Ungovernable

by Therese Oneill

  Dr. L. C. Winsor wrote an editorial in an 1887 edition of the Obstetric Gazette called “Should Conception Be Controlled?” about stupid people making new stupid people. Lack of sense and restraint was, in the doctor’s opinion, killing America.

  It cannot be disputed that the majority of our race are conceived utterly regardless of the conditions, time, or of the fitness of the parents to procreate. Such being the case, is it strange that we hear now and then rumors that the American race is becoming weak? That hollow chested, round-shouldered, debilitated fathers, and worn, dyspeptic mothers, complain that the children are sick so much that they are turning home into a hospital?

  And what is to blame for this degradation of the American breed? Says Winsor, “Men and women are too prone to marry on simply the one quality—that of love.”

  There it is. Mushy, squishy, imprudent “love.” Ruining humanity by not factoring sensible breeding into the equation. Winsor continues:

  Often the fitness as regards health, temperament and inclination are totally disregarded. Few men are as strong as their ancestors were. They are not of the rugged puritan type, nor is the tendency in America to strength, but rather to weakness, and under these circumstances, with no especial preparation, conception takes place.

  Q: Wait—“rugged puritan type”? Didn’t half the Mayflower Puritans die, precisely because they were too weak to survive freezing, sickness, and starvation, all within months of landing in America?

  A: Ha! No! That’s just… I mean… like barely half! There were 102 Mayflower passengers and only 45 or so died by the first winter. Besides, the good doctor obviously isn’t referring to the ol’ “Oh, poor me, I can’t survive an unusually harsh New England winter in a badly built shelter with hardly any food and now I’m going to die because I haven’t the fortitude to walk off a little bit of scurvy” Puritans. He’s talking about the hardy survivors that built America! And look: An Object Lesson. Bring weak humans into the world, force the Lord to cull them out.

  How cruel of you.

  This is why you must be sure you’re worthy of procreation. Do not be one of the “thousands of careless, selfish and vicious couples” identified by Lyman Beecher Sperry in 1900’s Husband and Wife who are unfit to marry but do it anyway. You must self-govern. Because modern minds apparently consider it a “gross violation of human rights” to implement Sperry’s suggested solution: “Of course, it would be great gain if all those who ought not to reproduce their kind could be prevented from marrying; but at the present stage of human development such a method of preventing the multiplication of defectives is too radical to secure favorable consideration.”

  “No, I’m really happy to be in the New World. It’s just I only brought this one cape and I don’t know how to make houses happen.”

  Q: “Preventing the multiplication of defectives”… wasn’t that one of Hitler’s programs?

  A: I’m very eager to answer all your questions, but we’d move faster if they weren’t all directed at poking holes in my historical narrative. Furthermore, if you attach Hitler’s name to anything it’s going to sound over the top. Granted, forced sterilization is already… rather fringe. And, yes, the Nazi Party enacted many laws to prevent the birth of “unsound progeny” by sterilizing people who were judged by an investigating panel as unfit… but… the Victorian eugenicists didn’t mean to be evil. Victorians lived in a largely speculative world, full of ideas on how to improve their changing civilization. They weren’t great at factoring in the wild variable that is human behavior. Since they intended good, they wouldn’t easily conceptualize just how awful such a method would be when put into action. It doesn’t change the fact that you yourself have a moral duty to find out if you’re fit for reproduction.

  Q: And how will I know if I am fit for reproduction?

  A: Science will tell you! Victorian science, which is a little different from what you’re used to, since it’s not big on evidence or whatever. It was a system based more on… intuition! Of men! Who may or may not be scientists but who do love to write books with big, big words! So, listen.

  Obviously you should not reproduce if you are cursed with any sort of illness that might be passed on to your offspring or impair your ability to care for them. Neither should you reproduce if your IQ is below average, but that’s rather moot. As Sperry tells us, dumb people are always the last to know of their condition. Nonetheless, let’s look at some of the ladies who are fouling the gene pool and need to be banned from the “recreation” center.

  Girls Under Twenty Years of Age—The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife, and Mother by George Henry Napheys was reprinted decades past its original 1869 publication, so popular was his advice regarding the weaker sex. Even though early marriage was far more acceptable in the past than today, Napheys recognized that a woman under twenty is rarely physically or mentally prepared for the demands of motherhood. Plus, she’s probably going to die: “It is very common for those who marry young to die young. From statistics which have been carefully compiled [he doesn’t have those statistics on him at this exact moment, but trust him, they were wayyyy carefully compiled], it is proven that the first labors of very young mothers are much more painful, tedious, and dangerous to life, than others.” If young mothers don’t die right away, Napheys warns, they will certainly suffer barren wombs. Or, unpredictable little tarts that they are, go completely the other way and live a long time and have way too many children. Seriously, anything could happen! Almost to the point that it seems totally random and not worth medical notation. Although you can be sure the children of a young mother are predestined to be societal burdens.

  Tight-lacing the corset of a twelve-year-old gives the appearance of fuller hips and breasts, but that is usually only an illusion brought on by organ displacement.

  Death deals a mercy blow to an industrious wife before her feverish work ethic can weaken the human gene pool.

  The children of [young] marriages are rarely healthy. They are feeble, sickly, undersized, often with some fault of mind or body, which is a cross to them and their parents all their lives. They inherit more readily the defects of their ancestors, and, as a rule, die at earlier years than the progeny of better-timed unions.

  But don’t wait too long, either.

  Elderly Women Over Thirty Years of Age—If you have been regularly shucking out fine little corn nubbins throughout your twenties and into your later years, never fear: Napheys approves of your output. But if you are one of those unfortunate spinsters planning to conceive for the first time past your sell-by date, beware. Of course, the decision is up to you, but keep in mind that you’re probably going to die. Says Napheys: “The first labors of wives over thirty are nearly twice as fatal as those between twenty and twenty-five.”

  Industrious Women—It was a conundrum, as Americans settled the West in the mid-1800s, how such fierce pioneer women—women who survived wars, disease, and privations—could in turn birth a generation of girls who lounged on fainting couches sipping cordials to treat their migraines. Dr. John D. West related the lamentation of one such strong woman in the 1886 edition of Maidenhood and Motherhood, or Ten Phases of a Woman’s Life: “Why is it that my daughters have no powers of endurance? Why, the three girls together cannot do the work I could when I was their age. Why, what would have become of us if I had been lying around in silk wrappers and satin slippers, dosing with drugs, as my girls do?”

  The answer, fierce yet foolish woman, is that there was only so much vitality to go around during your pregnancy, and you hogged it all. You decided it was more important to build cabins and dig wells than to sit quietly, calmly incubating your young charge. Your blind greed for water and shelter sapped the fortitude of your fetus. Says Dr. West, “The poor old woman… robbed them [her children] of their inheritance by using all her vitality in her daily avocations, and they must suffer for her wrong-doing.”

  Belgians and Other Poor People—According to Dr. West the Belgian people
are an excellent example of the scientific fact that “the number of children born is in inverse proportion to the amount of food in a country and in a season. In Belgium the higher the price of bread, the greater the number of children, and the greater the number of infant deaths.”

  Well, Belgium? Have anything to say for yourself?

  Belgians. The Silent Scourge.

  Q: So… when is my body most fertile?

  A: You know how you’re always supposed to handle a gun as if it’s loaded, even if you’re certain it isn’t? Same goes for your husband’s penis.

  So even though Dr. Napheys advises couples who wish to postpone parenthood to marry on a day halfway through the bride’s menstrual cycle, since this time is her “season of sterility,” it’s best to assume that gun is still loaded.

  Q: Especially since my ovulation test says that’s just about the most fertile time in my cycle.

  A: If you’re going to use things like ovulation charts and home pregnancy tests and science, you might as well abandon this whole Victorian endeavor. Are you in this or not? You want the baby given to you by a merciful God and abundant nature, or do you want a chemical pee-stick baby?

  Q: A what?

  A: Besides, those newfangled ovulation charts don’t even factor gender into their calculation. As Dr. West states with firm assuredness, “It is now pretty conclusively established, by the most reliable scientific tests, that males or females can be produced at will.” And if you want the secrets to success (a boy), you have to get it from the wisdom of ages past.

  Dr. West is referring to a popular theory of the day often called Thury’s Law, which proposed that gender relied on the ripeness of the female egg. Therefore, as laid out in Husband and Wife, by Sperry:

  “1. Those who desire a female child should endeavor to secure impregnation as soon after menstruation as possible, hoping that the ovum may not yet be too ripe to produce the sex desired.

  2. Those who desire a male child should defer impregnation until from about seven to eleven days after the cessation of the menstrual flow, hoping that by that time the ovum may be sufficiently ripe to produce a male child.”

  “I really value our chats about my menses, Jed.”

  Q: I’m not sure that theory deserves the descriptor “Law.” Maybe “Thury’s Got This Far-Out Idea—Dude, You Gotta Hear This”?

  A: Yes. It’s natural to mock what we don’t understand. But you should know, West isn’t the only subscriber to Thury’s Law. West cites a carnival of experts, including “a farmer in Louisiana” who wrote a similar theory of reproduction in the periodical Turf, Field and Farm. The farmer said, using Thury’s Law, “I have already been able, in many cases, to guess with certainty the sex of a future infant. More than thirty times, among my friends, I have predicted the sex of a child before its birth, and the event proved nearly every time that I was correct.” No, farmers are not doctors. They’re better. They don’t just grow humans—they grow everything from okra to hound dogs! Who else would a sensible woman want advice from on the subject of breeding? And this particular farmer, he must have been absolutely outstanding in his field to engender these sorts of confidences from so many women.

  Q: That’s just flat-out wrong. On so many levels. But at the very least, it’s the Y chromosome in the sperm cell that determines gender.

  A: How do you know that? Honestly, what is this “chromosome” people like to talk about so much? Have you ever seen one? Held one in your hand? Or do you just believe they exist because everyone says they do? Don’t be such a sheep, woman. Gather all the information before you make a decision. If Thury’s Law isn’t good enough for you, try one of the gender-determining methods laid out in Thomas Washington Shannon’s Nature’s Secrets Revealed, first published in 1904: “Terry’s Theory.—Terry gives as a tested and proved theory that if the wife is in a higher state of sexual vigor and excitement at the time of conception, boys will be conceived; but if the reverse is true, girls will be the result.”

  Dr. Stockham’s Idea—Alice B. Stockham, M.D., believes that sex is in the soul. In that case, the sex of the offspring must be determined by a law of the soul. The parent whose mental forces previous to and at the time of conception are most active and vigorous controls the sex of the child.

  Dr. Fowler’s Observation—Dr. Fowler says that the greater male power and passion creates boys; female, girls. Conception right after menstruation gives girls, because the female is the most impassioned; later, boys, because her wanting sexual warmth leaves him the most vigorous.

  So, to be safe, if you are desiring a firstborn son (which of course you are), you’d simply need to get yourself highly aroused while allowing your brain to go slack, to prevent your soul from impressing its femininity on your zygote. You’ll also need to make sure your husband’s brain is active and impassioned during the act… perhaps memorizing a few sexy calculus questions to pose during the most fevered moments of connection, precisely eleven days after your period ends. Do all this and the odds are well in your favor that you’ll conceive a son. Good odds. At least 51 percent.

  “Train A, traveling at 70 miles per hour, leaves Intercourse, heading toward Climax, 260 miles away. At the same time, Train B, traveling at 60 miles per hour, leaves Climax, heading toward Intercourse. When do the two trains meet? Solve for se(x).”

  Q: Are there other things I should do during the act of intercourse to encourage a fruitful conception?

  A: Certainly. Venture to a warm climate, for instance, as Dr. West advises: “Climate and latitude have their influence upon fertility. More children are born to a woman in warm than in cold countries. This is owing very materially to the longer periods between the times of menstruation.”

  Dr. Napheys, referencing the great Hippocrates, reminds women to hold quite still post-coitus: “Sojourn on the bed after the act of generation,” so that your husband’s night deposit can be cashed in as quickly and smoothly as possible. To be safe, you should probably just remain immobile throughout intercourse. Well, you don’t need me to tell you that. Any virtuous woman knows it’s impolite to tussle.

  Alison uses an artificial breast pump to stimulate her uterus. Because her husband, Ronald, is the laziest man on earth.

  Dr. West and Dr. Napheys both encourage a would-be mother to remember that breasts and womb are in direct connection. Therefore, stimulating one will affect the other. “There is a marked sympathy of the mammary glands and the uterus,” says West; “hence, vigorous sucking of the breast before the generative act will, in many cases, insure conception.” Prudes, take warning: “This is especially the case when barrenness is the result of coldness on the part of the wife.”

  Napheys, who is not nearly as fun as Dr. West, says nipple stimulation should be accomplished by borrowing someone’s suckling baby (which seems a dreadful bait and switch to the poor little fellow) or using an artificial breast pump. Dr. Napheys should heed his Bible. God condones healthful loving foreplay. Just think of the Song of Solomon: “This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.… I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine.” We will see in later chapters that perhaps not all of King Solomon’s wisdom was beneficial for children, but this method was sound.

  It is also important to be in a cheerful, mellow mood. Cranky sex makes cranky babies, says Napheys: “A being procreated at a period of ill humour, bodily indisposition, or nervous debility, may carry with it, during its whole existence, some small particles of these evils.”

  The most important thing, however, is to be as sober as a stone when receiving your husband’s life-germs. Intoxication is a subject that will recur many times in our discussions… many, many times. Frankly an awful lot more than you’d expect in a book devoted to childcare. And while drinking copious amounts of alcohol is never a wise thing to do when children are involved, even tangentially, the writers of Victorian baby-making advice were strict even by
modern standards. Warns Napheys, “A condition of intoxication in the husband is a proper ground for refusal. Fecundation taking place while either parent has been in this state has produced idiots and epileptics.”

  Be careful to not attempt procreation while in an ill humor. “You get home and start filling me with precious seeds of life right now, mister!”

  Please do remember that in the nineteenth century, “idiot” was a legitimate medical term. Only later, in the twentieth century, would it be more likely applied to the sort of person who would say the things Napheys routinely said.

  Q: What if I don’t become pregnant right away? Does that mean I’m barren for life?

  A: Oh, don’t despair, my fruitless vine! There are myriad reasons for temporary barrenness that can be overcome. The first thing we must do is closely examine the flaws in your soul and work from there. Shannon cuts to the chase: are you a “Goodtime Gal”? Do you hang around ice cream parlors and vaudeville palaces and drink tea excessively? If so, you can expect plenty of male attention, but you secretly repulse them.

  No man, influenced by pure love, can be attracted to a woman, as a husband, who lives on artificial excitements. All such, whether men or women, become impure, ugly and necessarily repulsive to true love. The sexual elements in all such become diseased, utterly corrupt and debased, and totally unfitted for the sacred function of reproduction.