The size of the family has a direct bearing on
the lives of thousands of girls who are living in prostitution.
Poverty, lack of care and training during adolescence, overcrowded
housing conditions which accompany large families are universally
recognized causes of "waywardness" in girls. Social workers have cried
out in vain against these conditions, pointing to their inevitable
results.
In the foreword to "Downward Paths," A. Maude Royden says: "Intimately
connected with this aspect of the question is that of home and
housing, especially of the child. The age at which children are first
corrupted is almost incredibly early, until we consider the nature of
the surroundings in which they grow up. Insufficient space, over-crowding,
the herding together of all ages and both sexes--these things break
down the barriers of a natural modesty and reserve. Where decency
is practically impossible, unchastity will follow, and follow
almost as a matter of course." And the child who has no place to play
except in the street, who lacks mother care, whose chief emotional
experience is the longing for the necessities of life? We know too
well the end of the sorry tale. The forlorn figures of the shadows
where lurk the girls who sell themselves that they may eat and be
clothed rise up to damn the moral dogmatists, who mouth their
sickening exhortations to the wives and mothers of the workers to
breed, breed, breed.
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