Of course five-and-twenty of them took it for granted you would pay so much a week and ask no questions. They would just not have starved the baby, — unless you had hinted to them that you were willing to pay a lump sum for a death-certificate, in which case the affair would have been more or less skilfully managed.
George Gissing - In the Year of Jubilee (1894)
George Moore gives an example of how the mother of an inconvenient baby could hire herself out as a wet-nurse and live in relative comfort for a while - if only she could be rid of the baby.
“Now look ‘ere, if you’ll listen to reason I’ll talk to you. Yer mustn’t look upon me as a henemy. I’ve been a good friend to many a poor girl like you afore now, and I’ll be one to you if you’re sensible. I’ll do for you what I’m doing for the other girl. Give me five pounds–“
“Five pounds! I’ve only a few pence.”
“‘Ear me out. Go back to yer situation–she’ll take you back, yer suits the child, that’s all she cares about; ask ‘er for an advance of five pounds; she’ll give it when she ‘ears it is to get rid of yer child–they ‘ates their nurses to be a-‘ankering after their own, they likes them to be forgotten like; they asks if the child is dead very often, and won’t engage them if it isn’t, so believe me she’ll give yer the money when yer tells ‘er that it is to give the child to someone who wants to adopt it. That’s what you ‘as to say.”
“And you’ll take the child off my hands for ever for five pounds?”
“Yes; and if you likes to go out again as wet-nurse, I’ll take the second off yer ‘ands too, and at the same price.”
George Moore – Esther Waters (1899)
Today we have other methods.
“Now look ‘ere, if you’ll listen to reason I’ll talk to you. Yer mustn’t look upon me as a henemy. I’ve been a good friend to many a poor girl like you afore now, and I’ll be one to you if you’re sensible. I’ll do for you what I’m doing for the other girl. Give me five pounds–“
“Five pounds! I’ve only a few pence.”
“‘Ear me out. Go back to yer situation–she’ll take you back, yer suits the child, that’s all she cares about; ask ‘er for an advance of five pounds; she’ll give it when she ‘ears it is to get rid of yer child–they ‘ates their nurses to be a-‘ankering after their own, they likes them to be forgotten like; they asks if the child is dead very often, and won’t engage them if it isn’t, so believe me she’ll give yer the money when yer tells ‘er that it is to give the child to someone who wants to adopt it. That’s what you ‘as to say.”
“And you’ll take the child off my hands for ever for five pounds?”
“Yes; and if you likes to go out again as wet-nurse, I’ll take the second off yer ‘ands too, and at the same price.”
George Moore – Esther Waters (1899)
Today we have other methods.
4 comments:
Rousseau had his own way of doing without the services of a wet nurse.
Everything becomes easier, more convenient. There's no need for unpleasant conversations about money, and unvarnished crudeness about what happens to babies. That's progress for you.
I'd always been told/read that wet nurses were robust women with a baby, and copious amounts of milk, so they could save another.
Believable, as it would be the same for a mother with twins.
Now I see how deluded I was - infanticide must have been widespread.
dearieme - a habit of his which is usually left out when people use him to bolster the notion of a social contract.
Sam - yes, in that respect things don't change. Avoid unpleasant conversations and all is well.
Ed - the way Moore describes it is that many high-status mothers did not want their babies to share the milk - they wanted their baby to have as much as they required and for it to be permanently available. They did not want the baby of the wet nurse to be anywhere near their own either.
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