Erewhon · Chapter
Birth Formulae explained
The narrator describes the Erewhonian belief in preexistence and their practice of making newborns sign a 'birth formula' that absolves parents of responsibility for the child's birth, placing blame on the unborn child.
What happens
The narrator describes the Erewhonian belief in preexistence and their practice of making newborns sign a 'birth formula' that absolves parents of responsibility for the child's birth, placing blame on the unborn child. The chapter details the ceremony, the legal document, and the narrator's critique of this practice, including a conversation with a Professor of Unreason about the necessity of compromise.
Themes in this chapter
Truth and Deception
The birth formula is a legal fiction that requires children to affirm beliefs they cannot possibly know, undermining truthfulness.
Family and Parent-Child Relations
The formula absolves parents of responsibility for their children's existence and defects, inverting typical family obligations.
Critique of Education
The system teaches children to compromise and accept falsehoods as part of their upbringing, corrupting their 'truth-sense'.
Characters to notice
- Narrator
The narrator learns about Erewhonian birth formulae and questions their ethical implications.
- Mr. Nosnibor
Mr. Nosnibor is one of the sources who informs the narrator about Erewhonian beliefs in preexistence.
- Professors of Unreason
The narrator discusses the birth formula system with a Professor of Unreason, who defends it as a necessary compromise.
- Erewhonians
The Erewhonians are described as believing in preexistence and using birth formulae to shift blame onto the unborn.
- Arowhena
Arowhena is mentioned as not being the source of the information; the narrator heard it from others.
Key passages
“They hold that the unborn are perpetually plaguing and tormenting the married of both sexes, fluttering about them incessantly, and giving them no peace either of mind or body until they have consented to take them under their protection.”
The Erewhonians believe that unborn souls constantly harass married couples until they agree to become parents.
This explains the Erewhonian rationale for birth formulae, shifting blame onto the unborn.
“The deed being thus prepared, on the third or fourth day after the birth of the child, or as they call it, the 'final importunity,' the friends gather together, and there is a feast held, where they are all very melancholy—as a general rule, I believe, quite truly so—and make presents to the father and mother of the child in order to console them for the injury which has just been done them by the unborn.”
A few days after birth, a solemn feast is held where guests mournfully give gifts to the parents as compensation for the harm caused by the child's arrival.
Describes the ritual surrounding the birth formula, treating childbirth as an injury.
“I remember asking him whether he did not think it would do harm to a lad's principles, by weakening his sense of the sanctity of his word and of truth generally, that he should be led into entering upon a solemn declaration as to the truth of things about which all that he can certainly know is that he knows nothing.”
The narrator asks a Professor of Unreason if forcing a child to swear to things he cannot know damages his integrity and respect for truth.
The narrator's critique of the system's effect on moral education.