Childcare and Family Management in the Victorian Period According to A Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy for the Use of Parents (1846), Andrew Combe

By MaryRose Minnich

A Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy: For the Use of Parents (1846) was written by Dr. Andrew Combe while he served as a royal physician to Queen Victoria; Combe’s authority was trusted by laypeople and nobility alike. It would have been very easy at the time to see Combe as a good source of medical authority. On the title page of the book, he mentioned his fellowship at the Royal Academy of Medicine and called himself “physician extraordinary,” not only to Queen Victoria, but also briefly serving King Leopold the I of Belgium [1]. Combe’s aim was to simplify existing medical knowledge so that it could be better understood by lay readers: parents, and mothers in particular, whom he viewed with Victorian paternalism. To make his work more accessible, Combe included anecdotes and personal stories to illustrate his points, and the book provides a valuable insight into the social aspirations and family values of the mid-19th century. According to Combe, “we have generally seen that men of genius are generally descended from, and brought up by, mothers distinguished by high mental endowments” [2].

Unintentionally, I selected a primary source written by a man known for helping found the Edinburgh’s National Society of Phrenology. I came upon this fact after wondering if his thoughts around morality were tied to intrinsic genetic values. The text idealized highly intelligent and moral people as caregivers of infants, and expressed mixed sympathy for those he considered to be failing their children. According to Reforming the Commonwealth of Thieves: British Phrenologists and Australia, Combe and his brother George were also at the center of conversations about phrenology in Great Britain. The two focused their respective work on “a review of moral and social issues in light of this new science” [3]. Mid-nineteenth century Britain witnessed a rise in puritanical values that prioritized religion, good moral behavior, and educational opportunities for men. The mainstream ideology of this period centered on what was possible for upper class families, who had the luxury of nutrition, tutors, and mothers who could afford not to work, thereby having time to guide their children to a pure path: this is the most important thing a woman could ever do.

For further insight on the job role of motherhood, the essay Disruptive Bodies and Unruly Sex, looked at the growing moral concern about the poor and working class and the perceived depravity. Smart’s perspective: “Rhetoric about cleaning vice off the streets was imbued with the ideas of extending Christian morality to immoral peoples all over the world. Cleaning up the domestic front became part of the same imperative as that of preserving the empire” [4]. Of the woman who maintains a pure and well-tempered life, Combe says, “She herself becomes healthier and happier, and every day adds to the pleasures of success. If the mother, on the other hand, gives ways to fits of passion, selfishness, caprice, and injustice, the evil is by no means limited to the suffering, which she brings upon herself; her child also suffers both in disposition and in happiness” [5]. Synthesizing information from both Combe and Smart, it feels safe to say that a particular kind of woman was being set up as society’s aspiration as communicated by health and social literature. Historically, royalty were, at least officially, considered to be superior through God’s ordination. In Victorian England, it was normal to reference scripture, sin, and God in conversations from hopes for better crops to advice for how to raise a kid. While the moral burden was disproportionately the mother’s, the idealized concept of motherhood and its religious context was not unusual and probably didn’t seem like a social problem to many mothers, especially if the prevailing idea was that a moral and successful home both contributed to and reflected the success of the British empire.

Combe’s book provided education and advice for child development and developing successful members of society. Combe advised his readers on assessing an infant's readiness to learn moral values, what impact their surroundings would have on their future conduct and emphasized the mother’s role in these things. In Combe’s opinion, from its first moment in the world, an infant is under considerable influence by the morality and behavior of those around it, making it critical to be vigilant in what the infant observes. There are also references to the dangers of indulgence, and how such treatment will lead to selfish and immoral attitudes, “We know well from experience how susceptible the infant is of both physical and mental impressions, and we ought consequentially to be only the more careful about the nature of those made upon its moral faculty is. We have seen certainly how the eye or ear may be cultivated by reiterated exercise to nicest quickest, and most accurate perception or enfeebled and blunted by in-action” [6].

While Combe’s text may read as polemical today, in consideration of the time period and prevailing social ideas, it was likely seen as objective by readers, though even then, phrenological theory was debated. Health and morality seem to have been linked in many minds in the 19th century, so I do wonder if some of Combe’s anecdotes, true or not, might include hyperbolic language to make an emotional appeal toward certain social values like Christianity.

When all is considered, Combe’s book gives a lot of instructions and warnings to parents, but its social scope only comprises those that fit the traditional and idealized family, which is to say, white Christian middle/high class families.

(This post was written for the course HIST H364/H546 The History of Medicine and Public Health. Instructor: Elizabeth Nelson, School of Liberal Arts, Indiana University, Indianapolis).

References:

[1] Andrew Combe, A Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy: For the Use of Parents, from the 4th Edinburgh Ed., New York, NY: Harper, 1846.
[2] Ibid.
[3] D. de Giustino, "Reforming the Commonwealth of Thieves: British Phrenologists and Australia," Victorian Studies, 15, no. 4 (1972): 439-461, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11615195/443.
[4] Carol Smart, "Disruptive Bodies and Unruly Sex: The Regulation of Reproduction and Sexuality in the Nineteenth Centy," in Regulating Womanhood: Historical Essays On Marriage, Motherhood, and Sexuality (London: Routledge), 28.
[5] Combe
[6] Ibid.