Społeczno-obyczajowe uwarunkowania porzucania dzieci i dzieciobójstwa w Królestwie Polskim na przełomie XIX i XX wieku

• Authors: Aneta Bołdyrew

Title variants

EN

Social and Moral Conditions for Abandonment of Children and Infanticide in the Kingdom of Poland at the Turn of the 20th Century

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

In the last decades of the 19th century, in the Kingdom of Poland, the scale of social pathologies increased, including infanticide and abandonment of children. Such phenomena were conditioned by a number of social, demographic, economic and moral factors; the processes of urbanization and industrialization played a major part as they resulted in the inflow of great masses of people to cities, who experienced difficulties in the adaptation to new conditions. Poverty, illiteracy, often the lack of steady employment, disintegration of the traditional social groups and the system of values lead to the destabilization of the situation of the immigratory population. This made starting a family difficult, leading to a large number of informal relationships, lone mothers and illegitimate children deprecated by public opinion. The hardships of lonely maternity, lack of support on the part of the state administration and shelters determined the increased number of crimes against children. Also, unfavourable was a common practice of employing wet nurses, who left their own children in the care of hired babysitters, who were knowingly called the “producers of angels” because of the fact of a huge mortality rate among such infants, dying as a result of disastrous care, or, sometimes, simply murdered. Social work of pedagogues, doctors and lawyers slightly improved the fate of the poorest mothers, who most often committed infanticide and abandonment of their children, and, consequently, the scale of such phenomena at the beginning of the 20th century slightly decreased.

EN

In the last decades of the 19th century, in the Kingdom of Poland, the scale of social pathologies increased, including infanticide and abandonment of children. Such phenomena were conditioned by a number of social, demographic, economic and moral factors; the processes of urbanization and industrialization played a major part as they resulted in the inflow of great masses of people to cities, who experienced difficulties in the adaptation to new conditions. Poverty, illiteracy, often the lack of steady employment, disintegration of the traditional social groups and the system of values lead to the destabilization of the situation of the immigratory population. This made starting a family difficult, leading to a large number of informal relationships, lone mothers and illegitimate children deprecated by public opinion. The hardships of lonely maternity, lack of support on the part of the state administration and shelters determined the increased number of crimes against children. Also, unfavourable was a common practice of employing wet nurses, who left their own children in the care of hired babysitters, who were knowingly called the “producers of angels” because of the fact of a huge mortality rate among such infants, dying as a result of disastrous care, or, sometimes, simply murdered. Social work of pedagogues, doctors and lawyers slightly improved the fate of the poorest mothers, who most often committed infanticide and abandonment of their children, and, consequently, the scale of such phenomena at the beginning of the 20th century slightly decreased.

Keywords

PL

abandoned children; infanticide; Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the 20th century

EN

abandoned children; infanticide; Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the 20th century; abandoned children; infanticide; Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the 20th century

• Publisher: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk
• Journal: Biuletyn Historii Wychowania
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 28
• Pages: 35-52

Dates

published

2012-01-01

Contributors

author

Aneta Bołdyrew

• Pracownia Historii Oświaty Wydział Nauk o Wychowaniu Uniwersytet Łódzki

Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/bhw.2012.28.3