Lori+Chambers

__“Such a Program of Legislation”: Illegitimacy and Law Reform__ by Lori Chambers


 * Article about the development of laws chastising and protecting illegitimate children and their mothers.

- Panic about infant mortality rates, the visible poverty of female-headed households, and a new rhetoric of equality brought censure upon illegitimacy laws. However, pity for poor children did not translate into sympathy for the women who produced such babies.

- Laws condemning unwed mothers and their children to outcast status originated in England in feudal times. A child of an unwed mother was a child or heir of nobody. As such, neither the mother nor the biological father was responsible for the support of the child. - The first support act for biological parents was created in 1576 – “An Act for Setting the Poor to Work”. Either parent could be punished by jail. - By 1662, the goods of a parent could be seized for the benefit of the child. - An 1809 law placed the primary care giving responsibilities on the biological father, but it was eliminated in 1834 with the Poor Law Amendment Act. New poor laws reflected a Malthusian fear of the unruly reproductive mother as a threat to the nation. - Lower Canada did not receive the Poor Laws – liability for the care of the child was imposed on neither the mother or father, nor the community. As a result, many children were bound out to masters for labour. Under the 1837 Seduction Act, mothers could demand support from fathers. However, proof of paternity required third party corroboration. As a result, many unwed mothers turned to charitable organizations for aid with the raising of their children.
 * Illegitimacy and the Law before 1921:**

- Child Welfare Package, 1921 reflected social purity movements. - Great War instilled a need to repopulate a country damaged with the losses of war. - Legislation and social programs reflected a concern for reducing child mortality – nurtured by “child-saving” rhetoric and Christian-based reforms. - Programs were focused on helping Anglo-Saxon single mothers, especially those who lost husbands at war. A better future for a child was thought to depend on the home he was raised in. - However, class, ethnic, and racial prejudice persisted towards unwed mothers. Social reform did not extend to protect these women. The children of these homes were often removed from their homes for intrusive programs of education. “Saving babies” became more about ethnic cleansing than its altruistic moral rhetoric would suggest.
 * Child Welfare, ‘Race Suicide’, and the Impact of the Great War**

- The law punished women who did not promote ‘traditional’ Christian family structures– they were blamed and regulated. - Poor mothering was believed to be responsible for disease and immorality, as well as impoverishment, fueling regimes for the removal of children from their homes. - Fathers were completely absent from the discourse of blame and responsibility.
 * Sexual Deviance and the Unwed Mother**

- Sympathy for the child led to the passage of child protection legislation in Ontario. Legislators were supremely concerned with elevating the economic and social chances of children. - Reforms reflected a desire to maintain a hegemonic, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class model of family life and sexual restraint. I.e., incentives to promote this, and disincentives for single, unwed women who wished to raise their children alone. Aid was contingent to adherence to strict moral standards, not need. - Children’s Aid Society (CAS) workers recommended allowances for needy widows and deserted mothers, but denied them to unwed mothers. The children of these mothers were often removed to foster families. It was considered to be in the better interest of the child to be in an adopted family than to be in the home of an unmarried mother. Women of different birth nations and races also faced many barriers to receiving aid. - The Ontario Mother’s Allowance Act exercised enormous discretion is giving single mothers allowance as “employers for the guardianship of the future citizens of the State”. - Three other Acts delegated enormous discretion power to the CAS (the Legitimation Act, the Adoption Act, and the Children of Unmarried Parents Act). The CAS was exposed to minimal government regulation, while enforcing state policies. The Legitimation Act: allowed for legitimation of certain children born out of wedlock. It provided incentive for people to marry and cohabitate, but also was supported by views that made adultery a punishable offense. It also reinforced patriarchal definitions of the family, by requiring a father’s word regarding paternity. The Adoption Act: initially served to alleviate some of the government costs in the creation of suitable homes within the private sphere. It represented a form of cultural assimilation, because of the prevalence of non-Anglo-Saxon adoptions into Anglo-Saxon homes. It was thought to be superior to institutional care. The Act embodied the belief that unwed mothers were unfit to provide stable homes for their children. It also furthered the belief that the solution to illegitimacy was to remove children from their birth mothers. The Children of Unmarried Parents Act: Provided a degrading way for unmarried mothers to receive financial support from the fathers of their children. However, it called for the removal of children from the homes of poor, unmarried mothers. The Act was intended to privatize the costs of reproduction and prevent illegitimate children from becoming a burden on society. However, it did not remove the stigma of being an “illegitimate” child in society. In general, the CAS held great power to punish women who defied the community standards of appropriate sexual expression and family formation, and reinforced a hierarchical ordering of families and a division between the “deserving and undeserving poor”.
 * Law Reform and the Mother-Child Relationship**