Sexuality and Contraception in Modern England: Doing the History of Reproductive Sexuality

Historians of sexuality have almost completely ignored reproduction as a factor relevant to, and potentially influencing, sexual mores or sexual change. This article argues that the economic burden created by reproduction provided the major motivation for individual control of sexuality and for societal attempts to control the sexual activity of individuals in societies shaped by the NorthWest European marriage system. England is used as an example of a culture in which, prior to the late nineteenth century, effective contraception was not available, alternative sexual practices were not acceptable substitutes for coitus, and children were a major economic cost. Where these conditions existed, it was necessary to control sexual activity in order to control reproduction. This article argues that State efforts to reshape opposite-sex sexuality were not successful unless they coincided with people's own ongoing estimate of their needs and desires, which they constructed over generations in response to changing social circumstances and structures, such as urbanization and growing affluence. Further that even in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, the state had the resources to restrain sexual activity seen as deviant only if majority support such for sexual repression existed.