The Female Animal: Medical and Biological Views of Woman and Her Role in NineteenthCentury America
Author(s): Carroll Smith-Rosenberg and Charles Rosenberg
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Sep., 1973), pp. 332-356
Published by: Organization of American Historians
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The FemaleAnimal:Medical and Biological
ViewsofWomanandHer Role
in Nineteenth-Century
America
CARROLL SMITH-ROSENBERG
AND
CHARLES ROSENBERG
SINCE at least the time of Hippocratesand Aristotle,the roles assigned
womenhave attractedan elaboratebodyof medicaland biologicaljustification. This was especiallytrue in the nineteenthcenturyas the intellectual
and emotionalcentralityof scienceincreasedsteadily.Would-be scientific
argumentswere used in the rationalization
and legitimization
of almosteveryaspectof Victorianlife,and withparticularvehemencein thoseareas in
whichsocial changeimpliedstressin existingsocial arrangements.
This essay is an attemptto outline some of the shapes assumed by the
nineteenth-century
debate over the ultimatebases for woman's domestic
and child-bearingrole.' In form it resemblesan exercise in the history
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
is assistantprofessorof historyand psychiatry
in the University
of Pennsylvania.Charles Rosenbergis professorof historyin the Universityof Pennsylvania.
' For historicalstudies of women's role and ideological responses to it in nineteenthcenturyAmerica,see William L. O'Neill, Everyonewas Brave: A Historyof Feminismin
America (Chicago, 1969); William Wasserstrom,
Heiress of all the Ages: Sex and Sentiment
in the Victorian Tradition (Minneapolis, 1959); Eleanor Flexner, Centuryof Struggle:
The Woman's RightsMovementin the UnitedStates (New York, 1968); Aileen S. Kraditor,
The Ideas of the Woman SuffrageMovement,1890-1920 (New York, 1965). For studies
emphasizingthe interactionbetweensocial change and sex role conflictsee, Carroll Smith
Rosenberg,"Beauty, the Beast and the Militant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and
Social Stress in JacksonianAmerica," American Quarterly,XXIII (Oct. 1971), 562-84;
Carroll Smith Rosenberg,"The HystericalWoman: Sex Roles and Role Conflictin 19thCenturyAmerica," Social Research, XXXIX (Winter, 1972), 652-78. The problem of
sexualityin the English-speakingworld has been a particularsubject of historicalconcern.
Among the more important,if diverse,attemptsto deal with this problem are Peter T.
Cominos, "Late-VictorianSexual Respectabilityand the Social System,"InternationReview
of Social History, VIII (1963), 18-48, 216-50; Stephen Nissenbaum, "Careful Love:
SylvesterGraham and the Emergenceof Victorian Sexual Theory in America,1830-1840"
(doctoral dissertation,Universityof Wisconsin, 1968); Graham Barker-Benfield,"The
332
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Female Animal
333
of ideas; in intentit representsa hybridwith social and psychological
history.Biological and medicalviews serveas a samplingdevicesuggesting
change,and tension.
and illuminatingpatternsof social continuity,
The relationshipsbetweensocial changeand social stressare dismayingly
to both psychologicaltheoristsand to the historicomplexand recalcitrant
an's normalmodes of analysis.In an attemptto gain insightintotheserelationshipsthe authorshave chosen an analyticapproachbased on the study
of normativedescriptionsof the femalerole at a timeof widespreadsocial
change; not surprisinglyemotion-ladenattemptsto reassertand redefine
thisrole constituteone responseto the stressinducedby such social change.
exist
This approachwas selectedfora varietyof reasons.Role definitions
and
on a level of prescription
beyondtheirembodimentin theindividuality
behaviorof particularhistoricalpersons. They exist ratheras a formally
understoodby and acceptableto a signifiagreedupon set of characteristics
cant proportionof the population.As formallyagreed upon social values
theyare, moreover,retrievablefromhistoricalmaterialsand thussubjectto
however,have a more than platonic
analysis.Such social role definitions,
reality;fortheyexistas parameterswithwhichand againstwhichindividuals must eitherconformor definetheirdeviance. When inappropriateto
social, psychological,or biological realitysuch definitionscan themselves
and demandsforchange.
engenderanxiety,conflict,
During the nineteenthcentury,economic and social forces at work
withinWesternEurope and the United Statesbegan to compromisetraditional social roles. Some women at least began to question-and a few to
challenge overtly-their constrictedplace in society.Naturally enough,
men hopefulof preservingexistingsocial relationships,and in some cases
threatenedthemselvesboth as individualsand as membersof particularsocial groups,employedmedical and biological argumentsto rationalizetraditionalsex roles as rootedinevitablyand irreversibly
in the prescriptions
of anatomyand physiology.This essay examines the ideological attack
mountedby prestigiousand traditionallyminded men againsttwo of the
and desireforchange:
waysin whichwomenexpressedtheirdissatisfaction
Horrorsof the Half Known Life: Aspectsof the Exploitationof Women by Men" (doctoral
dissertation,Universityof California,Los Angeles, 1968); Nathan G. Hale, Jr.,Freud and
the Americans: The Beginningsof Psychoanalysisin the United States, 1876-1917 (New
York, 1971), 24-46; David M. Kennedy,BirthControlin America: The Careerof Margaret
Sanger (New Haven, 1970), 36-71; Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: A Study of
Sexualityand Pornographyin Mid-Nineteenth-Century
England (New York, 1966). See
also Charles E. Rosenberg,"Sexuality,Class and Role in 19th-Century
America,"American
Quarterly,XXV (May 1973), 131-54.
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
women's demands for improvededucationalopportunitiesand theirdecision to resortto birthcontroland abortion.That much of thisoftenemotionallychargeddebatewas oblique and couchedin would-bescientific
and
medical language and metaphormakes it even more significant;for few
spokesmencould explicitlyand consciouslyconfrontthose changes which
impingedupon the bases of theirparticularemotionaladjustment.
The Victorianwoman's ideal social characteristics-nurturance,
intuitive
morality,domesticity,
passivity,and affection-wereall assumed to have a
deeply rooted biological basis. These medical and scientificarguments
formedan ideological systemrigidin its supportof tradition,yetinfinitely
flexiblein the particularmechanismswhichcould be made to explain and
legitimatewoman'srole.
medical orthodoxyinsisted,was starklydifWoman, nineteenth-century
ferentfromthe male of the species. Physically,she was frailer,her skull
smaller,her musclesmore delicate.Even more strikingwas the difference
betweenthe nervoussystemof the two sexes. The female nervoussystem
was finer,"more irritable,"proneto overstimulation
and resultingexhaustion. "The femalesex," as one physicianexplainedin 1827,
is farmoresensitive
and susceptible
thanthemale,and extremely
liableto those
affections
distressing
whichforwantof somebetterterm,havebeendenominated
nervous,and whichconsistchiefly
in painfulaffections
of the head,heart,side,
andindeed,ofalmostevery
partofthesystem.2
"The nervesthemselves,"anotherphysicianconcurreda generationlater,
tare smaller,and of a more delicate structure.They are endowed with
greatersensibility,
and, of course,are liable to more frequentand stronger
impressionsfromexternalagentsor mentalinfluences.'" Few if any questioned the assumptionthat in males the intellectualpropensitiesof the
braindominated,while the female'snervoussystemand emotionsprevailed
over her consciousand rationalfaculties.Thus it was only natural,indeed
' Marshall Hall, Commentarieson some of the moreimportantof the Diseases of Females,
in threeparts (London, 1827), 2. Althoughthis discussioncenterson the nineteenthcentury,it must be understoodthatthese formulationshad a far longerpedigree.
'Stephen Tracy, The Mother and her Offspring(New York, 1860), xv; William
Goodell, Lessons in Gynecology(Philadelphia, 1879), 332; William B. Carpenter,Principles
of Human Physiology:With Their Chief Applicationsto Pathology,Hygiene,and Forensic
Medicine (4th ed., Philadelphia, 1850), 727. In mid-nineteenth
centurymany of these
traditionalviews of woman's peculiar physiologicalcharacteristics
were restatedin termsof
the currently
fashionablephrenology.For example, see Thomas L. Nichols, Woman, in All
Ages and Nations: A Completeand AuthenticHistoryof theMannersand Customs,Character
and Conditionof the Female Sex in Civilized and Savage Countries,fromthe EarliestAges
to the PresentTime (New York, ca. 1849), xi.
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FemaleAnimal
inevitable,thatwomen should be expectedand permittedto displaymore
affectthanmen; it was inherentin theirverybeing.
Physicianssaw woman as the productand prisonerof her reproductive
system.It was the ineluctablebasis of her social role and behavioralcharacthe cause of her mostcommonailments;woman's uterusand ovateristics,
ries controlledher body and behaviorfrompubertythroughmenopause.
The male reproductivesystem,male physiciansassured,exertedno parallel
degree of controlover man's body. Charles D. Meigs, a prominentPhiladelphia gynecologist,stated with assurancein 1847 that a woman is "a
gestativeand parturientcreature."4It was,
moral,a sexual, a germiferous,
anotherphysicianexplained in 1870, "as if the Almighty,in creatingthe
femalesex, had takenthe uterusand builtup a woman aroundit.' A wise
deityhad designedwoman as keeperof the hearth,as breederand rearerof
children.
mechanismsto explain the
Medical wisdom easily supplied hypothetical
betweenthe female's organs of generationand the funcinterconnection
tioningof her otherorgans.The uterus,it was assumed,was connectedto
the centralnervoussystem;shocksto the nervoussystemmightalter the
reproductivecycle-might even mark the gestatingfetus-while changes
in the reproductive
cycleshaped emotionalstates.This intimateand hypotheticallink betweenovaries,uterus,and nervoussystemwas the logical
basis for the "reflexirritation"model of disease causationso popular in
medical textsand monographson psymiddle and late nineteenth-century
chiatryand gynecology.Any imbalance,exhaustion,infection,or otherdisordersof the reproductive
organscould cause pathologicalreactionsin parts
of the body seeminglyremote. Doctors connectednot only the paralyses
and headachesof the hystericto uterinedisease but also ailmentsin virtually everypart of the body. "These diseases," one physicianexplained,
'
'Charles D. Meigs, Lecture on Some of the Distinctive Characteristicsof the Female.
Medical College, January5, 1847 (Philadelphia,
Delivered hefore the Class of the Jefferson
1847), 5.
5M. L. Holbrook, ParturitionwithoutPain: A Code of Directionsfor Escaping fromthe
Primal Curse (New York, 1882), 14-15. See also Edward H. Dixon, Woman, and her
Diseases, from the Cradle to the Grave: Adapted Exclusively to her Instructionin the
Physiologyof her System,and all the Diseases of her CriticalPeriods (New York, 1846),
17; M. K. Hard, Woman's Medical Guide: Being a CompleteReview of the Peculiaritiesof
the Female Constitutionand the Derangementsto which it is Subject. With! a Description
of Simple yet CertainMeans for theirCure (Mt. Vernon,Ohio, 1848), 11.
' In the hypotheticalpathologiesof these generations,the blood was oftenmade to serve
the same functionas thatof the nerves;it could cause generalills to have local manifestations
moreover,physicianshad
and effectsystemicchangesbased on local lesions. By mid-century,
come to understandthatonly the blood supply connectedthe gestatingmotherto her child.
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"will be found,on due investigation,
to be in reality,no disease at all, but
merelythe sympathetic
reactionor the symptomsof one disease, namely,a
diseaseof thewomb."7
Yet despite the commonsensicalview that manysuch ailmentsresulted
fromchildbearing,physiciansoftencontendedthat far greaterdifficulties
could be expectedin childless women. Motherhoodwas woman's normal
destiny,and those females who thwartedthe promiseimmanentin their
body's design mustexpectto suffer.The maiden lady,manyphysiciansargued, was fatedto a greaterincidenceof both physicaland emotionaldisease thanhermarriedsistersand to a shorterlife-span.8Her nervoussystem
was placed underconstantpressure,and herunfulfilledreproductive
organs
-especially at menopause-were prone to cancer and other degenerative
ills.
Woman was thus peculiarlythe creatureof her internalorgans,of tidal
forcesshe could not consciouslycontrol.Ovulation,the physicaland emotional changesof pregnancy,even sexual desire itselfwere determinedby
internalphysiologicalprocessesbeyondthecontrolor even the awarenessof
her consciousvolition.9All womenwere prisonersof the cyclicalaspectsof
theirbodies,of the greatreproductive
cycleboundedby pubertyand menopause, and bythe shorterbut recurrent
cyclesof childbearingand menstruation. All shaped her personality,her social role, her intellectualabilities
and limitations;all presentedas well possibly "critical"momentsin her
development,possible turningpoints in the establishment-or deterioration-of futurephysicaland mentalhealth.As the presidentof the American GynecologicalSocietystatedin 1900: "Many a younglife is battered
and forevercrippled in the breakersof puberty;if it crosses these unharmedand is not dashed to pieces on the rockof childbirth,it may still
groundon the ever-recurring
shallowsof menstruation,
and lastly,upon the
7M. E. Dirix, Woman's Complete Guide to Health (New York, 1869), 24. So fashionable were such models in the late-nineteenth
centurythatAmerica's leading gynecologistin
theopeningyearsof thepresentcenturydespairedof tryingto dispel such exaggeratednotions
fromhis patients'minds. "It is difficult,"
he explained, "even for a healthygirl to rid her
mind of constantimpendingevil fromthe uterusand ovaries,so prevalentis the idea that
woman's ills are mainly'reflexes'fromthe pelvic organs." Gynecologicaltherapywas the
treatment
of choice fora myriadof symptoms.Howard A. Kelly, Medical Gynecology(New
York, 1908), 73.
[[Dr. Porterj Book of Men, Women, and Babies. The Laws of God applied to Obtaining, Rearing,and Developing the Natural, Healthful, and Beautiful in Humanity (New
York, 1855), 56; Tracy,Mother and Offspring,xxiii; H. S. Pomeroy,The Ethics of Marriage (New York, 1888), 78.
9On the involuntaryquality of female sexuality,see Alexander J. C. Skene, Education
and Cultureas Related to the Health and Diseases of Women (Detroit, 1889), 22.
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Female Animal
337
finalbar of the menopauseere protectionis found in the unruffled
waters
of theharborbeyondthereachof sexual storms."'0
Woman's physiologyand anatomy,physicianshabituallyargued, orientedhertowardan "inner"view of herselfand herworldlysphere.(Logicallyenough,nineteenth-century
views of heredityoftenassumedthatthe
fatherwas responsiblefora child's externalmusculatureand skeletaldevelopment,the motherfor the internalviscera,the fatherfor analyticalabilities, the motherfor emotionsand piety.") Their secretinternalorgans,
women were told, determinedtheirbehavior;theirconcernslay inevitably
withinthe home.'2In a passage strikingly
reminiscent
of some mid-twentieth-century
writings,a physicianin 1869 depicted an idealized female
world, rooted in the female reproductivesystem,sharplylimitedsocially
and intellectually,
yet offeringwomen covertand manipulativemodes of
exercisingpower:
Mentally, socially, spiritually,she is more interiorthan man. She herself is an
interiorpart of man, and her love and life are always somethinginteriorand
incomprehensible
to him.... Woman is to deal withdomesticaffections
and uses,
not with philosophies and sciences. . . . She is priest,not king. The house, the
chamber,the closet, are the centresof her social life and power, as surelyas the
sun is the centreof the solar system.... Anotherproofof theinteriority
of woman,
is the wonderfulsecretivenessand power of dissimulationwhichshe possesses....
Woman's secrecyis notcunning;her dissimulationis notfraud.They are intuitions
or spiritualperceptions,full of tact and wisdom,leading her to conceal or reveal,
to speak or be silent,to do or not to do, exactlyat the righttimeand in the right
place.13
The image grantedwomen in these hypotheticaldesigns was remarkably
consistentwiththe social role traditionally
allottedthem.The instinctsconnectedwith ovulationmade her by naturegentle,affectionate,
and nurtu10 George Engelmann,The AmericanGirl of To-Day: Modern Education and Functional
Health (Washington,1900), 9-10.
" Alexander Harvey, "On the Relative Influenceof the Male and Female
Parentsin the
Reproductionof the Animal Species," MonthlyJournal of Medical Science, XIX (Aug.
1854), 108-18; M. A. Pallen, "Heritage, or HereditaryTransmission,"St. Louis Medical
& Surgical Journal,XIV (Nov. 1856), 495. William Warren Potter,How Should Girls
be Educated?A Public Health ProblemforMothers,Educators,and Physicians(Philadelphia,
1891), 9.
12 As one clerical analystexplained, "All the spare force of nature is concernedin this
interiornutritivesystem,unfitting
and disincliningthe woman for strenuousmuscularand
mentalenterprise,while providingfor the shelterand nourishmentof offspringthroughout
protractedperiodsof embryoand infancy."William C. Conant,"Sex in Nature and Society,"
BaptistQuarterly,IV (April 1870), 183.
13 William H. Holcombe, The Sexes here and hereafter(Philadelphia, 1869), 201-02.
William Holcombe was a Swedenborgian,and these contrastingviews of the masculineand
femininealso reflectNew Churchdoctrines.
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
and pregnancy,she was
rant. Weaker in body, confinedby menstruation
moreforcebothphysicallyand economicallydependentupon the stronger,
lookedup to withadmirationand devotion.
fulmale,to whomshenecessarily
yet entirely
Such stylizedformulaeembodied,however,a characteristic
functionalambiguity.The Victorianwoman was more spiritualthan man,
yet less intellectual,closer to the divine,yetprisonerof her most animal
characteristics,
moremoralthanman, yetless in controlof her verymorality.While the sentimentalpoets placed woman among the angels and doctorspraised the transcendent
calling of her reproductivesystem,social taboos made woman ashamed of menstruation,
embarrassedand withdrawn
duringpregnancy,self-consciousand purposelessduringand aftermenopause. Her body,which so inexorablydefinedher personalityand limited
The veryroher role,appearedto woman oftendegradingand confining.'4
discussionsof
nineteenth-century
manticrhetoricwhichtendedto suffocate
femininity
onlyunderlinedwithironythe distancebetweenbehavioralrealityand theformsof conventionalideology.
The natureof the formalisticschemeimpliedas well a relationshipbetweenthe fulfillingof its truecalling and ultimatesocial health.A woman
who lived "unphysiologically"-and she could do so by readingor studywork,
ing in excess,by wearingimproperclothing,bylong hoursof factory
or by a sedentary,
luxuriouslife-could produceonlyweak and degenerate
offspring.Until the twentiethcentury,it was almost universallyassumed
that acquired characteristics
in the formof damage fromdisease and imthroughheredity;a nerin parentswould be transmitted
properlife-styles
vous and debilitatedmothercould have onlynervous,dyspeptic,and undersized children.'5Thus appropriatefemalebehaviorwas sanctionednot only
by traditionalinjunctionsagainst the avoidance of individual sin in the
formof inappropriateand thus unnaturalmodes of life but also by the
higher duty of protectingthe transcendentgood of social health, which
could be maintainedonlythroughthecontinuedproductionof healthychildren. Such argumentswere to be invokedwith increasingfrequencyas the
nineteenth
centuryprogressed.
In mid-nineteenth-century
America it was apparentthatwomen-or at
manymiddle-classwomen "soughtto hide theirimaginedshame
1 In regardto pregnancy
as long as possible," by tighteningcorsetsand then remainingindoors,shunningeven the
best of friends-certainlyneverdiscussingtheimpendingevent.HenryB. Hemenway,Healthful Womanhood and Childhood: Plain Talks to Non-ProfessionalReaders (Evanston, Ill.,
1894); Elizabeth Evans, The Abuse of Maternity(Philadelphia, 1875), 28-29.
15 For a briefsummary
assumptionsin regardto humangenetics,
of late nineteenth-century
see Charles E. Rosenberg,"Factors in the Development of Genetics in the United States:
Some Suggestions,"Journalof the Historyof Medicine, XXII (Jan. 1967), 31-33.
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FemaleAnimal
339
least some of them-were growing dissatisfiedwith traditionalroles.
Americansocietyin mid-nineteenth
centurywas committed-at least formally-to egalitariandemocracyand evangelicalpiety.It was thusa society
whichpresumablyvalued individualism,social and economicmobility,and
free will. At the same time it was a societyexperiencingrapid economic
growth,one in which an increasingnumberof familiescould think of
themselvesas middle class and could seek a life-styleappropriateto that
station.At least some middle-classwomen, freed economicallyfromthe
day-to-day
strugglefor subsistence,foundin thesevalues a motivationand
rationaleforexpandingtheirrolesintoareas outsidethehome. In theJacksonian crusadesfor piety,for temperance,for abolition,and in pioneering
efforts
to aid the urbanpoor,womenplayeda prominentrole,a role clearly
outside the confinesof the home. Women began as well to demand improved educationalopportunities-evenadmissionto colleges and medical
schools. A far greaternumberbegan, thoughmore covertly,to see family
limitationas a necessityif theywould preservehealth,status,economicsecurity,and individualautonomy.
Only a handfulof nineteenth-century
Americanwomenmade a commitmentto overtfeminismand to the insecurity
and hostilitysuch a commitmentimplied.But humanitarianreform,education,and birthcontrolwere
all issues which presentedthemselvesas real alternativesto everyrespectable churchgoingAmericanwoman.16Contemporary
medicaland biological
argumentsidentified,
reflected,
and helped to eliminatetwo of thesethreats
to traditionalrole definitions:demandsbywomen forhighereducationand
familylimitation.
Since the beginningsof the nineteenth
century,
Americanphysiciansand
social commentators
generallyhad fearedthatAmericanwomenwere physically inferiorto theirEnglish and Continentalsisters.The youngwomen
of the urban middle and upper classes seemed in particularless vigorous,
more nervousthan eithertheirown grandmothers
or European contemporaries.Concernamong physicians,educators,and publicistsover the physical deterioration
of Americanwomanhoodgrew steadilyduringthe nineteenthcenturyand reacheda highpointin itslast third.
'" Since both male and femalewere ordinarilyinvolvedin decisionsto practicebirthcontrol, the cases are not strictlyanalogous. Both, however,illustrateareas of social conflict
organized about stresson traditionalrole characteristics.
This discussion emphasizes only
those aspects of the birthcontroldebate which placed responsibilityon the woman. Commentatorsdid indeed differin such emphases; in regard to abortion,however,writersof
everyreligiousand ideological persuasionagreed in seeing the matteras woman's responsibility.
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
Many physicianswere convincedthat educationwas a major factorin
especiallyeducationduringpubertyand
bringingabout this deterioration,
adolescence.It was duringthese yearsthatthe femalereproductivesystem
matured,and it was thisprocessof maturationthatdeterminedthe quality
bear. During puof the childrenwhichAmericanwomenwould ultimately
berty,orthodoxmedical doctrineinsisted,a girl's vitalenergiesmustbe devoted to developmentof the reproductiveorgans.Physicianssaw the body
as a closed systempossessingonly a limitedamountof vital force;energy
expended in one area was necessarilyremovedfromanother.The girl who
curtailedbrainworkduringpubertycould devoteher body'sfull energyto
the optimumdevelopmentof its reproductivecapacities.A youngwoman,
however,who consumedher vital forcein intellectualactivitieswas necessarilydivertingthese energiesfromthe achievementof truewomanhood.
She would become weak and nervous,perhapssterile,or more commonly,
and in a sense more dangerouslyforsociety,capable of bearingonlysickly
and neuroticchildren-childrenable to produceonlyfeeblerand moredeThe brainand ovarycould not develop at
generateversionsof themselves."7
physicianswarned, must protectthe
the same time. Society,mid-century
highergood of racialhealthby avoidingsituationsin whichadolescentgirls
taxed theirintellectualfacultiesin academic competition."Why," as one
physicianpointedlyasked, "spoil a good motherby making an ordinary
grammarian?"18
Yet wheredid America'sdaughtersspend theseyearsof pubertyand adolescence,doctorsasked,especiallythe daughtersof the nation'smostvirtuous and successfulmiddle-classfamilies?They spenttheseyearsin schools;
theysat for long hourseach day bendingover desks,readingthickbooks,
competingwithboysfor honors.Their healthand thatof theirfuturechildren would be inevitablymarkedby the consequencesof such unnatural
modes of life.19If such evils resultedfromsecondaryeducation,even more
"The results,"as Edward H. Clarke put it in his widelydiscussedpolemicon the subject,
and abnormallyweak
are monstrousbrainsand punybodies; abnormallyactivecerebration,
digestion; flowingthoughtand constipatedbowels; loftyaspirationsand neuralgicsensations. . . ." Edward H. Clarke,Sex in Education: Or, a Fair ChanceforGirls (Boston, 1873),
41. Thomas A. Emmett,in his widely used textbookof gynecology,warned in 1879 that
girls of the betterclasses should spend the year before'and two yearsafterpubertyat rest.
"Each menstrualperiod should be passed in the recumbentpositionuntilher systembecomes
accustomedto the new orderof life." Thomas Addis Emmett,The Principlesand Practiceof
Gynecology(Philadelphia, 1879), 21.
" T. S. Clouston, Female Education froma Medical Point of View (Edinburgh, 1882),
20; Potter,How Should Girls be Educated? 9.
effectsof woman's secondaryeducationservedas a frequentsancThe baleful hereditary
dionagainst this unnaturalactivity.LawrenceIrwell, "The Competitionof the Sexes and its
1
19
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Female Animal
dramaticallyunwholesomewas the influenceof highereducationupon the
healthof thosefew womenintrepidenoughto undertakeit. Yet theirnumbers increasedsteadily,especiallyaftera few women'scolleges were established in the East and stateuniversitiesin the Midwest and PacificCoast
began cautiouslyto accept coeducation.Women could now, criticsagoand
nized, spend the entireperiod betweenthe beginningof menstruation
study.Their adothe maturationof theirovariansystemsin nerve-draining
lescence,as one doctorpointedout,contrastedsadlywiththoseexperienced
got their
by healthier,more fruitfulforebears:"Our great-grandmothers
for the
lie
fallow
brains
schoolingduringthe wintermonthsand let their
restof the year.They knew less about Euclid and the classicsthantheydid
about housekeepingand housework.But theymade good wives and mothers, and bore and nursedsturdysons and buxom daughtersand plentyof
themat that.''20
Constantcompetitionamongthemselvesand withthe physicallystronger
males disarrangedthe coed's nervoussystem,leaving her anxious,preyto
complainedas late as 1901:
hysteriaand neurasthenia.One gynecologist
the nervousforce,so necessaryat pubertyfor the establishmentof the menstrual
function,is wasted on what may be comparedas triflesto perfecthealth,forwhat
use are they withouthealth? The poor suffereronly adds anotherto the great
armyof neurastheniaand sexual incompetents,which furnishneurologistsand
gynecologistswith so much of theirmaterial. . . brighteyes have been dulled by
crossnessand hysteria,
intoirritability,
the brain-fagand sweettempertransformed
while the womanhood of the land is deterioratingphysically.
She may be highly cultured and accomplished and shine in society,but her
futurehusband will discovertoo late that he has marrieda large outfitof headaches, backachesand spine aches, insteadof a woman fittedto take up the duties
of life.21
Such speculationsexerted a stronginfluenceupon educators,even those
which admittedwomen. The stateuniversities,
connectedwith institutions
for example,oftenprescribeda lightercourse load for femalesor refused
to permitwomen admissionto regulardegree programs."Everyphysiologist is well aware," the Regentsof the Universityof Wisconsin explained
Results," AmericanMedico-SurgicalBulletin, X (Sept. 19, 1896), 319-20. All the doyens
century-Emmett,J. Marion Sims,T. Gaillard
of Americangynecologyin the late-nineteenth
Thomas, Charles D. Meigs, William Goodell, and Mitchell-shared the convictionthat
higher education and excessive developmentof the nervous systemmight interferewith
of her maternalfunctions.
woman's properperformance
'William Goodell, Lessons in Gynecology(Philadelphia, 1879), 353.
21William Edgar Darnall, "The Pubescent Schoolgirl," American Gynecological& ObstetricalJournal,XVIII (June 1901), 490.
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
342
in 1877, thatat statedtimes,naturemakesa greatdemand upon the energies of earlywomanhoodand thatat thesetimesgreatcautionmustbe exercised lest injury be done....
Education is greatlyto be desired," the Regents
concluded:
of thestateshouldbe without
a University
matrons
butit is betterthatthefuture
training
thanthatit shouldbe producedat thefearfulexpenseof ruinedhealth;
women,
hearty,
healthy
better
thatthefuture
mothers
of thestateshouldbe robust,
thegermsof disease.22
thanthat,byoverstudy,
theyentailupontheirdescendants
This fear for succeedinggenerationsborn of educatedwomen was widenoted,
spread. "We want to have body as well as mind," one commentator
"otherwisethe degenerationof the race is inevitable.'"23 Such transcendent
made the individualwoman's personalambitionsseem trivresponsibilities
ial indeed.
One of the remediessuggestedby both educatorsand physicianslay in
qualityof Americaneducationwith
temperingthe intenselyintellectualistic
health reforma restorativeemphasison physicaleducation.Significantly,
ers' demands for women's physical education were ordinarilyjustified
not in terms of freeing the middle-classwoman from traditionalrestrictions
on bodilymovement,but ratheras upgradingher ultimatematercalled indeed for
nal capacities.Several would-be physiologicalreformers
activeparticipationin house-cleaningas an ideal mode of physicalculture
for the servant-coddledAmerican girl. Bedmaking, clothes scrubbing,
sweeping,and scouringprovideda variedand highlyappropriateregimen.24
women physicians,as mighthave been expected,
Late nineteenth-century
failed ordinarilyto share the alarm of theirmale colleagueswhen contemplatingthe dangersof coeducation.No one, a femalephysiciancommented
sardonically,workedharderor in unhealthierconditionsthan the washerwoman; yet, would-be saviors of Americanwomanhood did not inveigh
againstthis abuse-washing, afterall, was appropriatework for women.
'Board of Regents,Universityof Wisconsin,Annual Report,for the Year Ending, September30, 1877 (Madison, 1877), 45.
2 Clouston,Female Education,19.
24
James E. Reeves, The Physical and Moral Causes of Bad Health in American Women
(Wheeling, W.Va., 1875), 28; John Ellis, Deterioration of the Puritan Stock and its
Causes (New York, 1884), 7; George Everett,Health Fragmentsor, Steps Toward a True
Life. EmbracingHealth, Digestion, Disease, and the Science of the ReproductiveOrgans
(New York, 1874), 37; Nathan Allen, "The Law of Human Increase; Or Population based
on Physiologyand Psychology,"QuarterlyJournal of PsychologicalMedicine, II (April
1868), 231; Nathan Allen, "The New England Family," New Englander (March 1882),
9-10; Pye Henry Chavasse, Advice to a Wife on the Managementof her Own Health. And
on the Treatmentof Some of the ComplaintsIncidentalto Pregnancy,Labour and Suckling
with an IntroductoryChapter especiallyAddressedto a Young Wife (New York, 1886),
73-75.
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Female Animal
343
Women doctorsoftendid agree withthe generalobservationthattheirsisters were too frequentlyweak and unhealthy;however,theyblamed not
of dressand slaveryto fashion,
educationor social activismbut artificialities
whichtheyfoundparticularly
aspectsof the middle-classwoman's life-style
demeaning."The factis thatgirlsand womencan bear study,"Alice Stockham explained, "but theycannot bear compressedviscera,torturedstomachs and displaced uterus," the resultsof fashionableclothing and an
equallyfashionablesedentarylife. Anotherwomanphysician,Sarah Stevenson, wrote in a similarvein: " 'How do I look?' is the everlastingstory
fromthe beginningto the end of woman's life. Looks, not books, are the
murderers
of Americanwomen."25
over woman's educationwas
Even more significant
thanthiscontroversy
a parallel debate focusingon the questionsof birthcontroland abortion.
These issues affectednot simplya small percentageof middle-and uppermiddle-classwomen,but all men and women.It is one of thegreatand still
social history.Everymarlargelyunstudiedrealitiesof nineteenth-century
ried woman was immediatelyaffectedby the realitiesof childbearingand
child rearing.Though birthcontroland abortionhad been practiced,discenturysaw a
cussed-and reprobated-for centuries,the mid-nineteenth
and medidramaticincreasein concernamong spokesmenforthe ministry
cal profession.26
Particularlyalarmingwas the casualness,doctorscharged,with which
seeminglyrespectablewives and motherscontemplatedand undertook
abortions,and how routinelytheypracticedbirthcontrol.One prominent
'Sarah H. Stevenson,The Physiologyof Woman, EmbracingGirlhood, Maternityand
Mature Age (2nd ed., Chicago, 1881), 68, 77; Alice Stockham,Tokology: A Book for
Every Woman (rev. ed., Chicago, 1887), 257. Sarah H. Stevensonnoted acidly that "the
unerringinstinctsof woman have been an eloquent themefor those who do not know what
theyare talkingabout." Stevenson,Physiologyof Woman, 79. The dress reformmovement
held, of course, far more significantimplicationsthan one would gather fromthe usually
whimsicalattitudewith which it is normallyapproached; clotheswere verymuch a 'partof
woman's role. Health reformers,
oftencriticalas well of the medical establishmentwhose
argumentswe have-essentially-been describing,were oftensympathetic
to women's claims
that not too much, but too little,mentalstimulationwas the cause of their ills, especially
psychologicalones. M. L. Holbrook, Hygiene of the Brain and Nerves and the Cure of
Nervousness (New York, 1878), 63-64, 122-23; JamesC. Jackson,AmericanWomanhood:
Its Peculiaritiesand Necessities (Dansville, N.Y., 1870), 127-31.
26 For documentation
of the progressivedrop in the whiteAmericanbirthrate duringthe
nineteenthcentury,and some possible reasons for this phenomenon,see Yasukichi Yasuba,
Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States,1800-1860: An Economic Study
(Baltimore, 1962); J. Potter,"American Population in the Early National Period," Paul
Deprez, ed., Proceedingsof Section V of the FourthCongressof the InternationalEconomic
HistoryAssociation (Winnipeg, Canada, 1970), 55-69. For a more general backgroundto
this trend,see A. M. Carr-Saunders,World Population: Past Growthand Present Trends
(London, 1936).
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
New York gynecologistcomplained in 1874 that well-dressedwomen
walked into his consultationroom and asked for abortionsas casuallyas
theywould fora cut of beefsteakat theirbutcher.27
In 1857, the American
Medical Associationnominateda special committeeto reporton the problem; then appointedanotherin the 1870s; betweenthese dates and especially in the late 1860s, medical societiesthroughoutthe countrypassed
resolutionsattackingthe prevalenceof abortionand birthcontroland condemning physicianswho performedand condoned such illicit practices.
Nevertheless,abortionscould in the 1870s be obtainedin Bostonand New
York foras littleas tendollars,whileabortifacients
could be purchasedmore
cheaplyor throughthe mail. Even the smallestvillages and ruralareas provided a marketfor the abortionist'sservices;women often aborted any
pregnancywhichoccurredin the firstfew yearsof marriage.The Michigan
Board of Health estimatedin 1898 thatone thirdof all the state'spregnancies ended in abortion.From 70 to 80 percentof these were secured,the
board contended,by prosperousand otherwiserespectablemarriedwomen
who could not offereven the unmarriedmother's"excuse of shame."28By
the 1880s, English medical moralistscould referto birthcontrolas the
"Americansin" and warn againstEngland's women followingin the path
of America'sfaithlesswives.29
27 A. K. Gardner,Conjugal Sins against the Laws of Life and Health (New York, 1874),
131. H. R. Storerof Boston was probablythe mostprominentand widelyread criticof such
"conjugal sins." Abortionhad in particularbeen discussed and attackedsince early in the
century,thoughit was not until the postbellumyearsthatit becamea widespreadconcernof
moral reformers.Alexander Draper, Observationson Abortion. With an Account of the
Means both Medicinal and Mechanical,Employedto Produce thatEffect. . . (Philadelphia,
1839); Hugh L. Hodge, On CriminalAbortion;A Lecture (Philadelphia, 1854). Advocates
of birth control routinelyused the dangers and prevalenceof abortion as one argument
justifyingtheircause.
2 Report of the Suffolk District Medical Society On Criminal Abortion and Ordered
Printed. . . May 9, [18573 (Boston, 1857), 2. The reportwas almost certainlywrittenby
Storer.The Michigan reportis summarizedin William D. Haggard, Abortion:Accidental,
Essential, Criminal. Address before the Nashville Academy of Medicine, Aug. 4, 1898
(Nashville, Tenn., 1898), 10. For samples of contemporarydescriptionsof prevalence,
cheapness,and other aspects of abortionand birthcontrolin the period, see Ely Van De
Warker, The Detection of Criminal Abortion,and a Study of Foeticidal Drugs (Boston,
1872); Evans, Abuse of Maternity;Horatio R. Storer,Why Not? A Book forEveryWoman
(2nd ed., Boston, 1868); [N. F. Cooke Satan in Society: By A Physician (Cincinnati,
1876); Discussion, Transactionsof the Homeopathic Medical Society of New York, IV
(1866), 9-10; H. R. Storerand F. F. Heard, Criminal Abortion (Boston, 1868); H. C.
Ghent,"CriminalAbortion,or Foeticide,"Transactionsof the Texas State Medical Association at the Annual Session 1888-89 (1888-1889), 119-46; Hugh Hodge, Foeticide, or
Criminal Abortion. A Lecture Introductoryto the Course on Obstetrics,and Diseases of
Women and Children.Universityof Pennsylvania(Philadelphia, 1869), 3-10. Much of the
medical discussioncenteredabout the need to convincewomen thatthe traditionalview that
abortionwas no crime if performedbeforequickeningwas false and immoraland to pass
againstabortionists.
and enforcelaws and medicalsocietyproscriptions
' Comparethe warningof Pomeroy,Ethics of Marriage,v, 56, with the editorial,"A Con-
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Female Animal
345
So general a phenomenondemands explanation.The only serious attemptsto explainthe prevalenceof birthcontrolin thisperiodhave emphasized the economicmotivationsof those practicingit-the need in an increasinglyurban,industrial,and bureaucratizedsocietyto limitnumbersof
childrenso as to provide security,
education,and inheritancefor those alreadybroughtinto the world. As the nineteenthcenturyprogressed,it has
been argued, definitionsof appropriatemiddle-classlife-stylesdictateda
more and more expansivepatternof consumption,a pattern-especiallyin
an era of recurringeconomicinstability-particularly
threatening
to those
large numbersof Americansonly precariously
membersof the secureeconomic classes. The need to limitoffspring
was a necessityif familystatus
was to be maintained.30
Otheraspectsof nineteenth-century
birthcontrolhave receivedmuchless
historicalattention.One of theseneeds onlyto be mentionedforit poses no
interpretative
complexities;this was the frequencywith which childbirth
meant for women pain and oftenlingeringincapacity.Death fromchildbirth,torncervixes,fistulae,prolapseduteriwerewidespread"femalecomplaints" in a period when gynecologicalpracticewas still relativelyprimitive and pregnancyevery few years common indeed. John Humphrey
Noyes, perhapsthe best-knownadvocateof familyplanningin nineteenthcenturyAmerica,explainedpoignantlywhyhe and his wife had decidedto
practicebirthcontrolin the 1840s:
The [decision}was occasioned
andevenforceduponmebyverysorrowful
experiences.In thecourseof six yearsmywifewentthrough
theagoniesof fivebirths.
Four of themwere premature.Only one child lived....
Afterour last disappoint-
ment,I pledgedmywordto mywifethatI would neveragain exposeher to
suchfruitless
suffering.
. . .31
viction for Criminal Abortion,"Boston Medical & Surgical Journal,CVI (Jan. 5, 1882),
thatdiscussionsof birthcontrolin theUnitedStatesalwaysemphasized
18-19. It is significant
the role and motivationsof middle-classwomen and men; in England,followingthe canon
of the traditionalMalthusian debate, the workingclass and its needs played a far more
prominentrole. Not until late in the centurydid Americanbirthcontroladvocatestend to
concernthemselveswith the needs and welfareof the workingpopulation. It is significant
as well that English birthcontroladvocates oftenused the prevalenceof infanticideas an
argumentfor birth control; in America this was rarelydiscussed. And one doubts if the
greaterin London thanNew York.
actual incidenceof infanticidewas substantially
" For a guide to literatureon birthcontrolin nineteenth-century
America,see Norman
Himes, Medical Historyof Contraception(Baltimore,1936). See also J. A. Banks,Prosperity
and Parenthood:A Studyof FamilyPlanningamong the VictorianMiddle Classes (London,
1954), and J. A. and Olive Banks, Feminismand Family Planning in VictorianEngland
(Liverpool, 1964); MargaretHewitt, Wives and Mothersin VictorianIndustry(London,
ca. 1958). For the twentiethcentury,see David M. Kennedy,BirthControlin America.
' John HumphreyNoyes, Male Continence(Oneida, N.Y., 1872), 10-11.
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The Noyeses' experiencewas duplicatedin many homes. Young women
were simplyterrified
of havingchildren.32
Such fears,of course,were not peculiarto nineteenth-century
America.
The dangersof disabilityand death consequentupon childbirthextended
back to the beginningof time, as did the anxietyand depressionso frequentlyassociatedwithpregnancy.What mightbe suggested,however,was
thateconomicand technologicalchangesin societyadded new parameters
to the age-oldexperience.Familylimitationforeconomicand social reasons
now appeared more desirableto a growingnumberof husbands; it was,
perhaps, also, more technicallyfeasible. Consequentlymarried women
to
could begin to consider,probablyforthe firsttime,alternativelife-styles
thatof multiplepregnanciesextendingover a thirdof theirlives. Women
could begin to view the pain and bodilyinjurywhich resultedfromsuch
pregnanciesnot simplyas a conditionto be bornewithfatalismand passivity,but as a situationthatcould be avoided. It is quite probable,therefore,
that,in thisnew social context,increasedanxietyand depressionwould result once a woman,in partat least voluntarily,
becamepregnant.Certainly,
it could be argued,such fearsmusthave alteredwomen's attitudestoward
sexual relationsgenerally.Indeed the decisionto practicebirthcontrolmust
necessarilyhave held more than economicand statusimplicationsfor the
family;it musthave become an elementin the fabricof everymarriage's
particularpsycho-sexual
reality.33
A thirdand even moreambiguousaspectof the birthcontrolcontroversy
in nineteenth-century
Americarelatesto the way in whichattitudestoward
contraception
and abortionreflectedrole conflictwithinthe family.Again
and again, fromthe 1840s on, defendersof familyplanning-including
" It is not surprisingthat the design for a proto-diaphragm
patentedas early as 1846
should have been called 'The Wife's Protector."J. B. Beers,"Instrumentto PreventConception, PatentedAug. 28th, 1846," design and drawings (Historical Collections,Libraryof
the College of Physiciansof Philadelphia).
forexample,even if the male had consciouslychosen,indeed urged,
3 In some marriages,
deprivedof a dimensionof sexual pleasureand
thepracticeof birthcontrol,he was effectively
of the numerouschildrenwhich served as tangibleand traditionalsymbolsof masculinity
as well as the controlover his wife which the existenceof such childrenimplied. In some
bemarriages,however,birth control might well have broughtgreatersexual fulfillment
cause it reducedthe anxietyof the femalepartner.Throughoutthe nineteenthcenturywithdrawal was almost certainlythe most commonformof birthcontrol.One authordescribed
it as "a practiceso universalthatit maywell be termeda nationalvice, so commonthatit is
for the commissionof which the husband
unblushinglyacknowledgedby its perpetrators,
is even eulogized by his wife." [Cook,] Satan in Society,152. One Englishadvocateof birth
controlwas candidenoughto argue that"the real objectionunderlyingtheopposition,though
it is notopenlyexpressed,is theidea of thedeprivationof pleasuresupposed to be involved."
Austin Holyyoake,Large or Small Families (London, 1892), 11.
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Female Animal
347
individuals as varied and idealistic as Noyes and Stockham,on the one
hand, and assortedquack doctorsand peddlers of abortifacients,
on the
other-justifiedtheiractivitiesnot in economicterms,but underthe rubric
of providingwomenwithlibertyand autonomy.Woman, theyarguedwith
remarkableunanimity,mustcontrolher own body; withoutthis she was a
slave not only to the sexual impulsesof her husband but also to endless
childbearingand rearing."Woman's equalityin all the relationsof life," a
New York physicianwrotein 1866, "impliesher absolutesupremacyin the
sexual relation.. . . it is her absoluteand indefeasiblerightto determine
when she will and when she will not be exposed to pregnancy.""God and
Nature," anotherphysicianurged,"have given to the femalethe complete
controlof her own person,so far as sexual congressand reproductionare
concerned."34 The assumptionof all these writerswas clear and unqualilied: women,if free to do so, would choose to have sexual relationsless
frequently,
and to have farfewerpregnancies.
Implied in theseargumentsas well were differences
as to the natureand
functionof sexual intercourse.
Was its principaland exclusivelyjustifiable
function,as conservativephysiciansand clergymenargued,the procreation
" R. T. Trall, Sexual Physiology.A
Scientificand Popular Expositionof the Fundamental
Problems in Sociology (New York, 1866), xi, 202. As women awoke to a realizationof
theirown "individuality,"as a birthcontroladvocateexplained it in the 1880s, theywould
rebel against such "enforcedmaternity."E. B. Foote, Jr.,The Radical Remedyin Social Science: Or, BorningBetterBabies (New York, 1886), 132. See also Stevenson,Physiologyof
Women, 91; T. L. Nichols, Esoteric Anthropology(New York, 1824); E. H. Heywood,
Cupid's Yokes: Or, the BindingForce of Conjugal Life (Princeton,Mass., 1877); Stockham,
Tokology,250; Alice Stockholm,Karezza: Ethics of Marriage (Chicago, 1896); E. B. Foote,
Medical CommonsenseApplied to the Causes, Preventionand Cure of ChronicDiseases and
Unhappinessin Marriage (New York, 1864), 365; J. Soule, Science of Reproductionand
ReproductiveControl.The Necessityof Some AbstainingfromHaving Children.The Duty
of all to Limit their Families Accordingto their CircumstancesDemonstrated.Effectsof
ContinenceEffectsof Self-Pollution-Abusive Practices.Seminal Secretion-Its Connection
with Life. With all the DifferentModes of PreventingConception,and the Philosophyof
Each (n.p., 1856), 37; L. B. Chandler,The Divineness of Marriage (New York, 1872).
To radical feministTennie C. Claflin,man's rightto impose his sexual desiresupon woman
was the issue underlyingall opposition to woman suffrageand the expansion of woman's
role. Tennie C. Claflin,ConstitutionalEquality. A Rightof Woman: Or a Considerationof
the Various Relations Which She Sustains as a NecessaryPart of the Body of Societyand
Humanity;With Her Duties to Herself-together witha Review of the Constitutionof the
United States,Showing thatthe Rightto Vote Is Guaranteedto All Citizens.Also a Review
of the Rightsof Children (New York, 1871), 63. Particularlystrikingare the lettersfrom
women desiringbirthcontrolinformation.
MargaretSanger,Motherhoodin Bondage (New
York, 1928); E. B. Foote, Jr.,Radical Remedy,114-20; Henry C. Wright,The Unwelcome
Child; or, the Crime of an Undesignedand UndesiredMaternity(Boston, 1858). This distinctionbetweeneconomic,"physical,"and role consideration,is, quite obviously,justifiable
only for the sake of analysis; these considerationsmust have coexistedwithin each family
in particularconfiguration.
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of children,or could it be justifiedas an act-of love, of tendernessbetween
individuals?Noyes argued that the sexual organs had a social, amative
functionseparablefromtheirreproductivefunction.Sex was justifiableas
an essentialand irreplaceableformof human affection;no man could demand this act unless it was freelygiven.35Nor could it be freelygiven in
modes of birthcontrolwereavailable to assuage
manycases unless effective
the woman's anxieties.A man's wife was not his chattel,her individuality
to be violatedat will, and forced-ultimately-to bear unwantedand thus
almostcertainly
unhealthychildren.
Significantly,
defendersof women'srightto limitchildbearingemployed
to attackwomen'sactivimanyof the same argumentsused byconservatives
consequencesthreatened
ties outsidethe home; all those baleful hereditary
byover-education
were seen by birthcontroladvocatesas resultingfromthe
bearingof childrenby women unwillingand unfitforthe task,theirvital
energiesdepletedbyexcessivechildbearing.A child,theyargued,carriedto
termby a woman who desiredonly its death could not develop normally;
suchchildrenprovedinevitablya sourceof physicaland emotionaldegeneracy.Were womenrelievedfromsuch accustomedpressures,theycould produce fewerbutbetteroffspring.36
and jourphysicians,clergymen,
Many concernedmid-nineteenth-century
nalistsfailedto acceptsuch arguments.They emphasizedinsteadthe unnatural and thus necessarilydeleteriouscharacterof any and all methodsof
birthcontroland abortion.Even coitusinterruptus,
obviouslythemostcommon mode of birthcontrolin thisperiod,was attackedroutinelyas a source
of mentalillness,nervoustension,and even cancer.This was easilydemoninvolvedan exchange
strated.Sex, like all aspectsof humanbodilyactivity,
of nervousenergy;withoutthe dischargeof such accumulatedenergiesin
the male orgasmand the soothingpresenceof the male semen"bathingthe
femalereproductive
organs,"the femalepartnercould never,the reassuring
The nervousforceaccumulatedand concenlogic ran,findtruefulfillment.
trated in sexual excitementwould build up dangerous levels of undisto a progressivedecayin theunfortunate
chargedenergy,leadingultimately
3 Noyes, Male Continence,16; FrederickHollick, The Marriage Guide, Or Natural Historyof Generation; A PrivateInstructorfor Married Persons and Those About to Marry,
Both Male and Female (New York, ca. 1860), 348; Trall, Sexual Physiology,205-06.
" Indeed, in these post-Darwinianyearsit was possible for at least one health reformer
to argue thatsmallerfamilieswere a sign of thathighernervousevolutionwhichaccompanied
civilization.[M. L. Holbrookj Marriageand Parentage(New York, 1882). For the eugenic
virtuesof fewerbut betterchildren,see E. R. Shepherd,For Girls: A Special Physiology.
Being a Supplementto the Studyof GeneralPhysiology.TwentiethEdition (Chicago, 1887),
Ante-NatalInfanticide(n.p. [18891 ), 8.
213; M. L. Griffith,
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FemaleAnimal
349
woman's physical and mental health. Physicianswarned repeatedlythat
condomsand diaphragms-when the latterbecameavailable aftermid-cenof ills. In adtury-could cause an even morestartlingly
variedassortment
methodsof birth
ditionto themechanicalirritation
theypromoted,artificial
controlincreasedthe lustfulimpulsein bothpartners,leading inevitablyto
sexual excess. The resultantnervousexhaustioninduced gynecologicallesions, and thenthrough"reflexirritation"caused such ills as loss of memory,insanity,heartdisease,and even "the mostrepulsivenymphomania."37
Conservativephysicianssimilarlydenouncedthe widespreadpracticeof
insertingsponges impregnatedwith supposedlyspermicidalchemicalsinto
the vagina immediatelybefore or after intercourse.Such practices,they
warned, guaranteed pelvic injury, perhaps sterility.Even if a woman
seemed in good healthdespitea historyof practicingbirthcontrol,a Delaware physician explained in 1873 that ". . . as soon as this vigor commences
to decline . . . about the fortiethyear,the disease [canceri grows as the ener-
gies fail-the cancerousfangs penetratingdeeper and deeper until,after
excruciatingsuffering,
the writhingvictimis yieldedup to its terribleembrace.'38 Most importantly,
this argumentfollowed,habitual attemptsat
contraceptionmeant-even if successful-a motherpermanentlyinjured
the childrenresulting
and unable to bear healthychildren.If unsuccessful,
fromsuch unnaturalmatingswould be inevitablyweakened.And if such
grave ills resultedfromthe practiceof birthcontrol,the physicalconsequencesof abortionwere even moredramaticand immediate.39
Physiciansoftenfeltlittlehesitationin expressingwhat seemsto the hisSee Louis Fransois IrtienneBergeret,The PreventiveObstacle: Or Conjugal Onanism,
P. de Marmon,trans.(New York, 1870); C. H. F. Routh,Moral and PhysicalEvils Likely
to Follow if PracticesIntendedto Act as Checks to Population be not StronglyDiscouraged
and Condemned (2nd ed., London, 1879), 13; Goodell, Lessons in Gynecology,371, 374;
Thomas Hersey,The Midwife's PracticalDirectory;Or Woman's ConfidentialFriend: Comprising,Extensive Remarks on the Various Casualties and Forms of Diseases Preceding,
Attendingand Following the Period of Gestation, with appendix (2nd ed., Baltimore,
1836), 80; William H. Walling, Sexology (Philadelphia, 1902), 79.
'J. R. Black, The Ten Laws of Health; Or, How Disease Is Produced and Can Be Prevented (Philadelphia, 1873), 251. See also C. A. Greene, Build Well. The Basis of Individual, Home, and National Elevation. Plain Truths Relatingto the Obligationsof Marriage and Parentage (Boston, ca. 1885), 99; E. P. LeProhon,VoluntaryAbortion,or FashwithSome Remarksupon the Operationof Craniotomy (Portland,Me.,
ionable Prostitution,
1867), 15; M. Solis-Cohen,Girl, Wife, and Mother (Philadelphia, 1911), 213.
analogybetweentheseponderouslymechanisticsanctionsagainst
3 There is an instructive
argumentsagainst abortionused so frebirthcontroland abortionand the psychodynamic
quently in the twentiethcentury;both served preciselythe same social function.In both
cases, the assumptionof woman's childbearingdestinyprovided the logical basis against
which a denial of this calling produced sickness,in the nineteenthcenturythroughphysiological, and ultimately,pathologicalprocesses-in the twentiethcenturythroughguilt and
pathologicalprocesses.
psychologicalbut again, ultimately,
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towardsuchunnaturalferesentment
toriana suspiciouslydisproportionate
word; for woman's prewas
of
course
the
operational
males. Unnatural
sumedmaternalinstinctmade her primarilyresponsiblefor decisionsin reSo frequentwas this habitualaccusationthatsome
gard to childbearing.40
medical authorshad to cautionagainstplacing the entireweightof blame
for birth control and abortion upon the woman; men, they reminded,
played an importantrole in most such decisions.4'In 1871, for example,
the AmericanMedical AssociationCommitteeon Criminal Abortiondescribed women who patronizedabortionistsin termswhich conjured up
fantasiesof violenceand punishment:
she
She becomesunmindful
of the coursemarkedout forherby Providence,
She yieldsto the
overlooksthe dutiesimposedon herby themarriagecontract.
and,
of maternity;
pleasures-butshrinksfromthe pains and responsibilities
resignsherself,bodyand soul, intothe
destitute
of all delicacyand refinement,
and wickedmen.Letnotthehusbandof sucha wifeflatter
handsof unscrupulous
Nor can she in turnevermeriteventhe
himselfthathe possessesher affection.
tree,stripped
husband.Shesinksintoold age likea withered
respect
of a virtuous
thehandof
of itsfoliage;withthestainof blooduponhersoul,shedieswithout
affection
tosmoothherpillow.42
The frequencywith which attackson familylimitationin mid-nineteenthcenturyAmericawere accompaniedby polemicsagainstexpanded roles for
the middle-classwoman indicateswith unmistakableclaritysomethingof
such jeremiads.Familylimitationnecessarily
one of the motivesstructuring
variablewithinconjugal relationshipsgenerally;its sucadded a significant
cessfulpracticeimpliedpotentialaccess forwomento new roles and a new
autonomy.
Nowhere is this hostilitytowardwomenand the desireto inculcateguilt
illustratedthanin
over women's desireto avoid pregnancymore strikingly
40A. K. Gardner,for example, confessedsympathy
for the seduced and abandonedpatron
duty,we
of the abortionist,"but for the marriedshirk,who disregardsher divinely-ordained
Gardner, Conjugal Sins, 112. See also E. Frank Howe,
have nothingbut contempt.
Sermon on Ante-NatalInfanticidedeliveredat the CongregationalChurchin Terre Haute,
on SundayMorning,March 28, 1869 (Terre Haute, Ind., 1869); J.H. Tilden, Cursed before
Birth (Denver, ca. 1895); J. M. Toner,MaternalInstinct,or Love (Baltimore,1864), 91.
the
4' It must be emphasizedthat this is but one themein a complex debate surrounding
issue of birthcontroland sexuality.A group of more evangelicallyorientedhealthreformers
tended to emphasize instead the responsibilityof the "overgrown,abnormallydeveloped
and wronglydirectedamativenessof the man" and to see the woman as victim.JohnCowan,
Henry C. Wright,and Dio Lewis were widely read exemplarsof this point of view. This
group shared a numberof assumptionsand presumablypsychologicalneeds, and represents
task.JohnCowan, The Science of A New Life (New York,
a somewhatdistinctinterpretive
1874), 275.
L. Atlee and D. A. O'Donnell, "Report of the Committeeon CriminalAbortion,"
4W.
Transactionsof theAmericanMedical Association,XXII (1871), 241.
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Female Animal
351
the warningsof "race suicide" so increasingly
fashionablein the late-nineteenthcentury.A woman's willingnessand capacityto bear childrenwas a
dutyshe owed not onlyto God and husbandbut to her "race" as well.43In
the second half of the nineteenthcentury,articulateAmericansforcedto
evaluateand come to emotionaltermswithsocial changebecame,like many
of theirEuropean contemporaries,
attractedto a world view whichsaw racial identityand racialconflictas fundamental.And withinthesecategories,
birthratesbecame all-importantindices to national vigor and thus social
health.
In 1860 and again in 1870, Massachusettscensusreturnsbegan to indicate thatthe foreignborn had a considerablyhigherbirthratethanthatof
native Americans.Indeed, the more affluentand educated a family,the
fewerchildrenit seemed to produce. Such statisticsindicatedthat native
Americansin the Bay Statewere not even reproducingthemselves.The social consequencesseemedominousindeed.
The Irish, though barelyone quarterof the Massachusettspopulation,
producedmore than half of the state'schildren."It is perfectlyclear," a
Bostonclergymancontendedin 1884, "thatwithouta radicalchangein the
religiousideas, education,habits,and customsof the natives,the present
population and theirdescendantswill not rule that state a single generation."44 A few yearsearliera well-knownNew England physician,pointing
to America's still largelyunsettledwesternterritories,
had asked: "Shall
theybe filledby our own childrenor by thoseof aliens?This is a question
thatour own womenmustanswer;upon theirloins dependsthe futuredestinyof the nation." Native-bornAmericanwomenhad failedthemselvesas
individualsand societyas mothersof the Anglo-Saxonrace. If matterscontinuedforanotherhalf centuryin the same manner,"the w7iveswho are to
homes.The
be mothersin our republicmustbe drawnfromtrans-Atlantic
Sons of the New World will have to re-act,on a magnificent
scale, the old
storyof unwivedRome and theSabines."45
'4 The most tirelessadvocate of these views was Nathan Allen, a Lowell, Massachusetts,
Nathan Allen, "The Law of Human Increase; Or Population
physicianand health reformer.
based on Physiologyand Psychology,"QuarterlyJournalPsychologicalMedicine, II (April
1868), 209-66; Nathan Allen, Changes in New England Population. Read at the Meeting of
the American Social Science Association, Saratoga, September 6, 1877 (Lowell, Mass.,
1877); Nathan Allen, "The PhysiologicalLaws of Human Increase," Transactionsof the
AmericanMedical Association,XXI (1870), 381-407; Nathan Allen, "PhysicalDegeneracy,"
Journalof PsychologicalMedicine, IV (Oct. 1870), 725-64; Nathan Allen, "The Normal
Standard of Woman for Propagation,"AmericanJournalof Obstetrics,IX (April 1876),
1-39.
4Ellis, Deteriorationof PuritanStock,3; Storer,WhyNot? 85.
45Clarke,Sex in Education, 63. For similar warnings,see Henry Gibbons, On Feticide
(San Francisco,1878), 4; Charles Buckingham,The Proper Treatmentof Children,Medical
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352
The Journalof AmericanHistory
Such argumentshave receiveda goodly amountof historicalattention,
especiallyas theyfiguredin the late-nineteenth
and earlytwentiethcenturiesas partof thecontemporary
rationaleforimmigration
restriction.46
Historianshave interpretedthe race suicide argumentin several fashions.As
an incidentin a generalWesternacceptanceof racism,it has been seen as
productof a growingalienationof the older middle and upper classes in
the face of industrialization,
urbanization,and bureaucratization
of society.
More specifically,
some Americanhistorianshave seen theserace suicideargumentsas rootedin the fearsand insecuritiesof a traditionally
dominant
middleclass as it perceivednew and threatening
social realities.
Whetheror not historianscare to acceptsome versionof thisinterpretation-and certainlysuch motivationalelementsseem to be suggestedin the
rhetoricalformulaeemployedby manyof those bemoaningthe failureof
AmericanProtestantsto reproducein adequate numbers-it ignores another elementcrucial to the logical and emotionalfabricof these arguments.This is the explicitchargeof femalesexual failure.To a significant
extent,contemporaries
saw the problemas in large measurewoman's responsibility;it was America'spotentialmothers,not its fathers,who were
primarilyresponsiblefor the impending social cataclysm.Race suicide
seemeda problemin social gynecology.
Though fathersplayed a necessaryrole in procreation,medical opinion
emphasizedthatit was the mother'sconstitution
and reproductive
capacity
whichmost directlyshaped her offspring's
physical,mental,and emotional
attributes.And any unhealthymode of life-anything in short which
seemedundesirableto contemporary
medicalmoralists,includingbotheducation and birthcontrol-might resultin a woman becomingsterileor capable of bearingonlystuntedoffspring.
Men, it was conceded,weresubject
to vices even more debilitating,but the effectsof male sin and imprudence
were,physiciansfelt,"to a greaterextentconfinedto adult life; and consequently do not, to the same extent,impair the vitalityof our race or
or Medicinal (Boston, 1873), 15; Edward Jenks,"The Education of Girls froma Medical
Stand-Point,"Transactionsof the MichiganState Medical Society,XIII (1889), 52-62; Paul
Paquin, The SupremePassions of Man (Battle Creek,Mich., 1891), 76.
' These arguments,firstformulatedin the 1860s, had become cliches in medical and
reformistcircles by the 1880s. See Barbara Miller Solomon, Ancestorsand Immigrants:A
Changing New England Tradition (Cambridge,Mass., 1956); John Higham, Strangersin
the Land: Patternsof AmericanNativism,1860-1925 (New Brunswick,N.J., 1955). Such
argumentsexhibiteda growingconsciousnessof class as well as of ethnicsensitivity;it was
the better-educated
and more sensitivemembersof society,anti-Malthusiansbegan to argue,
who would curtail their progeny,while the uneducatedand coarse would hardly change
theirhabits.H. S. Pomeroy,Is Man Too Prolific?The So-Called MalthusianIdea (London,
1891), 57-58.
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Female Animal
353
threatenits physicaldestruction."Women's violationof physiologicallaws
implieddisasterto "the unbornof bothsexes."47
Though such social criticstendedto agree thatwoman was at fault,they
expressedsome difference
of opinion as to the natureof her guilt. A few
felt that lower birthratescould be attributedsimplyto the consciousand
culpable decisionof Americanwomen to curtailfamilysize. Other physicians and social commentators,
while admittingthatmanywomenfeltlittle
desire for children,saw the rootsof the problemin somewhatdifferentand perhapseven more apocalyptic-terms.It was not,theyfeared,simply
the consciouspracticeof familylimitationwhichresultedin small families;
rather the increasinglyunnatural life-styleof the "modern American
woman" had underminedher reproductive
capacitiesso thateven when she
would, she could not bear adequate numbersof healthychildren.Only if
Americanwomen returnedto the simplerlife-styles
of the eighteenthand
earlynineteenthcenturiescould the race hope to regainits formervitality;
women mustfromchildhoodsee theirrole as thatof robustand self-sacrificingmothers.If not,theirown degenerationand thatof the race was inevitable.
Why the persistenceand intensity
of thismasculinehostility,
of its recurringechoesof conflict,
rancor,and moraloutrage?There are at leastseveral
possible,thoughby no means exclusive,explanations.One centerson the
hostilityimplied and engenderedby the sexual deprivation-especiallyfor
the male-implicit in manyof the modes of birthcontrolemployedat this
time.One might,forexample,speculate-as Oscar Handlin did some years
ago-that such repressedmiddle-classsexual energieswere channeledinto
a xenophobichostilitytoward the immigrantand the black and projected
into fantasiesincorporatingthe enviable and fullyexpressedsexualityof
these alien groups.48A similarmodel could be applied to men's attitudes
towardwomen as well; social, economic,and sexual tensionswhich beset
late nineteenth-century
Americanmen mightwell have caused themto express theiranxietiesand frustrations
in termsof hostilitytowardthe middle-classfemale.49
" Ellis, Deteriorationof PuritanStock,10.
4 Oscar Handlin, Race and Nationalityin AmericanLife (5th ed., Boston,1957), 139-66.
4 One mightpostulatea more traditionally
psychodynamic
explanatorymodel, one which
would see the argumentsdescribedas a male defense against their own consciousnessof
sexual inadequacyor ambivalenceor of theirown unconsciousfearsof femalesexual powers.
These emphasesare quite distinct.The first-thoughit also assumes the realityof individual
psychicmechanismssuch as repressionand projection-is tied very much to the circumstances of a particulargeneration,to social location,and to social perception.The second
kind of explanationis more general, time-free,
and based on a presumablyever-recurring
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The Journalof AmericanHistory
354
are, however,as treacherousas theyare inviting.
Such interpretations
outlinedheremirrorsomeformulations
Obviously,the would-bescientific
thingof post-bellumsocial and psychicreality.Certainlysome middle-class
centuryhad personalityneeds-sexual inadequamen in the late-nineteenth
cies or problemsof status identification-whichmade traditionaldefinieven theviolentimtionsof genderroles functionalto them.The hostility,
ageryexpressedtowardwomen who chose to limitthe numberof children
personaland emotionalinvolvementon the
theybore indicatesa significant
partof themale author.Some women,moreover,obviouslyused themechasexual rejection,as role-sancnismsof birthcontroland, not infrequently
tioned building blocks in the fashioningof their particularadjustment.
Their real and psychicgains were numerous:surceasefromfear and pain,
and a means
greaterleisure,a sociallyacceptablewayof expressinghostility,
of maintainingsome autonomyand privacyin a life which societydeto the care and nurturanceof husband
manded be devotedwholeheartedly
however,mattersbecome quite constatements,
and children.Beyond such
jectural.At thismomentin the developmentof bothhistoricalmethodology
and psychologicaltheorygreat caution must be exercisedin the developmentof such hypotheses especiallysincethe historiansof genderand sexpoint
ual behaviorhave at theirdisposal data whichfroma psychodynamic
and suggestive.50
of view is at bestfragmentary
social historiancan hope to studywith a
What the nineteenth-century
however,is theway in whichsocial changeboth
greaterdegreeof certainty,
caused and reflectedtensions surroundingformal definitionsof gender
roles. Obviously,individualsas individualsat all timesand in all cultures
in assimilatingthe prescriphave experiencedvaryingdegreesof difficulty
begin to affect
tions of expectedrole behavior.When such discontinuities
overt as to evoke a
comparativelylarge numbersand become sufficiently
markedideological responseone can then speak with assuranceof having
culturaltension.5'
locatedfundamental
male fear of female sexualityand its challenge to the capacityof particularindividuals to
act and live an appropriatelymale role. For the literatureon this problem,see Wolfgang
Lederer, The Fear of Women (New York, 1968).
cliniciansand theoreticianswould agree that
5 At this time, moreover,most psychiatric
to the beno model exists to extend the insightsgained fromindividual psychodynamics
havior of largersocial groups such as nationalpopulationsor social classes.
roles to accommodatethe needs of personalityvariants
51 Most societiesprovidealternative
-as, for example, the shaman role in certainSiberian tribesor the accepted man-woman
English-speaking
homosexual of certainAmerican Indian tribes.In the nineteenth-century
world such roles as that of the religious enthusiastand the chronic female invalid or
hystericmay well have provided such modalities.But a period of peculiarlyrapid or widespread social change can make even such available role alternativesinadequate mechanisms
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FemaleAnimal
355
Studentsof nineteenth-century
Americanand WesternEuropean society
have long been aware of the desireof a growingnumberof women fora
choiceamong roles different
fromthetraditionalone of motherand housekeeper.It was a themeof HenryJames,Henrik Ibsen, and a hostof other,
perhaps more representative
if less talented,writers.Women's demands
ranged fromthat of equal pay for equal work and equal education for
equal intelligenceto morecovertdemandsforabortion,birthcontrolinformation,and sexual autonomywithinthe marriagerelationship.Their demands paralleled and were in large part dependentupon fundamentalsocial and economicdevelopments.Technological innovationand economic
growth,changed patternsof income distribution,population concentrations,demographicchangesin termsof life expectancyand fertility
all affectedwoman's behaviorand needs. Fewer women married;many were
numberedamongthe urbanpoor. Such womenhad to becomeself-supporting and at the same timedeal withthechangedself-imagethatself-support
necessitated.Those women who marriedgenerallydid so later,had fewer
children,and lived farbeyondthebirthof theiryoungestchild.At thesame
timeideologicaldevelopmentsbegan to encouragebothmen and womento
aspire to increasedindependenceand self-fulfillment.
All thesefactorsinteractedto createnew ambitionsand new optionsforAmericanwomen.In
a universeof varyingpersonalitiesand changingeconomicrealities,it was
inevitablethat some women at least would overtlyor covertly be attractedby such optionsand thata goodly numberof men would findsuch
of adjustmentfor many individuals.Others in the same societymay respond to the same
pressuresof changeby demandingan undeviatingacceptanceof traditionalrole prescriptions
and refusingto accept the legitimacyof such culturalvariants.The role of the hysterical
woman in late nineteenth-century
America suggests many of the problems inherentin
creatingsuch alternativesocial roles. While offering
bothan escape fromthe everydayduties
of wife and mother,and an opportunityfor the display of coverthostilityand aggression,
this role inflictedgreat bodily (though non-organic)pain, provided no reallynew role or
interest,and perpetuated-even increased-the patient's dependence on traditionalrole
characteristics,
especiallythatof passivity.The reactionof society,as suggestedby the writings of most male physicians,can be describedas at best an unstablecompromisebetween
patronizingtolerance and violent anger. See Carroll Smith Rosenberg,"The Hysterical
Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflictin 19th-Century
America,"652-78. For usefuldiscussions of hysteriaand neurasthenia,see Ilza Veith, Hysteria. The History of a Disease
(Chicago, 1965); Henri F. Ellenberger,The Discoveryof the Unconscious:The Historyand
Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry(New York, 1970); Charles E. Rosenberg,"The Place of
George M. Beard in Nineteenth-Century
Psychiatry,"
Bulletin of the Historyof Medicine,
XXXVI (May-June1962), 245-59; John S. Haller, Jr.,"Neurasthenia: The Medical Profession and the 'New Woman' of Late Nineteenth-Century,"
New York State Journalof
has recentlyargued
Medicine, LXXI (Feb. 15, 1971), 473-82. Esther Fischer-Homberger
that these diagnostic categoriesmasked an endemic male-femaleconflict:"Hysterie und
Mysogynie-ein Aspekt der Hysteriegeschichte,"
Gesnerus,XXVI (1969), 117-27.
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356
The Journalof AmericanHistory
choices unacceptable.Certainlyfor the women who did so the normative
role of home-boundnurturant
and passivewoman was no longerappropriate or functional,but becamea sourceof conflictand anxiety.
It was inevitableas well thatmanymen, similarlyfaced with a rapidly
changingsociety,would seek in domesticpeace and constancya senseof the
continuityand securityso difficult
to findelsewherein theirsociety.They
would-at the very least-expect theirwives, their daughters,and their
familyrelationshipsgenerallyto remainunaltered.When theirfemaledependentsseemed ill-disposedto do so, such men respondedwith a harshness sanctionedincreasingly
bythenew gods of science.
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