is the direct cause of the preponderance of girl-babies which survive and so accentuate this unfortunate disproportion.