Spoilers: This post contains spoilers for Downton Abbey up to Season 4, Episode 6 (i.e. the one with the pigs). However, I haven't watched any further (I'm watching along with PBS) so please do not spoil me about future episodes.
When it was revealed that Edith is pregnant, my first thought was "Did they have abortion in England in the 1920s?" I knew that if it existed it was illegal, but I wondered if it was an option at all and, if so, how it worked.
So I was very disappointed that she just changed her mind at the last minute. That simply wasn't a good, interesting use of this plotline, given the setting and the era.
Given the setting and the era, it would have been really interesting to cover how abortion worked. I know they couldn't actually show it (even Call the Midwife had to do it by symbolism) but they could have taught us something about the reality of this era. But by having Edith ultimately choose not to go through with it, they missed that opportunity, and rather wasted precious limited screen time setting us up for it. If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could have her leave after the doctor explains the procedure to her, perhaps because she's afraid to go through with it or because the doctor wants to be paid in sexual favours or something.
Given the setting and the era, it would also have been interesting to see Edith attempting to procure the abortion, by which I mean attempting to find a place to have it done. Perhaps she first asks her doctor, who is shocked and appalled that she should suggest such a thing. Then she has to explore different and shadier avenues, providing us with a lot of interesting historical insight along the way. It's a time-sensitive secret mission! If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could simply have her not be able to figure it out in time. It's certainly not implausible for a sheltered upper-class lady of her era living in a country house not to be able to figure out how to obtain something illegal. But instead they just had the information fall into her hands offscreen (more telling rather than showing!)
But if Edith is going to have the baby, they could also simply not present abortion as an option. It's illegal, and Edith is a sheltered upper-class lady who lives in a country house. It's perfectly plausible she wouldn't even know abortion is an option.
If it's necessary for plot purposes to make Edith deliberately choose to have the baby, they could simply have someone discreetly mention to her that there are things you can do (Isobel would be a good candidate for this), and have her say "Oh no, I could never do that." Done and done, in one 30-second conversation, then we could get into the interesting part of what she'd actually do with the pregnancy and with the baby. (Hide it? Own it? Be disowned?)
But setting up all this intrigue and using all this screen time on a shady illegal abortion only to a) change her mind and walk out and b) do so without giving us any interesting historical details is just a waste of our valuable screen time. And our screen time is in fact valuable, because there are so few episodes and each season covers years. I'd much rather have it used on something other than "Look a plot...no, wait, no, we're just going to walk away from that." Like they did with "Patrick Crawley might be alive or it might be an imposter...but he just wandered off so never mind." Or with "Downton is dying, no wait Matthew inherited money, no wait he won't take it because he left Lavinia for Mary, no wait she was okay with that." Or with "Mary's infertile...no, wait, fixed it." Or with "Sybil is getting a new and interesting life in Ireland...but we're not going to show it to you." All this taking plotlines away rather than resolving them, and telling rather than showing.
Which makes me think this is all going to go away with a soap-opera miscarriage. (And if they wanted to do that, why not have it simply be a pregnancy scare?) If they can't resolve big, live-changing plots, why not just stick to smaller stories? Stories on par with Mrs. Hughes's old beau turning up at the fair or the courtship of Anna and Bates or Lady Mary saves the pigs are the kind of thing Downton does well, so just keep doing them!
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This will never happen on the show, but I think the ideal person to solve all Edith's problems is Sir Anthony Strallan.
In the setting and era of the show, the way a lady secures her future is with a good marriage. Edith did everything right in that respect by getting Sir Anthony to the altar. Moreover, she was (given the reality of her era) very sensible in her choice. She wasn't holding out for a knight in shining armour or a handsome young duke with no war damage or Rudolph Valentino. She chose someone she gets along well with, who makes a good match pragmatically, and didn't blink an eye that he's older and disabled.
By the standards of her era and setting, she did everything right. So, by the standards of her era and setting, she deserves to be married - and, by extension, to be able to honourably have sex and have a baby.
But Sir Anthony left her at the altar - not because of anything she did wrong, but because he thinks, in a sort of romantic idealization - that he's not good enough for her and her life would be worse married to him.
But now she's in a situation where she would clearly and by all standards be better off being married to him. Being married would allow her and her child to live comfortably and respectably. It has already been established that Sir Anthony doesn't have children so this arrangement wouldn't be stealing any rightful inheritances from anyone (with the possible exception of some distance male cousin à la Matthew Crawley - and not even that if Edith's baby ends up being a girl). Yes, his estate would be inherited by someone who isn't his biological child. Fair penalty for abandoning Edith without thinking about her actual, practical, real-life needs and wants. And he still gets companionship and sex and caregiving and family connections with an earl and all the other benefits of an attractive younger wife. All he has to do is provide respectability for a woman he cares about and her child
5 comments:
I'm not watching Downton anymore, but the change-her-mind-at-the-last-minute is standard fare for all abortion-related thoughts. It would be interesting to know how women in 1920s Britain procured abortion, but no one will show us that on US TV (where the masses of viewers are).
I imagine for women of Downton status, it wasn't too difficult to find a doctor who would "take care of it".
How was it handled on Call The Midwife?
I'd imagine a wealthy woman like Edith could easily find the means to pay for it, but it still might be difficult to find a doctor to take care of it if you didn't know where to look. She couldn't go to her regular doctor because he's a family friend (and in fact went to a doctor in London to get diagnosed). Would an aboveboard doctor on that era know where to go for an abortion? Or would he turn her away and shame her? Plus she might have to worry about gossip - would wherever she goes be discreet?
I'd imagine it would be as difficult as trying to obtain illegal drugs if you don't (knowingly) know anyone who has done drugs, have never witnessed drugs being used, and don't have internet access. Might be feasible, but you can't be certain about that until you're successful.
Call the Midwife intercut scenes of the patient getting the abortion (framed to be non-graphic) with scenes of one of the midwives doing her nails in preparation for a date. The scene in question can be seen here. It was so effective that I don't recommend watching it if you're having a gynecological examination within the next few days.
In the episode as a whole, they established that the abortionist (who presents herself as a "herbalist") may be a fraud and is extorting as much money as possible from her patients, and the patients have no way to get her in trouble for doing this because the illegality of abortion prevents them from reporting her to the authorities.
The young midwife who is the protagonist of the series is shocked that this lady would seek an abortion, but the nuns are more philosophical about it. The patient ends up in a hospital because the bleeding won't stop (I forget whether she went there on her own, or the abortionist told her to go, or one of the nuns referred her), and the narrator said that her life was saved because the doctors didn't ask too many questions.
Re Edith, I'm under the impression that many doctors whose patients were wealthy families knew other doctors who would discreetly take care of ladies in need - and also female servants who were pregnant from male family members. I think it was often part of their professional landscape.
But whether Edith or any other woman wanted to trust their family doctor with that information (it would probably mean telling at least one parent), that's another story. And once you're out of the relative safety of the family circle, there are many other problems, just as you say.
I wonder why Edith wouldn't go to her mother, a woman who lugged a dead body through the night to preserve her daughter's reputation. But that was many seasons ago.
Thanks for the Call the Midwife info and link!
Does Edith know that her mother helped move the body? I know she knew that the dead guy slept with Mary, but I don't remember if she knew that they moved the body.
In the series as written, Edith didn't tell her mother because she initially didn't need any help - she'd found an abortion provider herself and she only told Rosamund because Rosamund wouldn't take no for an answer. And then later when she decided not to get an abortion, Rosamund single-handedly arranged for Edith to go out of the country for several months, so there was no need to tell her mother.
(Although I'm baffled why they sent Robert to America if Edith never tells her mother that she's pregnant. I was assuming they had to get him out of the way so the women could work out a plan without him being all huffing and puffing in the way, but she never ended up telling her mother.)
But within this alternate plotline I have in mind where Edith can't find an abortion provider, I think it would be even better if Edith is stuck and has to tell someone in her family, and it turns out that the Dowager Countess (who has proven herself to be a useful ally for Edith since I wrote the original blog post) has the necessary connections.
Does Edith know that her mother helped move the body? I know she knew that the dead guy slept with Mary, but I don't remember if she knew that they moved the body
Good question, I don't know either. I was thinking that Edith would know that her mother is a resourceful woman who will do what it takes. But she might not know what we know.
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