The “Tenets of the C.B.C.” (or to give them their full name, the ‘Tenets of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress’) is one of the most important—and often overlooked—documents in the history of reproductive politics in Britain. Written by Marie Stopes in 1921, it set out the guiding principles for the Mothers’ Clinic at 61 Marlborough Road in Holloway and the clinics that were to follow. Although cited in full in Aylmer Maude’s The Authorized Life of Marie C. Stopes (1924), they were excluded from subsequent biographies of Stopes.
Yet the Tenets matter. They reveal, in Stopes’ own words, the ideological purpose behind her clinics and the framework within which she promoted birth control during the early 1920s. They are also essential for understanding her conflict with Dr Halliday Sutherland and the later Stopes v Sutherland libel case of 1923.
This post summarises what the Tenets said, why they were written, and why they are historically significant.
What the Tenets Were
In 1921, Marie Stopes launched the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress and published a set of principles known as the Tenets of the CBC. While no one tenet was binding on individual members, general agreement with the tenets were sufficient for membership. Today, the original document has been published online by the Wellcome Institute.
The Tenets expressed Stopes’s belief that birth control was not only a personal choice but a tool for improving the “race.” The “constructive birth control” of the Society’s name referred to the positive measures for controlling births (and distinguished it from those who advocated destructive measures such as abortion), while the “racial progress” referred to the implementation of birth control for eugenic reasons.
Key Lines from the Tenets
Several passages from the Tenets are especially important because they state, plainly, the purpose of Stopes’s clinics. For example, Tenet 16 summarised all of aims of the Society:
“In short, we are profoundly and fundamentally a pro-baby organisation, in favour of producing the largest possible of healthy, happy children without detriment to the mother, and with the minimum wastage of infants by premature deaths. In this connection our motto has been “Babies in the right place,” and it is just as much the aim of Constructive Birth Control to secure conception to those married people who are healthy, childless, and desire children, as it is to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased, already overburdened with children, or in any specific way unfitted for parenthood.”
The document categorised people as:
- “healthy” vs “racially diseased”
- “fitted for parenthood” vs “unfitted for parenthood”
“Racial disease” included conditions such as tuberculosis, epilepsy, and other chronic illnesses which were then (incorrectly) believed to be hereditary conditions. “Unfitted for parenthood” was defined broadly. It might arise because of the parents’ “individual ill-health, or the diseased and degenerate nature of the offspring that they may be expected to produce” (Tenet 9) or because of the risk of unemployment (Tenet 11).
The Tenets therefore placed the Mothers’ Clinic in Holloway and subsequent clinics squarely within the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century.
Why the Tenets Matter
Although many biographies of Stopes praise her for expanding access to birth control, the Tenets show the motivating logic behind her project in the early 1920s. The clinics were not presented merely as centres of assistance for poor mothers. They were promoted as a means of improving the racial stock of the nation.
This context is essential for understanding the Stopes v Sutherland libel trial. When Dr Halliday Sutherland accused Stopes of “exposing the poor to experiment”, he was responding to the explicit aims contained in this document. The Tenets offer a clear and direct primary source showing the eugenic reasoning behind the CBC clinics.
Yet modern accounts often omit them entirely. Bringing the Tenets back into discussion ensures that debates about Stopes’s work are grounded not in myth or selective memory, but in the historical record.
Where to Read the Tenets
The full text of the Tenets can be accessed here (link to the Wellcome Collection).
For additional context, background, and related documents, see:
Why Historians and Readers Should Revisit This Document
The Tenets are not an interpretation of Stopes’s views. They are her own words.
They show that:
- birth control advocacy in the early 1920s was deeply intertwined with the broader eugenics movement;
- Stopes positioned her clinics as tools for shaping improving British “racial stocks”;
- and the conflict with Halliday Sutherland was rooted in competing visions of public health, not merely disagreements about contraception.
Understanding these Tenets allows us to reassess the narrative surrounding both Stopes and Sutherland in a way that is historically accurate and grounded in primary sources.
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