Infant mortality : its causes and remedies.

Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Infant mortality : its causes and remedies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    2G we are aware that the law of agency does in an indirect manner afford to married women the means of obtaining food and clothing for their children and themselves; but, practically, this law only applies to the wives of men in the higher ranks of life. Shopkeepers will not give credit to a married woman, however necessary the articles which she may desire to purchase, where they know the husband to be idle, drunken, or on bad terms with his wife ; and she has therefore no choice, save to maintain her children out of her own earnings, or to apply to the Poor Law officers, who, though they are not hound to relieve her merely because her hus- band neglects to provide for her, may, if they see fit, first grant her relief, and then sue the husband for the sum so granted.^ The notion that women are supported by men is so deeply rooted in the public mind, that it is difficult to disabuse people of it, even in the case of unmarried women, and the difficulty is infinitely greater in the case of the married yet it is just An article in the Englishwoman's Journal far October, 1870, gives an instance, taken from the Devonport Independent, where the relieving officer, knowing the husband to be in receipt of adequate wages, tore up the order for food and wine which the Union medical man had given to a sick woman, who, having no way of compelling her husband to supply her with what, in her then state, were real neces- saries, save through the action which the relieving officer refused to take, literally died of starvation; and the writer of that article asserts that like instances are not uncommon. Out of Door Belief Prohibitory Order. Art. 1. Every able-bodied person, male or female, requiring relief from any parish within any of the said unions shall be relieved wholly within the workhouse of the union, .... save and exce^Dt in the following cases :— Art. 1—7. Where such person shall be the wife or child of any able-bodied man who shall be in the service of Her Majesty as soldier, sailor, or marine. Art. 1—8. Wliere any able-bodied person not being a soldier, sailor, or marine shall not reside within the union, but the wife and children of such person shall reside within the same, the board of guardians, according to their discretion, may, subject to the regulations contained in Ai-t. 4, afford relief in the workhouse to such wife, child, or children, or may allow out-door relief for such children as are within the age of nineteen and resident with their mother. Art. 4 refers to women whose husbands are prisoners or lunatics.—Glen, Poor Law Board Orders, 1871. 2(1 Tiie vocation of women is to make life endurable .... I wish to see women continue in that vocation in which they are engaged, and doing all that is admirable, amiable, and delightful.—Speech of Mr. Scourfield in the House of Commons, May 4th, 1870. I consider that women have to educate their children; they have to adorn the sphere in which they live, and to perform duties with regard, not merely to the rising generation, but with regard to their husbands, brothers, and friends.—Speech of Mr, Fowler, May 4th, 1870.