Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun [best self help books to read txt] 📗

What need, then, for Axel to fear at all when Barbro took all the blame on herself that way? And as for Barbro herself, there were mighty influences at work.

Fru Lensmand Heyerdahl had taken up the case. She went about to high and low, never sparing herself, demanded to be called as a witness, and made a speech in court. When her turn came, she stood there before them all and was a great lady indeed; she took up the question of infanticide in all its aspects, and gave the court a long harangue on the subject⁠—it almost seemed as if she had obtained permission beforehand to say what she pleased. Ay, folk might say what they would of Fru Lensmand Heyerdahl, but make a speech, that she could, and was learned in politics and social questions, no doubt about that. ’Twas a marvel where she found all her words. Now and again the presiding justice seemed wishful to keep her to the point, but maybe he had not the heart to interrupt, and let her run on. And at the end of it all, she volunteered one or two useful items of information, and made a startling offer to the court.

Leaving out all legal technicalities, what took place was this:

“We women,” said Fru Heyerdahl, “we are an unfortunate and oppressed moiety of humanity. It is the men who make the laws, and we women have not a word to say in the matter. But can any man put himself in the position of a woman in childbirth? Has he ever felt the dread of it, ever known the terrible pangs, ever cried aloud in the anguish of that hour?

“In the present instance, it is a servant-girl who has borne the child. A girl, unmarried, and consequently trying all through the critical time to hide her condition. And why must she seek to hide it? Because of society. Society despises the unmarried woman who bears a child. Not only does society offer her no protection, but it persecutes her, pursues her with contempt and disgrace. Atrocious! No human creature with any heart at all could help feeling indignant at such a state of things. Not only is the girl to bring a child into the world, a thing in itself surely hard enough, but she is to be treated as a criminal for that very fact. I will venture to say that it was well for the unfortunate girl now accused before the court that her child was born by accident when she fell into the water, and drowned. Well for herself and for the child. As long as society maintains its present attitude, an unmarried mother should be counted guiltless even if she does kill her child.”

Here a slight murmur was heard from the presiding justice.

“Or at any rate, her punishment should be merely nominal,” said Fru Heyerdahl. “We are all agreed, of course,” she went on, “that infant life should be preserved, but is that to mean that no law of simple humanity is to apply to the unfortunate mother? Think, consider what she has been through during all the period of pregnancy, what suffering she has endured in striving to hide her condition, and all the time never knowing where to turn for herself and the child when it comes. No man can imagine it,” said she. “The child is at least killed in kindness. The mother tries to save herself and the child she loves from the misery of its life. The shame is more than she can bear, and so the plan gradually forms itself in her mind, to put the child out of the way. The birth takes place in secret, and the mother is for four-and-twenty hours in such a delirious state that at the moment of killing the child she is simply not responsible for her actions. Practically speaking, she has not herself committed the act at all, being out of her senses at the time. With every bone in her body aching still after her delivery, she has to take the little creature’s life and hide away the body⁠—think what an effort of will is demanded here! Naturally, we all wish all children to live; we are distressed at the thought that any should be exterminated in such a way. But it is the fault of society that it is so; the fault of a hopeless, merciless, scandalmongering, mischievous, and evil-minded society, ever on the watch to crush an unmarried mother by every means in its power!

“But⁠—even after such treatment at the hands of society, the persecuted mother can rise up again. It often happens that these girls, after one false step of the sort, are led by that very fact to develop their best and noblest qualities. Let the court inquire of the superintendents at refuge homes, where unmarried mothers and their children are received, if this is not the case. And experience has shown that it is just such girls who have⁠—whom society has forced to kill their own children, that make the best nurses. Surely that was a matter for any and all to think seriously about?

“Then there is another side of the question. Why is the man to go free? The mother found guilty of infanticide is thrust into prison and tortured, but the father, the seducer, he is never touched. Yet being as he is the cause of the child’s existence, he is a party to the crime; his share in it, indeed, is greater than the mother’s; had it not been for him, there would have been no crime. Then why should he be acquitted? Because the laws are made by men. There is the answer. The enormity of such man-made laws cries of itself to Heaven for intervention. And there can be no help for us women till we are allowed a say in the elections, and in the making of laws, ourselves.

“But,” said Fru Heyerdahl,