women's sexuality from the progressive era to world war II
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Simmons, Christina
- Publish Year
- 2009
- Shelfmark
- VS 32 2009
- Thesaurus
- seksualiteit, huwelijken, prostitutie, seksuele vorming, SOA's, geboorteregeling, feminisme, zwarte vrouwen, 20e eeuw, Verenigde Staten
- Description
- This book narrates the development of the new companionate marriage ideal, which took hold in the early twentieth century and prevailed in American society by the 1940s. The first challenges to discuss sexual relations between husbands and wives came from social hygiene reformers, who advocated for a sex education to combat prostitution and venereal disease. A more radical group of feminists, anarchists, and bohemians opposed the Victorian model of marriage and even the institution of marriage. Birth control advocates such as Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger openly championed women's rights to acquire and use effective contraception. The 'companionate marriage' emerged from these efforts. This marital ideal was characterized by greater emotional and sexuality intimacy for both men and women, use of birth control to create smaller families, and destigmatization of divorce in cases of failed unions. Simmons examines what she calls the 'flapper' marriage, in which free-spirited young wives enjoyed the early years of marriage, postponing children and domesticity. She looks at the feminist marriage in which women imagined greater equality between the sexes in domestic and paid work and sex. And she explores the African American 'partnership marriage,' which often included wives' employment and drew more heavily on the involvement of the community and extended family.