Quotation: “‘Cannot bear it! Cannot bear it!’ he repeated. ‘You must bear it madam. Do y ou suppose your child is to be exempt from the penalties of his birth? Do you suppose that he alone is to be saved from the upbraiding scoff? Do you suppose that he is ever to rank with other boys, who are not stained and marked with sin from their birth? Every creature in Eccleston may know what he is; do you think they will spare him their scorn? ‘Cannot bear it,’ indeed! Before you went into your sin, you should have thought whether you could bear the consequences or not–have had some idea how far your offspring would be degraded and scouted, till the best thing that could happen to him would be for him to be lost to all sense of shame, dead to all knowledge of guilt, for his mother’s sake” (Gaskell, Chapter 26)
Comment: I was interested in this quote because of the emphasis it places on Ruth’s son, Leonard. Throughout multiple points in the novel, Ruth has been forced to deal with her reputation as a “fallen woman”, which could really only be mitigated by Ruth becoming Mrs. Denbigh. Now, we’re seeing that the consequences of Ruth’s actions shift from Ruth herself to Leonard. Based on the quotation above, it seems that being an illegitimate child held a lot of negative connotations. Leonard is called “stained” and it’s implied in the quotation that Ruth’s “sin” can be rubbed off on other children who are close to Leonard.
Question: I’m wondering where this belief and animosity towards illegitimate children themselves came from. Was it based on religious beliefs or was there a turning point in Victorian society in which this belief came from?
I just posted some links and images about attitudes towards illegitimate children and their mothers!