THE UNWELCOME CHILD; OR, THE CRIME OF AN UNDESIGNED AND UNDESIRED MATERNITY. BY HENRY C. WRIGHT, AUTHOR OF “MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE.” EIGHTH EDITION. BOSTON: COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS, 9 MONTGOMERY PLACE. 1876. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by HENRY C. WRIGHT, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE, 5 INTRODUCTORY LETTER: A Husband to Henry C. Wright—Inquiries respecting the Laws of Nature designed to govern Parentage, 9 LETTER I.—THE MOTHER’S POWER OVER HER CHILD: Maternity, its bearing on the Character and Destiny of the Race—Two great facts relating to the Ante-Natal Development and Education of the Child, 13 LETTER II.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY:—Crime against the Mother—How it affects her towards the Father of her Child—Who is responsible for the Existence of Children, God or the Parents?—Has the Woman a right to say when she shall assume the office of Maternity, or subject herself to the relation that leads to Maternity?—A certain method to secure the purity, peace, and happiness of Home, 23 LETTER III.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the Child—Ante-Natal Claims of the Child—Bearing of the Ante-Natal History of a Child on its Post-Natal Character and Destiny—Whatever injuriously affects the Mother must injuriously affect the Child—A Child struggling into life against the spirit of Murder in the heart of its Mother, 37 LETTER IV.—UNDESIRED MATERNITY: Crime against the Child as affecting its Ante-Natal Education—The most intense and potent of all human relations—Man in three States—Ante-Natal Education, its bearing on the future Man or Woman, on Society, on Church and State—The Guilt of Husbands, 51 LETTER V.—THE WIFE’S APPEAL AND THE HUSBAND’S RESPONSE: The last link of Marriage—A Word to Wives—A Word to Maidens—How both may save themselves from deepest degradation and wretchedness, 72