Matrimony, or, Phrenology and physiology applied to the selection of congenial companions for life : including directions to the married for living together affectionately and happily / by O.S. Fowler.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Matrimony, or, Phrenology and physiology applied to the selection of congenial companions for life : including directions to the married for living together affectionately and happily / by O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lta primary, distinctive function is, Parental Love—attachment to one's own children: and the more helpless the child, the more vigorous its action. It also extends to grand-children, and the children of others; yet its power is far less towards them, than to- wards one's own children. None but parents can ever know the genuine feelings of a parent's heart. There is something peculiarly endearing in the thought that our offspring are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ;* and this feeling is still heightened by their being born of a wife, or begotten by a husband, whom we dearly love. Hence, children are regarded as the dear pledges of connu- bial love; because Parental Love is located by the side of Connu- bial Love; so that the exercise of either, naturally excites that of Oie other. This train of remark renders it self-evident, that husbands and wives, having children, should never be divorced ; for, then, this parental feeling must be lacerated, at least in one parent. For parents to dislike each other, and yet love their mutual children, must make both unhappy. On no account, therefore, should hus- bands and wives, who do not love each other, become parents; yet (hose who do love each other, will find their enjoyments greatly augmented thereby. The duties and relations of mothers to their children, require a much stronger development of this faculty in woman than in man. * This analysis renders the inference clear and forcible, that parents should nurse and educate their own children. What end in life is more important ? Is it not infinitely more so than making of money, or acquiring fame, or office 1 If parents cannot do all they desire, and yet find time to care for and educate their children, let them hire the other things done, while they themselves, not over-see, but actually train and educate their own children. If they do not know enough, or if they cannot afford the time, they are bound, by the most sa- cred obligations of our nature, not to become parents. Getting children nursed out; sending them to school just to be rid of them; employing wet nurses, and pretending to be too great a lady to nurse or tend one's own children, is a breach of nature's laws, and will inevitably incur the consequent penalt.es. Strange ! that mothers will ruin their children, and violate their natures, just to be fashionable. Let those who cannot hire their children taken care of and educated, count this their gain , and let those who employ low, ignorant, cious nurses—a practice as common as it is reprehensible—bear in mind the principle brought to view in the text, and also remember that these grovelling and often immoral associations are sure to pollute their children; besides, their intellects being often too feeble to excite or discipline the intellectual facult the young. But more of this in my work on Phrenology applied to Education and Self-Improvement, in which mothers are presented witli a r.cipe for find- ing time to educate their own children.