Dr. Bellair's Effect On Women In Society

Chapter nine is the turning point in the Crux, when Dr. Bellair revealed all her thoughts and goals for women in society. She expressed her opinion regarding feminism movement, eugenics and social class when she tried to stop Vivian from marrying Morton.

First, the medical science’s effect on women was discussed by showing how marring a man who is carrying sexual disease affect women’s lives.

"Never be able to have a child, because I married a man who had gonorrhea. In place of happy love, lonely pain. In place of motherhood, disease. Misery and shame, child. Medicine and surgery, and never any possibility of any child for me”. (Gilman 74)

The psychological and physical effects on women were the main topic within chapter nine. Psychologically, women who can’t practice their motherhood could suffer from feeling lonely depression and a shame.

Bellair. "Will they understand it if they are idiots? Will they see it if they are blind? Will it satisfy you when they are dead?” (Gilman 75)

From social class perspective; women have to marry a man who is clean of diseases, healthy and from the same social class level to be able produce healthy children. Doctor Bellair was only worried about the upper-middle classes and their reproduction. Dr. Bellair instructed Vivian but not Jeanne. The main point within chapter nine is that woman's duty is to produce healthy children. “"Marriage is for motherhood," she said. "That is its initial purpose. I suppose you might deliberately forego motherhood, and undertake a sort of missionary relation to a man, but that is not marriage”. (Gilman 76)

Now medical science became a social science due to the enormous amount of information and research available. People construct their future dissections based on their medical conditions. For example, People with family medical history of diabetic would seek a healthy diet to protect themselves from having the same disease in the