Social darwinian influences on conceptions of marriage, sex, and motherhood.

This paper examines the influence of social darwinian and eugenic ideologies on paradigms of marriage, sex, and motherhood from 1900 until the present time. Two major ideological trends of the new entrepreneurial class in England and the United States after the Industrial Revolution concerned 1) increasing the marriage and fertility rates of middle and upper class white women; and 2) establishing early parental bonding between these same women and their infants to ensure the perpetuation of (white) "race culture". These ideological concerns are evident in post-1900 eugenically-oriented journals and books on sex and marriage, which discuss increasing marriage and fertility rates of middle and upper class white women, including the postponement of intellectual studies until after the active reproductive period; eugenicist education, selective sterilization of 'unfit' women; and the glorification of sexual intercourse for women. Funding for basic research on reproductive sex, sponsored by the National Research Council, was based in these ideological trends. After WWII blatant eugenic ideologies disappeared. However, post WWII research on mother-infant bonding or attachment gave support to earlier eugenic ideals. Recent examples of the continuation of social darwinian influences, as well as their social and legal implications are discussed.