Television viewers are familiar with the “Law and Order” promo: stories “ripped from the headlines.” “No Perfect Mothers” is, in its way, one of these, but the headlines are from 1927. Zacharias’ novel is a fictionalization of the life of Carrie Buck, of Charlottesville, Virginia, and a grim life it was, raised by foster parents because her mother, Emma, is declared unfit. She is ignorant, poor, alcoholic, a sometimes drug abuser and part-time prostitute out of dire necessity.
Now Carrie lives with Alice and J. T. Dobbs. Forced to drop out of school which she loved, in the fifth grade, she is treated like a slave, working in the Dobbses’ house and for neighbors, with Alice Dobbs taking the money. Abused by her husband, Alice is especially cruel, perhaps because she thinks Carrie is an illegitimate daughter of her thuggish husband. All the men in this novel, from the surliest redneck to the dignified physicians and judges, are awful. Female characters lament often that the world, run entirely by men, is cruel and unfair and in this novel they are right.
The theme, the real subject of “No Perfect Mothers,“ is eugenics. In the early twentieth century scientists had come to believe that the human race, like Mendel’s sweet peas or herds of cattle, could be manipulated and improved by breeding. The idea was to eliminate undesirable traits, by force. Sterilization became legal after a decision written by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, giving states the right to perform surgery upon individuals found “unfit” so they could not pass on traits of low intelligence or, in fact, criminal behavior.
The infamous study of the Kallikak family claimed that criminality was an inherited trait, along with “feeblemindedness,” and “all forms of degeneracy from alcoholism to gambling to sexual impurity.” And some Christians believed that, as Adam was entrusted with “the cultivation and pruning of the Creator’s garden,” they were to be a “refining fire that purifies mankind in preparation for a heavenly eternity.’” The ideas of charity and doing unto others were mostly in abeyance. Also, over in Tennessee in July of 1925 the Scopes trial was being held and modern folk were all in favor of science and evolution in that case.
Eugenics was, then, both science and faith, but wrong, riddled with prejudice and ignorance. No consideration was given to the individual human spirit: we are not cattle, and the poor, the Black, the powerless, especially women, were more likely to be sent to the Virginia “Colony” for sterilization. There was no real consideration of environment, special education, the endless possibilities for improvement in people’s lives.
Carrie, the example here, is raped, accused of promiscuity and sent to the “Colony.” Her story, sensitively told, serves to dramatize these events from 1927 but, Zacharias reminds the reader, this practice continues in several states in different forms, right up to the present.
