Part 48 (1/2)

Great as are the duties and responsibilities of a father, they are equaled by those devolving upon a husband. He has to provide for the welfare of his wife besides caring for the interests of his children. When he marries he vows to remain faithful to the woman of his choice, to ”love, honor, and cherish her” so long as they both shall live. This is an implied oath, if not audibly expressed in all circ.u.mstances, and any violation of it is neither more nor less than perjury. Of course, the obligation is a mutual one; the wife is bound by the same ties, and in as stringent a form as the husband. It can not be said that every case of prost.i.tution in a married woman is the result of her husband's misconduct, but it is notorious that many women are induced or compelled by such misconduct to abandon a life of virtue. All married prost.i.tutes can not be exonerated from the charge of guilt, yet the facts which will be hereafter quoted prove that many were driven to a life of shame by those who had solemnly sworn to protect and cherish them.

The violation of any known duty is a positive crime against society, but it becomes increased in magnitude when it involves more than one person in the offense. It is then the cause of a second transgression, and sophistry would vainly attempt to prove that the man who committed the first and caused the commission of the second offense was not morally responsible for both. Descending from generalities, it may be truly a.s.serted that the man whose conduct to his wife is such as to lead her to vicious practices is guilty in both respects. Here are some few cases in point.

C. C.: ”My husband deserted me and four children. I had no means to live.”

In this case the husband violated the law of G.o.d in forcibly rending the matrimonial bond, and violated the laws of his country by leaving his wife and children as burdens on society. For the former of these offenses he must answer at the bar of Infinite Justice; for the latter he is liable to punishment in this world. ”Then why not punish him?” asks some one. For the very simple reason that he could not be found. In this day the law does not a.s.sume the lat.i.tude claimed by the Spanish Inquisition, and sentence a man to punishment without giving him an opportunity to plead his cause. A woman in a state of dest.i.tution, with four hungry children looking to her for bread, has neither time nor means to pursue a delinquent husband. Her present necessities require her immediate attention, and so he escapes the penalty the laws have awarded, and can live (although it may be with an uneasy conscience) in some other place, and probably repeat there the iniquities he has practiced here. The custom of deserting wives and children would receive a severe check were it possible in every instance to enforce the legal provisions respecting abandonment.

J. S.: ”My husband committed adultery. I caught him with another woman, and then he left me.” This individual's turpitude was enhanced by his boldness. He seems to have recklessly defied all consequences, to have been entirely callous to any sense of shame, and, when detected in his adulterous intercourse, he adds desertion to his offense. He regarded not the feelings of her whom in early life he had won to his side by vows of affection; he outraged the laws of decency, and trampled upon the statutes of his country. His wife's agony may be conceived, although words would be faint to express it, and the mental sufferings she must have endured before she abandoned herself to indiscriminate prost.i.tution as a means of living will not aggravate her offense.

A. G.: ”My husband eloped with another woman. I support the child.” Here the husband was morally as guilty as in the previous case, but without the disgusting bravado which characterized that. He had, however, another claim which should have secured his fidelity, namely, an infant child; but this tie was powerless to restrain him. Fascinated by the charms of another, forgetting all the rights of his wife, all the obligations of paternity, and all the requirements of morality, he basely abandoned those dependent on him, and forced the wife, whose virtue he was bound to protect, into a career of vice to support his child.

A. B.: ”My husband accused me of infidelity, which was not true. I only lived with him five months. I was pregnant by him, and after my child was born I went on the town to support it.” The first idea derived from this statement would be that five months of matrimonial life had been sufficient to change this husband from a devoted lover to a revengeful tyrant, who would not scruple to resort to a groundless accusation to effect his purpose. In this short s.p.a.ce of time he conveniently forgot the promises he had made, repudiated the bonds in which his own act had placed him, and, to accomplish a separation from his wife, did not hesitate to bear false witness against her, placing her in a position from which she could extricate herself only by performing a logical impossibility, namely, by proving a negative. Nor could the probable destiny of his unborn child influence his determination. It mattered not to him whether the infant first saw the light in a den of infamy, nor whether his unkindness killed it before it was born, so that he could desert his wife.

Neither did it make any difference to him whether she starved to death or maintained her existence by the most loathsome means. He was satiated with possession, and neither the voice of nature nor the dictates of conscience could arrest his purpose. The result was precisely what might have been expected: she became a prost.i.tute rather than starve and let her child starve.

R. B.: ”My husband brought me here (a house of ill fame). I did not know what kind of a place it was. He lives with me, and I follow prost.i.tution.”

Another variety of unnatural conduct. The wife in this case was a very good-looking young woman, not exceeding eighteen years of age; the husband held a respectable and well-paid employment, and was in possession of ample means to support her. By false representations he induced her, within three months after marriage, to board in a fas.h.i.+onable house of prost.i.tution. She soon discovered its character, but eventually succ.u.mbed to his orders, and became guilty. He resides with her, and is supported by her. What language can be used adequately to denounce such a cold-blooded piece of treachery on the part of a wretch claiming to be human?

L. W.: ”I came to this city, from Illinois, with my husband. When we got here he deserted me. I have two children dependent on me.” This man brought his wife from a distant state to a strange city, where she had no friends nor relatives to advise and a.s.sist her, and there abandoned her, with two helpless children, to the mercy of the world. Had he left her where she had been living previously, it is possible she might have found sufficient friends to a.s.sist her until she was able to support herself; but with a refinement of cruelty he transferred her to a place where she was unknown, and then effected his escape. The entire circ.u.mstances favor the supposed existence of a determination to abandon her as soon as they arrived in New York, where he could act thus with more safety than in her native place.

C. H.: ”I was married when I was seventeen years old, and have had three children. The two boys are living now; the girl is dead. My oldest boy is nearly five years old, and the other one is eighteen months. My husband is a sailor. We lived very comfortably till my last child was born, and then he began to drink very hard, and did not support me, and I have not seen him or heard any thing about him for six months. After he left me I tried to keep my children by was.h.i.+ng or going out to day's work, but I could not earn enough. I never could earn more than two or three dollars a week when I had work, which was not always. My father and mother died when I was a child. I had n.o.body to help me, and could not support my children, so I came to this place. My boys are now living in the city, and I support them with what I earn by prost.i.tution. It was only to keep them that I came here.” These were the words used by an honest, sorrowful looking woman encountered, in the course of this investigation, in the fourth police district of the city. No reasonable doubt can be entertained of the truth of the story; the manner in which she told it plainly indicated that she was narrating facts. Some inquiries were made respecting her of the keeper of the house, and he (for it was a man) stated that he knew her story to be correct. He had at first employed her as a servant because he wished to help her, but the wages he could pay were insufficient to support her children, and she eventually prost.i.tuted herself because she could earn more at this horrible calling, and was thus enabled to discharge her maternal duty. But at what a sacrifice was this obtained! In order to feed her helpless offspring she was forced to yield her honor; to prevent them suffering from the pains of hunger, she voluntarily chose to endure the pangs of a guilty conscience; to prolong their lives she periled her own. And at the time when this alternative was forced upon her, the husband was lavis.h.i.+ng his money for intoxicating liquor. If she sinned--and this fact can not be denied, however charity may view it--it was the non-performance of his duty that urged, nay, positively forced her to sin. She must endure the punishment of her offenses, but, after reading her simple, heart-rending statement, let casuists decide what amount of condemnation will rest upon the man whose desertion compelled her to violate the law of chast.i.ty in order to support his children.

E. W.: ”My husband had another wife when I married him. I left him when I found this out. I was pregnant by him, and had no other way to live than by prost.i.tution.” In point of law, this is not a married woman, the existence of the former wife rendering the second union invalid; but this is no excuse for the man's conduct; in fact, it materially aggravates his guilt. In the first place, he deserts a woman whom he was legally bound to support, leaving her to battle her way through life, to resist the temptations which would be sure to a.s.sail her, careless whether she lived or died, and heedless whether she retained her character or sank into vice; and then, with the greatest _nonchalance_, goes through the ceremony of marriage with another woman. It is easy to imagine the feelings of the latter when she discovered the fraud which had been practiced to secure her hand, and the indignation which caused her to leave him immediately, notwithstanding her condition; nor will it require much stretch of fancy to picture the mental suffering she endured, her agony during the hour of nature's trial, before she consented to earn a precarious living as a prost.i.tute. Such cases are of frequent occurrence, and even the probability of a criminal indictment is insufficient to deter some men. No punishment could be too severe for such offenses, even considering them without any reference to this particular instance, because they pervert one of our most solemn contracts, and destroy all confidence in the security of the marriage tie.

C. H.: ”My husband was a drunkard, and beat me.” How much of misery and crime is contained in these few words! Either of the vices practiced by this fellow is enough to make a woman wretched; the combination is sufficient to drive her mad. She would doubtless sit and ponder during the long and weary night hours when he was carousing with his drunken companions, and would contrast her present wretched state with the happiness of early days. Her thoughts would revert to the time he won her love, to the day on which he brought her to his home a bride, and then she would cast her eyes around the room, now robbed of almost every thing portable to supply his insane appet.i.te for liquor, and a heavy sigh would burst from her heart. But still she would continue her sad reminiscences, and think of the kindness he displayed then, and of his brutal ferocity now--would remember his considerate tenderness and compare it with his maniac fury. And then something would whisper to her, ”Why do you endure it?” and her woman's nature would be aroused, resistance would take the place of submission, and she would leave her home and him who had desecrated it, and immolate herself upon the altar of vice, a victim to her husband's drunkenness and cruelty.

C. N.: ”My husband left me because I was sickly and could not do hard work.” This woman's husband may be pictured as a lazy, worthless fellow; probably one who married not to secure a helpmate and a partner, but to obtain a slave. Her health would not allow her to perform as much drudgery as he expected; the speculation did not turn out as well as he had antic.i.p.ated, and he left her dest.i.tute, to starve or sin, as she thought fit.

P. T.: ”My husband was intemperate, and turned out to be a thief. He was sent to prison.” Still another victim of a drunken husband, but he carried his vicious habits to a point where the laws of his country would reach him. Had he merely deserted his wife, n.o.body would have thought it his business to arrest him, but he stole some person's property, and all the enginery of the law was forthwith arrayed against him. In the one instance, his conduct condemns his wife to shame in this world and perhaps perdition in the next, and the good-tempered public looks quietly on and says nothing. In the other case, he defrauds his neighbor of some dollars and cents, and the indignant community demands his condign punishment!

What conclusion can be drawn from these facts? Honor, character, and life are ruined, and the offender escapes: money is stolen, and he is punished!

Is money more valuable than the character and life of woman?

It requires no argument to prove that when the care of a child is a.s.sumed by its relatives, the parental obligations also devolve upon them; nor can there be any difference of opinion as to the duty of relations to a.s.sist, to the utmost of their power, any children whom death or other circ.u.mstances may have deprived of their natural protectors. Were not these principles generally recognized, all large cities would be crowded with dest.i.tute orphans. The beneficial results often arising from such guardians.h.i.+ps argue very strongly in their favor; but still the imperative duty is frequently evaded, or acknowledged and made the opportunity for an exhibition of tyranny which naturally tends to the encouragement of vice.

Take the following cases in ill.u.s.tration:

J. F.: ”I support my aunt.” In this case the duties of the aunt were not merely evaded, but she adds to her neglect a positive approval of the girl's abandoned life, by voluntarily receiving a portion of her earnings.

What species of education she bestowed upon her niece may be inferred from its results. Such disclosures are almost too disgusting to be criticised.

S. B.: ”My parents were dead. I came to this country with an uncle and aunt, who ill-used me from the time I landed till I ran away.” The death of her parents should have been a pa.s.sport to the affection of the relatives to whose charge she was intrusted, but, instead of producing such an effect, they brought her to a strange land, and practiced a succession of cruelties, until she could endure them no longer. It is more than probable that this was a plan intended to drive her from their home.

They neither acknowledged their duty to supply the places of the father and mother she had lost, nor did they recognize the force of relations.h.i.+p, which, at least, should have protected her from positive unkindness. Nor did they possess any of those feelings of sympathy which every well-disposed person must entertain toward an orphan. They could not have been unaware of the probability of her falling into bad company and vicious habits if she left their care, but no regard for her happiness or character seems to have entered into their calculations, which may have been somewhat in this form: She is an expense to us, so we will contrive to drive her away; if she can make her living honestly, so much the better; if she turns out a prost.i.tute, that is her own concern. It was not solely ”_her own concern_,” but it involved them also in its consequences, through their agency in its accomplishment, and, morally speaking, they are as liable for her ruin as if they had actually, and not indirectly, caused it.

The following cases closely resemble each other, and are presented in conjunction:

A. D.: ”My parents were dead. I lived with my uncle, who treated me very unkindly.”

L. S.: ”My parents died when I was young. I lived with an uncle and aunt, who used me ill.” The deprivation of each of these unfortunate women in the death of their parents, a loss almost incalculable in its results, placed them under the guardians.h.i.+p of those who alike neglected their duties and rendered the trust a medium for unkindness to the orphans. It seems surprising that the memory of a deceased brother or sister can not secure even ordinary care for their children. It can not be expected that the surviving relatives would exhibit the same amount of affection as would have been shown by the parents, but disappointment must be experienced if they make no pretensions to kindness. The dictates of nature are violated when harshness takes the place of sympathy, and dest.i.tution is considered a sufficient warrant for deliberate and continuous ill-treatment. Such conduct renders a girl reckless and misanthropic, and will drive her to seek, in unhallowed love, the affection her guardians have refused.

L. M.: ”I was taken by my sister-in-law to a house of prost.i.tution, and there violated.” It is not often such a case of barbarity is found in civilized life, nor indeed in less polished communities, as this forcible violation of a young girl through the aid and connivance of her sister-in-law. The mind recoils, with disgust, from the instances of rape so frequently occurring, but this case is so peculiarly aggravated that it can not be contemplated without a feeling of shame for the depravity of human nature. In the one case, the brutal pa.s.sions of a man are displayed in a brutal manner; in the other, the same cause exists to a similar extent, coupled with the blackest perfidy of a female relative. To such a shameless violation of the laws of consanguinity, such an outrageous conspiracy between a vile man and a monster of a woman, the sister must have been induced to lend her aid by some means best known to herself. It is quite impossible to imagine she possessed a single spark of virtue; on the contrary, she must have sunk, long before this occurrence, to the lowest depths of vice, or she never would have been an instrument in such an infernal scheme. The consideration she received is, of course, known only to the parties themselves, but it would give a farther insight to her character if the reader could be informed of the estimate set by a sister-in-law upon an orphan's virtue. The result of the outrage is, no doubt, exactly what the criminals antic.i.p.ated. The victim knew that her character was ruined, that she had no alternative but prost.i.tution, and, while the guilty pair who literally forced her to sin can congratulate each other on the success of their machinations, she must endure the penalty in a life of crime and misery.

G. H.: ”I was detected and exposed by my brother.” This girl, who had yielded to the entreaties of a man whom ”she loved, not wisely, but too well,” may a.s.sign her subsequent career of vice to the conduct of her brother. He must have been sadly deficient in all kindly feeling thus to parade his sister's dishonor, and also possessed of a very limited knowledge of human nature, or a large amount of malevolence. It can scarcely be imagined that he acted from ignorance, as he must have been certain that such an exposure would most probably induce his sister to continue an intercourse which was publicly known, and therefore could not augment her disgrace; nor can it be conceived that a malicious desire to blast her character governed his conduct. But, whatever his motive, the result was the same. She was forced to a life of prost.i.tution, from which she might have been rescued had kind and affectionate means been employed, instead of the cruel and heedless course which was adopted.