REPORT CONFIRMED

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 9

REPORT CONFIRMED

CHILDREN BORN OUT OF | WEDLOCK ! BOARD OF HEALTH RESOLUTION Consideration was given at a meetingof the Board of Health yesterday to the recent public references to figures given in the report of the board's committee on venereal diseases, as indicative of the occurrence of promiscuous sexual intercourse in New Zealand. On the motion of Mr. William Ferguson, seconded by Dr. , Lindo Ferguson, the following motion was carried :— — "The board, having consulted the Government Statistician, from whom the figures were originally obtained, confirms the statements made in the committee's report and appearing in the following paragraph; in the-section headed: 'The Occurrence of Promiscuous Sexual Intercourse': 'The evidence before the. committee shows that this promiscuity is very prevalent, and that it is not confined to any particular strata. The fact is also strikingly demonstrated by table A in the appendix. From this table it will be seen that during the period 1913-1921 there were 10,841 illegitimate births and 33,738 legitimate first births within one year after marriage. If to the illegitimate births we add the total number of live births occurring within the first seven months of marriage, namely, 12,235, which may be safely considered to have been conceived before marriage, we get a total of 23,076 births in which conception took place extra-maritally. In other words, more than 50 per cent, of total first births occurring within twelve months of marriage result from sexual contact prior to marriage.' TOO SWEEPING AN INFERENCE. "The board desires its confirmation made public, and in doing so would point out that during the period 1913----1921, . out of 33,738 legitimate first births during the first twelve months after marriage, 12,235 occurred during the first seven months, and were therefore pre-nuptial conceptions. There were . 10,841 children born out of wedlock. were therefore 23,076 births out of a total of 44,579 * births registered where the conception was extra-marital, or over 50 per cent. The board'regrets .that a too-sweeping inference has been drawn from these figures, and in this connection desire to quote the follow, ing from a report received from the Government Statistician: I NOT A REFLECTION ON NEW ZEALAND WOMEN.

The paragraph in question clearly refers only to the extra-marital conception of children bom within twelve months'of marriage. No Soubt the committee considered that there could be no question of extra-martial conception in regard to .. children born subsequent to twelve months of marriage. It .must be remembered that the committee was immediately concerned, as indeed is clear from the text, with rousing the public conscience to the prevalence of promiscuous sexual intercourse as a cause of the dissemination of venereal disease. It is clear that the committee was not considering the question of the chastity of women generally, and it is quite improper for anyone to use the committee's observation aa a reflection on New Zealand women generally without proper reference to the context. Could the com. mittee have anticipated the interpretation now being placed on its statement, it would no doubt have added also a paragraph giving the percentage of such extra-marital conceptions to all first births (approximately 25 per cent.) and some reference to the number of 'sterile marriages (approximately 15 per cent.), as well as to the large number of women not mothers of illegitimate children who never marry, and-to other factors. involved in any estimation of public morality and chastity. It must ■be common knowledge that a very large (actually the majority) of first births occur after the first year of marriage. The words in the committee's report 'within twelve months of j marriage' should therefore have guarded against anyone saying that 'of women becoming mothers for the first time in the Dominion each year more than half had been unchaste.' "