HINTS TO HUSBANDS:
A Revelation
OF
THE MAN-MIDWIFE’S MYSTERIES.
BY
GEORGE MORANT,
LATE GRENADIER GUARDS.
| “Sit you down, And let me wring your heart, for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not brazed it so, That it be proof and bulwark against sense.” |
Third Edition,
REVISED AND ENLARGED.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.,
4, STATIONERS’ HALL COURT.
1857.
TO THE
HUSBANDS & FATHERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM,
AND TO THOSE HONOURABLE MEN OF THE
MEDICAL PROFESSION,
WHO REPROBATE AND CONDEMN
THE UNNATURAL CUSTOM OF MAN-MIDWIFERY,
AS AN OUTRAGE ON THE MODESTY OF WOMEN,
AND DEROGATORY TO THEIR OWN VOCATION;
AND TO ALL WHO HAVE
HEARTS TO FEEL AND COURAGE TO COPE WITH
THIS ENORMOUS WRONG,
THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
The two-fold object which we desire to attain in the following pages, andto which we earnestly entreat the attention of our readers, is theexposure and amendment of a vast social evil, which we have reason tobelieve has, to most reflecting men, become well nigh intolerable. It willbe obvious that to bring this evil, with effect, to the bar of publicopinion, we must probe it to the very core, and fearlessly unveil and draginto the light its indecent mysteries. In so doing we shall doubtlessincur the censures of those easy-going people who agree with the poetthat—
“Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise;”
who, like the bird of the desert, by hiding their heads deem their bodiesout of danger; who, dead to all the generous sympathies which elevate manabove the brute, would reduce the minds of others to their own dull anddreary level of stolid inanity; of those prudent persons[Pg 6] who, closingtheir eyes to the lightning flash and their ears to the vollied thunder,sneak through the world by any side-path sooner than encounter adifficulty foot to foot and hand to hand; and, without pretending to anyextraordinary knowledge of the human heart, we fear, of the majority ofthose women who have already sacrificed their modesty at the altar ofcustom; and, above all, of that class whose presumptuous charlatanism wedesire to lay bare. But for all this we care not one jot, provided themists of imposture be dispelled, and our countrywomen rescued from thedisgrace and degradation of an odious system, which, originating in adissolute age, has since been promoted and encouraged by self-interestedempirics, and sanctioned by indifference, credulity, and error.
HINTS TO HUSBANDS, &c. &c.
CHAPTER I.
| “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” |
The practice of man-midwifery is one among the noxious weeds which therank luxuriance of civilization has produced, and since its introductionit has thriven with unrestrained vitality and ever-increasing strength,until at length it spreads its Upas shadow far and wide over our land, andtreacherously, myst