Married Love was an unprecedented book, which inadvertently redefined female sexuality. Often regarded as the precursor of sex-manuals, Married Love launched Stopes’ enormously successful career as a writer. Published in 1918, Married Love reviewed the intertwining relationship of marriage, sex and contraception, which in Stopes’ view were the fundamental components of a fulfilling and rewarding marriage. Like all discourse, Married Love is heavily embedded within a distinct historical and cultural context. Darwinian theory and the development of eugenics had a phenomenal impact on Stopes. Recognising the equal sexual desire of women would make Married Love greatly influential in the shaping of modern perceptions into female sexuality. Examining the social ethos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Married Love was a pioneering book for its time. The significant transformation of gender roles during the interwar years in combination with the progressing field of sexology, Stopes’ work would be another stepping stone to the democratisation of sexuality. Characterized as the period of sexual ignorance , Stopes’ own sexual dissatisfaction and failed marriage inspired her to begin writing Married Love. The book not only addressed the expectancies and routine of sexual intercourse, but also more contentiously advocated the enjoyment of regular and non-procreative sex within marriage. It would be the static understanding of female sexuality that caused Stopes to contest and write avidly on the subject. For example, the female role during sex had for centuries been understood as primarily passive. The female body was typically understood as an “inferior and inverted version of the male” , though, the female orgasm was believed... ... middle of paper ... ...gland: Marie Stopes's ‘Married Love’ and E. M. Hull's ‘The Sheik’”, Feminist Review, Palgrave Macmillan (1991): 64-87. - Geppert, Alexander C. T. “Divine Sex, Happy Marriage, Regenerated Nation: Marie Stopes's Marital Manual Married Love and the Making of a Best-Seller 1918-1955”. Journal of the History of Sexuality, University of Texas Press (1998): 389-433. - Author Unknown. “Birth Control Libel Action Stopes V. Sutherland” in The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3245, BMJ Publishing Group (March 10, 1923): 445-448 Websites - Francis Perrow. “Marie Stopes: 1880-1958 Planning Pioneer,” Marie Stopes International, (accessed May 03, 2010) - Author Unknown. “Marie Stopes International” (accessed May 03, 2010)
In Making Sex by Thomas Laqueur, the author analysis sexual differences throughout the 18th century reviewing physicians, scientist, biologist and how society understood the anatomy and physiology of the human body. Laqueur brig us two sex models; the one-sex model and the two-sex model. He explains who we transition from the one-sex model to the two-sex model. How this two models had impacted our society and created an impact in history had it to do with the fact that a lot of evidence was drawn from science. Laqueur also explains how society constructed sex. He takes this investigation in very detail as he explains and investigates sexual differences.
Bill Cosby once said that, “For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.” J.J. Lewis (1995-2009) This famous comedian could not have been more correct when recognizing that every marriage will face a multiple number of challenges and is often difficult. Couples, once married, must find a way to end any struggles in order for the marriage to be successful. Marital traditions have changed greatly over the centuries and due to this, the opinion of what an ‘ideal marriage” consists of has changed as well. When reviewing the document “On Love and Marriage” the author (a Merchant of Paris) believes that marriage should not be an equal partnership, but one that pleases the husband to avoid conflict. This can be clearly seen through an examination of: the social, and political environment of the late fourteenth century, and the merchant’s opinions on the area of obedience to a husband, and how to avoid infidelity.
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love.
Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.
Jordanova, Ludmilla. Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the 18th and 20th Centuries. London: Harrester Wheatsheaf, 1989.
the Gothic and Companionate Marriage”. MP: An Online Feminist Journal (2010): 101-115. Web. 16 June 2014
Butler, Judith. "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'". New York. Routledge. 1993
In their book Homicide, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put forth a theory that challenges human societies common notion of human sexuality. They do this in an attempt to bring about a better understanding of homicide and male aggressiveness. According to Daly and Wilson, males instigate the overwhelming majority of "dangerous altercations" and they contend that this is due to "status competition." Status competition is the idea that males must aggressively compete for sexual access to females in order to pass on their genes.
Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
Belkin, Lisa. “The Sex Life.” NYTimes.com The New York Times. 09 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 April 2014.
Foucault, Miachael. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980.
Society created the role of gender and created an emphasis on the differences between the two genders. Alma Gottlieb states: “biological inevitability of the sex organs comes to stand for a perceived inevitability of social roles, expectations, and meanings” (Gottlieb, 167). Sex is the scientific acknowledgment that men and women are biologically different; gender stems from society’s formation of roles assigned to each sex and the emphasis of the differences between the two sexes. The creation of meanings centers on the expectations of the roles each sex should fill; society creates cultural norms that perpetuate these creations. Gender blurs the lines between the differences created by nature and those created by society (Gottlieb, 168); gender is the cultural expectations of sexes, with meaning assigned to the diff...
Blackledge, Catherine. "The Function of the Orgasm." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 272-84. Print.