Working Class Mother and Child
Hardships of Working-Class Mothers
In Victorian England
When thinking of Victorian England, most people picture corseted
women and Gothic architecture; however, the real defining
characteristic of the
era was found in the extreme religious leanings of the people, which
resulted
in sexual repression and a profound distancing between the wealthy and
the
working classes. The middle and working classes of mid- to
late-nineteenth
century
One of the main reasons that working class women had such trouble
getting by in Victorian England was the extreme disparity between
theirs and
the upper class, both in economic and social terms. Pat Jalland points
out that
women who came from wealthy backgrounds were often consumed with
rituals of
marriage and courtship, noting that “elaborate social conventions were
created
to restrict and regulate young love and courtship among the
upper-middle and
upper-class” (21). Once women married, Jalland notes, even upper class
women risked
death in giving birth. Mortality became an issue in miscarriages, still
births,
and during labor in general; however, the risks that mothers faced were
not
nearly as great as those of lower class women, who had very few
resources to
improve their chances of survival (Jalland 159).
Prostitution quickly became an alternative for some women of
limited means in the 1800s. Lucy Bland’s essay entitled “Feminist
Vigilantes of
Late-Victorian England” outlines some of the extreme measures women
would take
in order to survive, as well as the animosity that surfaced as a result
of
these actions. Bland points out that the
National Vigilance Association served as both a moral watchdog group,
as well
as an organization which sought to assist women who were persecuted
over issues
of sexual deviance, by providing aid to women who were victims of
assault or
women who were displaced by the Criminal Law Act of 1885, which put a
ban on
brothels (Bland 39). William Coote, who served as the secretary of the
National
Vigilance Association, was among those concerned about the welfare of
the
children of prostitutes. He extended an offer to provide aid to those
women and
children left homeless, though his efforts went mostly unheeded (Bland
40). Not
everyone shared in Coote’s compassion for the impoverished and fallen
women of
the working class. In fact, new laws were being set in place in the
mid- to
late-1800s which hit this segment of the population mercilessly.
From 1861 through 1885, several Acts were instituted which
significantly
affected the working-class mother. The first of these Acts was the 1861
Offences Against the Person Act. According to Carol Smart, in her essay
“Disruptive Bodies and Unruly Sex: The Regulation of Reproduction and
Sexuality
in the Nineteenth Century,” this was established to deal with “rape,
procuring,
carnal knowledge, abortion, concealment of birth and exposing children
to
danger” (13). Throughout the nineteenth century, incidents of
infanticide were
continually on the rise, in large part because little was done to
convict the
guilty party. Violent acts by desperate working-class women resulted in
a
movement to put more emphasis on holding someone, namely the mother,
responsible for these deaths came to a head with the passing of the
1861 Offences
Against the Person Act. As working-class
women oftentimes found themselves financially challenged, they would
accordingly find themselves financially unable to support their
children (Smart
17). Women who gave birth to illegitimate children found themselves in
a
particularly questionable situation. On the one hand, if a woman kept
the baby,
she would likely be unable to properly provide for it; however, if she
concealed her pregnancy and abandoned the child, she would be held
liable, with
the potential of being sentenced to hang, regardless of whether the
baby was
born alive or dead (Smart 16). Women who had children out of wedlock,
who were
unable to financially support their children had to face the difficult
decision
whether to keep the child or turn the infant over to another’s care,
thus
avoiding the repercussions of being found guilty of infanticide.
As the punishment for those convicted of infanticide became harsher
and more ubiquitous, and as medical procedures became more advanced,
infanticide began to dwindle and abortion became more prevalent. It is
pointed
out by Carol Smart that although abortion was always deemed an offence
by the
law, until the nineteenth century, there were very few cases where a
woman was
actually found guilty of the crime (Smart 18). Laws soon began to
develop,
differentiating between various stages of development; this was quickly
followed with a series of amendments over the course of several
decades. By the
end of the century, the laws essentially made the woman the sole guilty
party,
regardless of what stage the pregnancy was terminated, and despite the
fact
that she may have received aid through another party (Smart 18). The
use of
birth control also proved to be a morally questionable practice in
Victorian
England, as those deeply rooted in their Christian beliefs found the
regulation
of pregnancy deplorable, arguing that it was not a woman’s right to
take
control of reproduction. The process of childbirth in and of itself in
this era
was dangerous, especially for working-class women who were unable to
seek
professional medical care. Although it was initially a moral taboo,
eventually
the undeniable fact that childbirth took such a toll on women’s bodies
became
more recognizable, and the use of contraceptives slowly filtered their
way into
society (Jalland 175).
Many working-class women found that they could not afford to
support their newborn babies, as most women struggled to make ends
meet,
providing for their husband and other children. According to Ellen
Ross, a
woman’s primary duty was to ensure the survival of her children, which
was no
easy task considering the sheer amount of work involved in keeping the
home in
order and providing enough food for the family with the limited money
provided
by her husband. Many women who did not
resort
to infanticide or have an abortion, were forced to send their children
to be
looked after by other women. Ross writes, “This practice, normally
netting the
nurse mothers about 5 shillings a week for a new baby for most of the
period we
are discussing, had an evil reputation because of a few notorious
trials of
‘baby farmers’ who took dozens of infants simultaneously and had
clearly
murdered a succession of infants in their charge, sometimes with the
tacit
consent of their parents” (135). Baby farming, which reached its zenith
in the
1870s and ‘80s, as many mothers simply could not handle the burden of
an infant
while providing for the rest of the family.
In most cases, baby farming could be considered little more than a
prolonged version of infanticide. Baby farms served as both a way for
women
unprepared for motherhood to relieve themselves of the burden, as well
as a
means for some women to make money from the fees charged to take an
infant in. Some
of the women who were in the baby farming business were careless in
their
duties as surrogate guardians, and such cases, the infants stood very
little
chance of survival under such horrific conditions, where the women were
provided little money my the biological mothers and were at times
unable to
keep the children alive. Women who were found guilty of running the
farms were
convicted, and sometimes hanged. The History of the
London County
Council, 1889-1939, as part of
its report on baby
farming, notes that “in 1870 as many as two hundred and seventy-six
infants
were found dead in the streets of the metropolitan and city police
districts
alone” (Gibbon and Bell 294). Ads were often taken out in newspapers,
and women
who were desperate enough would exercise this final resort.
A woman
who would consider this option would likely have one or more of the
following
qualifying problems: “the shame and poverty of the unmarried mother,
the
inability to care properly for the child, lack of support from the
putative
father and the limited means of the mother” (Smart 22). The fact that
impoverished women resort
to such an extreme stance brought the maternal qualifications of
working-class
women into question, making some wonder if through their extreme
poverty, these
women may have lost their natural instincts for motherhood (Matus 158). In an effort to curb the excessive practice of
baby farming, the Act for the Protection of Infant Life was put in
place in 1872,
putting stricter health and safety regulations on those who watched
over
children (Smart 23).
Not all women of
the lower-class resorted to such harsh alternatives to raising
children. Some
women, particularly farmers and those living in the country, were able
to
scrounge and make ends meet for themselves and their families. Many of
these
women worked tirelessly not only to raise their children, but to
contribute to
the family income, supplementing their husbands’ earnings when times
were tough
(Horn 17). In addition, in the Victorian English countryside women even
began to
band together to improve their lives, both practically and spiritually.
A woman
named Mary Sumner set out to organize a collection of women to gather
and bond
together in a quest to rear their children according to their staunch
Christian
beliefs. This group was called the Mothers’
Working-class
women in Victorian England had many different obstacles to overcome.
Not only
were they living in a repressive society, but they were marginalized by
class
issues as well as gender issues. Because of their low status, many
women were
forced into prostitution, and oftentimes women who had children found
themselves so desperate that they resorted to infanticide, abortion, or
baby
farming. However, by the turn of the century, some progress was being
made in
the effort to bring the status of women to a higher standing.
Organizations
like the Mothers’
