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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2001-03 > 0983713657


From: "Mary George" <>
Subject: Re: Severall's Mental Hospital Colchester.
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 13:47:37 -0000
References: <003001c0a42a$1098b980$b88193c3@oemcomputer>


This practice (locking away pregnant girls for life) was widespread, and
sometimes accounts for the secrecy imposed on some families who sent their
daughters away to a safe place to have the baby and have it adopted so that
no one knew. That way the daughter could get on with her life on her
return, or get a job elsewhere, perhaps in service. Often the girl's mother
pretended the child was hers - easy when large families and babies late in
life were commonplace at all levels of society. Children would be
registered as child of its grandparents and no one would tell outsiders the
truth.

The sad truth is, it wasn't always the authorities who put the poor girl in
the "madhouse" - families sometimes shut away an errant daughter themselves
to prevent the family name from being besmirched. It was sometimes the fate
of young women who just did not want to conform to the family plans for
them and were considered "difficult" or "wanton", and therefore it was a
means of controlling young women in general. I read an account of one
teenage inmate who was locked up for life because of "mental instability
through a morbid interest in sex" after family found out she had been a
little free with her favours!

Mary G


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