The Virginia Gazette

LETTER on the present State of Midwifery.

IN Times when every Winter brings Scenes of Prostitution from the Privacy of Darkness into the publick Light of Day, when our Ladies of Quality, and Women of Fashion, instead of being as remarkable for their Virtue as for their Beauty, openly cast aside every Sense of Shame, and bare-facedly encourage the Addresses of Men who avowedly can have no Intention but to involve them in Guilt, it is the Duty of every honest Man to endeavour to trace the Evil to its Source, in Order that, by pointing out the foul Spring which corrupts the Stream, the Fountain may be cleared, and the Contagion which rages from it lessened, if not entirely removed.

Boarding Schools are, beyond Doubt, Seminaries where the Minds of Girls are early polluted. Let the Mistress of the School be ever so virtuous, prudent, and attentive, the vicious Girls (and some such there always must be, among a Number) will find sufficient Opportunities to taint the tender Minds of unsuspecting Innocence. Nothing can be more destructive than bad Example; and, unfortunately, the human Mind is too ready to copy those which are vicious, and the Vicious are more importunate and solicitous to corrupt than the Virtuous are to gain Proselytes to Goodness.

Though I believe the first Seeds of Vice are imbibed at a Boarding School, yet I by no Means look on that Education as the great Cause of these frequent Adulteries. If Principles of Virtue have been inculcated in Infancy, they may yet, with proper Care, bud out afresh under a good Culture, and flourish under the Influence of good Advice, when those noxious Weeds are choked up which were planted by bad Examples, but which may wither on the Cause being removed.

It is to the almost universal Custom of Employing MEN-Midwives that I attribute the frequent ADULTERIES which disgrace our Country.

Ignorance has spread this shameless Custom. Ignorance leads People to suppose Men safer than Women. Ignorance of what the Men-Midwives do lead modest Women at first to submit to employ Men; and it is Ignorance which leads Husbands (who love their Wives) to recommend, nay even sometimes force them on their Wives. They know not what Snares they are preparing for themselves; they know not that they are removing the Corner Stone on which the Virtue of their Wives is founded; and all this on a mistaken Principle, the Idea that Men are safe.

The Almighty, through Kindness to his Creatures, has so ordered the Labours of Women that even the honest Part of the Man-Midwife Tribe confess that in thirty Years Practice a Person might probably never meet with a single Case where a good Woman might not have done the Business.

This Observation was made to me by an eminent Man-Midwife, after a Practice of thirty six Years. How else would the World have been peopled? The Men have but lately come into Fashion. In Praise of Scotland and Ireland be it spoken, the Women of those Countries are still too modest to employ them. What is the Consequence? Adulteries happen very seldom in those Countries, and every Farm House swarms with strong healthy well limbed Children. If Men-Midwives were requisite to bring Children into the World, what would become of the Wilds of America, the Plains of Africa? Even the Hottentot Women are too modest to employ Men; they leave that abandoned Custom to our English Ladies; yet they are so fruitful that they furnish Slaves to the Globe. It is a notorious Fact, that more Children have been lost since Women were so scandalously indecent as to employ Men than for Ages before that Practice became so general.

Women have a Tenderness of Feeling for their own Sex, in Labour, which it is impossible Men can ever equal them in. By having felt the Pains and the Anxieties attending Childbirth, they know how to sympathize in a Woman's Sufferings. Their Feelings, therefore, are natural. They lead them to be patient, they prompt them to allow Nature to do her own peculiar Work. They never dream of having Recourse to Force; the barbarous, bloody Crotchet, never stained their Hands with Murder. There never really can be Occasion for a male Operator, but when a Deed must be done which my Soul shudders at the Idea of, and which I shall not mention; but, Thanks to God, such Instances do not occur in a Century! To my Knowledge, a Lady was twice delivered, in different Parts of the Country of England, by common Women-Midwives, and both those Cases were as unnatural and difficult as it is well possible to imagine; and the Children did well. If she had employed Men, it is more than probable the Children, at least, would have expired under the Crotchet, or been maimed by the Forceps!

And how should this be otherwise! A long unimpassioned Practice, early commenced, and calmly pursued, is absolutely requisite to give Men, by Art, what Women attain by Nature, Doctor Hunter, very wisely, very justly, has said, that "Labour is Nature's Work." Nature ought to be suffered, nine Hundred and ninety nine Times out of a Thousand, to do her own Work. All the Knowledge young Men can possibly obtain must be from dead Bodies; for is it in common Sense to suppose that young Lad can explore the secret Recesses of Venus so as to be physically well acquainted with those Parts in living Females? No; Fires must quickly be raised, which unavoidably will confuse all his discerning reasoning Faculties, and Art must instantly be lost in Nature. Doctor Hunter, indeed, and one or two Men besides, may perhaps, by the Help of cold Constitutions, and Dint of very long Practice, do their Business nearly as well as Women, by leaving all to Nature; but if my Life and Fortune here, and Salvation hereafter, depended on the Life of any pregnant Woman, and that of her Infant, I would stake all I held valuable on her being attended by any old Woman-Midwife in England, in Preference to any Men in the World. Whoever reads Nihel's Midwifery will be satisfied of this Truth, that Women are infinitely safer than Men.

Who can wonder at the present Flagicy of Times, when it is known that even Women of Character soon become so callous to the Bashfulness which ought to characterize their Sex (from being habituated to the familiarities of their Men-Midwives) that they will not scruple informing a male Visitor, without even blushing, "I was not very well for some Days in the Country, so I came to Town on Purpose to be satisfied by Doctor -- that I was in a good Way; the dear Man has told me that the Child lies right, and I am perfectly easy." Monstrous! that a Lady can pretend to any Degree of Modesty, and yet, not content with having a strange Man attending her for Hours when in Labour (most of that Time intimately acquainted with every Part) she can, without any Compunction, send for a Man, and admit him, without Reserve, to the same unbounded Liberties, at a Time too when she is as able to walk, and do every other Act of Life, as if she was not pregnant! Pray let me ask her Ladyship, How did the dear Man, sweet Doctor find out how the Child lay? By Means sufficient to taint the Purity, and sully the Chastity, of any Woman breathing! I will boldly affirm that whoever admits a Man to those licentious Freedoms cannot pretend to answer for what may be the Consequences. If the last Circumstance does not take Place, it must be owing either to an extraordinary Insensibility in the Man, or to the Woman's not suiting his Taste, having such Choice of Beauties to visit. Suppose, for Argument's Sake, that the fictitious Goddess of Chastity, Diana herself, was on Earth, and employed me to satisfy her Doubts during the Months of Pregnancy prior to her Labour, and her Mind, of Course, at first free from the smallest Tincture of guilty Ideas, yet, if I choose it, I could so bewilder her Reason that she should lose Sight of every Principle of Virtue, and not be able to refuse me whatever I chose to desire. When a Man is in free Possession of the Citadel, and all the Outworks surrendered at Discretion, it is then too late to attempt guarding the Town from Plunder.

But, supposing these Advantages are not always taken (which I dare say they are not) it cannot be denied, with Truth, but these Visitations from Men-Midwives remove, in a great Measure, the Horror of those Intrusions on the advanced Posts of Virtue which are its greatest Safeguards, and serve to prepare the Way for the Address of gay young Men, who make it their Business to seduce married Women into the Paths of Infamy.

If any Lady, desirous of exculpating herself from my Censure, pleads that she never admits a Man-Midwife to Familiarities but when in actual Labour, I answer, that, even in actual Labour, a Woman has many Intervals of Ease, or many Minutes together, quite free from Pain. In those Intervals, her Mind cannot maintain its spotless Whiteness; in those Intervals, she cannot but be conscious that the Doctor is infringing on the HUSBAND.

But I believe there are very few Women who confine the Doctor's Familiarities to the Times of real Labour. Lady Mrs. acquiesce in whatever he thinks right during all the Months of Pregnancy; and must he not be MORE than Man, or LESS THAN Man, who, being inflamed by Passion? And, if inflamed by Passion, he may proceed ranging luxuriously through all the Hidden Charms of Beauty, can help being on CERTAINTIES. He has an UNERRING Tell-tale under his Inspection, which gives him an INFALLIBLE Cue when he may safely throw aside the Mask, careless of any Repulse.

Show some Sense of Modesty, ye Duchesses, Countesses, &c. &c. and those inferior Women, whom ye have debauched by your bad Examples, will again imitate you, in forsaking those scandalous Practices. Blush, ye Women of Fashion, to own that any Man, besides your Husbands, is admitted to Liberties with your Persons. No longer talk of "dear Doctor Hunter," "angelick Doctor," "enchanting Doctor." For my own Part, if I was a married Man, I declare it would be a Matter of the utmost Indifference to me whether my Wife had spent the Night in a Bagnio or an Hour of the Forenoon locked up with a Man-Midwife in her Dressing-Room. Let this Shameless Custom be abolished, and then Virtue will fly back again to our Metropolis, with all her Train of genuine self-approving Pleasures; and England be, once more, as much famed for the Chastity as for the Beauty of its Women.

Adieu, Mr. Printer; you have received this Letter from a sincere Admirer of female Modesty. Without it "Beauty ceases being lovely, or Wit being engaging." Whoever possesses it cannot be enough esteemed and regarded; whoever is deficient in it cannot be sufficiently despised and slighted. Ye English Fair, it ought to be your Characteristic! but while your Fathers, Husbands, and Brothers, are unprincipled corrupt Senators, you think you have a Right to deviate from your Path of Honour, since they show you the Example in theirs.

To conclude, true Modesty is incompatible with the Idea of employing A MAN-MIDWIFE.