Breaking the MATERNAL BOND afforded the female Cuckoo bird the reputation of a frivolous, irresponsible, monstrous and parasitic creature in children‘s literature, ornithology books and natural history museums, throughout the 19th and mid-20th century.

“The interloper [Cuckoo bird] is thus left in sole position of the home, and to its care the deluded foster parents devote all their attention, brooding and feeding it with the care due to a creature of their own flesh and blood. We need not believe that they are so misled as to regard this growing monster as their own chick. (…) they flutter to the nest and feed the criminal.”

William Briggs, Birds in Natural Colours

Women who relinquished their children, were often pigeonholed like the Cuckoo bird as deviant. In a society that had clearly defined roles for women, childless women were seen as UNNATURAL and unwed mothers viewed as deprived individuals. Social mores decreed that a woman‘s role was to procreate, but only in the predefined social arrangement of marriage.

“From colonial times until approximately 1930, society‘s views of unplanned pregnancy and childbirth continued to reflect Puritan, Victorian, and religious influences. In the early decades of this century, perspectives on unplanned pregnancy were also influenced by the growing impact of the theory of evolution. Thus mental retardation and genetic inheritance become customary ways of explaining “illegitimacy”. In this context, the mother was frequently labeled (even in the professional literature) as “feebleminded, and inherently depraved” or possessed of a variety of other “abhorrent, inborn characteristics”. The wide acceptance of these genetically based designations by professionals and nonprofessionals alike served to insure that the “unwed mother” and her child were clearly understood to be deviant members of the community.” 1

Marriage could be called a form of birth control as it regulated reproduction. The laws that define marriage prevented some people from reproducing while encouraging others. 2 Social stigma also played a role as a form of birth control for those women who bore children out of wedlock.

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1 SURRENDERING AN INFANT FOR ADOPTION: THE BIRTHMOTHER EXPERIENCE, Anne B. Brodzinsky in Psychology of Adoption, Edited by David. M. Brodzinky & Marshall D. Schechter, Oxford University Press: New York, 1990 (p. 300)

2 ILLEGITIMACY - AN EXAMINATION OF BASTARDY, Jenny Teichman Cornell University Press: New York, 1982 (p.5)

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