A WHITE LIFE FOR TWO.

White Ribbon, Volume 28, Issue 336, 18 June 1923, Page 1

A WHITE LIFE FOR TWO.

Sonic interest has been aroused and discussion provoked by the statement of a Bishop concerning immorality among our young women. The statement quoted by the Bishop was that dx>ut 50 per cent, of births were either illegitimate or the children of parents who had been married less than nine month*. That this is a saa state of ffairs, and one to be deeply regretted, we quite admit. But why, Oh why, does the Bishop launch his thunderbolt it wonvn only. Frances Willard said there were no illegitimate children; there were illegitimate parents. Now, if so large a percentage of ehildren have illegitimate mothei-s, do not an qiial quantity have illegitimate fathers? What is the reason that the Bishop confines his wrath to half the offender*? Is immorality no crime in a man? If the learned Bishop will only study the teaching of his Divine Master, Jesus Christ, he will find there no word setting up a different standard of conduct for the two sexes. Nay, more, when the self-righteous pharisees brought before him the woman taken in adulterey, he turned the tables on these would-be judges with the words, “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.” And self-condemned, they all stole silently away. We suppose if ♦he Bishop was asked n straight out question, and pressed for an answer, Ik would admit that the fathers if these children had broken the moral law. But his attitude of mind is as old jus the human race, and when brought fare to face with these disquieting fucts, like Adam of old, his natural impulse is to

blame the woman. A little reflection will show that in most instances the man is the greater sinner. A return presented to the House by the Hon. G. Bussell, then Minister of Healtn, showed that a huge proportion of these illegitimate mothers were girls in thenteens, some as young as thirteen. And what of the men? A debate in l'arliament followed a motion brought forward to compel the father's name to be registered even as the mother's name has to be. when the child is born out of wedlock. This was violently opposed by members, who stated that it w;ts well known that the fathers of these children were mostly married men, and it would never do to record their names where their wives might find out about then misconduct. Now. my Lord Bishop, who is the greater sinner, the married man of mature age, who ruins a young life to gratify his uncontrolled passions, o! the girl in her early teens who is his victim? Why not vent your wrath upon the greater sinner, and lament the immorality of men shown b> this sad state of jiffairs? When the Church of Bod sounds out the Hear note of an equal standnrd of morality, when its ministers teach men that chastity is demanded by the Su preme Being from male and female alike, then we shall have made a distinct advance towards purity of life and morals. The Cooper ease, with all its ghastly and revolting details, showed up the tragedy of the unwanted child. Nobody w ints it ind somebody gets rid of it Is it not time that from every pulpit the truth should be proclaimed, that whether its parents are married or

unmarried, no child has a light to be born into this world unless it p* u wanted child. “Do not sin against the chilu.”