Author Jane Robinson on the stigma of illegitimacy in the sixties, and what it meant for 'wayward women' and their babies.
Jane Robinson
The stigma of illegitimacy in the sixties
Posted on: Thu 04-Feb-16 14:02:23
(161 comments )
"She was expected to forget the whole episode and carry on with life, damaged and in denial."
Last week's episode of Call the Midwife was heart-breaking. The fate of teacher Dorothy Whitmore seemed so cruel. It's hard to imagine, just a few decades later, how intense the stigma of illegitimacy was before the permissive age. One 'mistake' could ruin the life of an unmarried mother and her child.
The working class community around Nonnatus House is generally close and supportive. But a common pattern in the years between the Great War and the swinging sixties was for families – especially middle class families - to hide an errant daughter away. If she fell pregnant she was sneaked into the doctor's surgery through the back door, so no nosey neighbour could see her and draw dangerous conclusions.
Once she began to 'show', the young lady would be sent as far away as possible, to a mother-and-baby home where she would be expected to do daily household chores until her confinement. Despite understandable anxieties, many 'EM's (expectant mothers) recall their time in a mother-and-baby home with fondness, and friendships forged there still survive. Sadly, however, that’s not always so. No doubt some of the staff were sympathetic but others were cold and distant, believing harsh treatment to be a fitting punishment for wayward women: the wages of sin.
Others were cold and distant, believing harsh treatment to be a fitting punishment for wayward women: the wages of sin.
Occasionally, mother-and-baby homes had their own maternity wing attached; generally the women were sent to the local maternity hospital to give birth, segregated from the 'respectable' patients who wore real wedding rings rather than hasty brass curtain-rings and had proud husbands to visit them with bunches of flowers.
After the birth, mother and child were returned to the home where they remained for the next six weeks. In most cases, the expectation was that the baby would then be adopted, as long as he or she had no obvious ‘defects’ (a disability, disease, or different-coloured skin). There they would live together, allowed to bond, until the awful day when the child was handed over to an agency or directly to new parents.
The cries of women bereft of their babies still echo in the memories of those who went through this desperate experience. In more than one establishment all the mothers were shut into a room at the home - not just the mother of the baby being 'given up' - to minimise the chances of one running amok with grief and embarrassing the authorities. The curtains were drawn and the door locked. After the deed was done, the anguished mother was returned home; a fiction was invented to explain her absence for the past few months, and then she was expected to forget the whole episode and carry on with life, damaged and in denial.
Of course, it wasn't always like this: mothers and their illegitimate babies sometimes stayed together, embraced by family and friends, and were treated - as we know from Call the Midwife - with compassion and respect. But we shouldn't forget the unlucky ones, who find it hard to talk about their experiences, even now. Some wounds are very slow to heal.
Jane's new book, In the Family Way: Illegitimacy Between the Great War and the Swinging Sixties, is published by Viking and is available from Amazon.
I know I was overdue as well, which would make her 6-8 weeks pregnant at their wedding.
to the posters whose touching stories I'm reading. Thank you.
