There ought to be no manner of doubt that when, as is the case
to-day in our own and some other supposedly civilized countries,
motherhood outside marriage is accounted as almost a crime, there
is the very greatest need for adequate provision for unmarried
women who are about to become mothers, enabling them to receive
shelter and care in secrecy, and to preserve their self-respect
and social position. This is necessary not only in the interests
of humanity and public economy, but also, as is too often
forgotten, in the interests of morality, for it is certain that
by the neglect to furnish adequate provision of this nature women
are driven to infanticide and prostitution. In earlier, more
humane days, the general provision for the secret reception and
care of illegitimate infants was undoubtedly most beneficial. The
suppression of the mediæval method, which in France took place
gradually between 1833 and 1862, led to a great increase in
infanticide and abortion, and was a direct encouragement to crime
and immorality. In 1887 the Conseil Général of the Seine sought
to replace the prevailing neglect of this matter by the adoption
of more enlightened ideas and founded a _bureau secret
d'admission_ for pregnant women. Since then both the abandonment
of infants and infanticide have greatly diminished, though they
are increasing in those parts of France which possess no
facilities of this kind. It is widely held that the State should
unify the arrangements for assuring secret maternity, and should,
in its own interests, undertake the expense. In 1904 French law
ensured the protection of unmarried mothers by guaranteeing their
secret, but it failed to organize the general establishment of
secret maternities, and has left to doctors the pioneering part
in this great and humane public work (A. Maillard-Brune,
_Refuges, Maternités, Bureaux d'Admission Secrets, comme Moyens