The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1874-12-02
Maternity.

Nothing changes woman's life and character so
much as having baby. Before she experiences that
interesting episode, while yet in her teens,
she may be loyelier than a rose and exceedingly
attractive she may be modest, intelligent, witty,
accomplished, kind and good-natured; she may
to possess every virtue and have no vice; and
yet, no sooner does she begin to nurse her first
born, than her whole being expands aud undergoes
singular transformations. New and warm phases
unfold 10 her character She loves another being as
well as she loves herself better perhaps The care
fol, thoughtful, providing instinct appears. She
becomes more practical and sober.mlnded. With
what loving forethought every mother makes the
clothing regulates the ventilation and prepares the
food, for her children She sews on the buttons q
little more firmly and looks out sharply for oppor-
tunities to mend. Her whole nature expands and
acquires Increased capacity to love.
1t is this view of womans life which most thor
oughly condemns the unhealthy influence of modern
novels in forming the popular opinion and taste in
regard to the attactivcness of woman. The fashions
HE dictum is that young women adorable and old
women are horrible. And the distinction in years
between the old and the young, the dividing point
is constantly crowded downwards. The noyests
who formerly took for heroines ''young women"
afterwards took "girs," and now the story is con-
sidered to lack the proper freshness and zest unless
she is "young GIRL" who must, nevertheless talk
and act with all the discretion and wit of woman
of forty. This idea that the youngest women, those
who yesterday were girls, are the most enjoyable
aud lovable companions, is unnatural and false. 1t
is entirely a sensual idea, based on a hunger for
voluptuous physical Development and it is for this
reason that hate to hear a man extolling young
woman's "charms." The word betrays him if he
did but know it; and If he marries her under the
influence of them, the charms" betTay him. for
with maternity they often vanish. Then the hus-
band becomes Indifferent the mother devotes herself
entirely to her children, ard the home grows chilly
The ideas of the old Greeks were healthier and
more reasonable than this If the abduction of
Helen by Paris had happened in this nineteenth
century, her husband, Menelaus, would scarcely
have demanded or even consented to have her re-
turn to his hearth and couch after she had willingly
lived few years with Paris He would have con-
sidered that her charms destroyed aud would
therefore have Immediately sued for divorce.
The Spartan women exercised in gymnasiums, in
order that they might bear healthy children. The
men valued them more for their ability TO do this
than for their compilations or extreme youth.
AS to its effect on character, maternity has its
good and its bad side. Its good side is, as / have
suggested, that it expands the heart and enables a
mother to love each one OF a large family so well
that she will constantly deny herself pleasure that
she may add to theirs. She will toll and scheme
early and late for the welfare Of her children The
bad aide is that 1t does not eradicate sefshness but
only removes enlarges the boundaries oft. One
part of what is called the maternal instinct" is
blind unreasoning animal love for the child, which
intensHes selhshness in the mother enormously
Charles Reade hints the universally of this feature
when be says Of Mrs. Dodd who had just espied her
daughter Julia walking with young man she loved,
ber impulse that of the leopardess liouess hen
aud all mothers In nature TO dart from her ambush
and protect her young" So far as this feeling
rules a woman it tends decidedly to make her unami
able. She will then trample on the feelings of all
her other friends rather than cross within of her
child. To "a greater or less degree she thus be-
comes the slave of her own offspring.
All women, with scarcely an exception, at some
period Of theirliTes desire to become mothers They
desire also to retain their beauty and attactlTene
and to certain extent these desires seem to con-
aiet. They can be harmoaised great deal more
than they now are, when women 90 realize the i'm
pOrtanse Of good health that they are willing TO g
more and disobey the mandates offashiOu; and when
they become wise enough to that idolarous love
for their children death to all the higher affections
Women with healthy bodies and waists unshackled
By cOrsets win not be shattered BY child bearing
and women with healthy phiIoprOgenitiVeness will
not lose the love and respect Of the fathers of their
children Under the right conditions maternity
ought not to make them less attractive and loveable