Sexual Revolution in Early America
Johns Hopkins University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8018-7891-6 (ISBN)
Drawing on exhaustive research into diaries, letters, and other private papers, as well as legal records and official documents, Godbeer's absorbing narrative uncovers a persistent struggle between the moral authorities and the widespread expression of popular customs and individual urges. Godbeer begins with a discussion of the complex attitude that the Puritans had toward sexuality. For example, although believing that sex could be morally corrupting, they also considered it to be such an essential element of a healthy marriage that they excommunicated those who denied "conjugal fellowship" to their spouses. He next examines the ways in which race and class affected the debate about sexual mores, from anxieties about Anglo-Indian sexual relations to the sense of sexual entitlement that planters held over their African slaves. He concludes by detailing the fundamental shift in sexual culture during the eighteenth century towards the acceptance of a more individualistic concept of sexual desire and fulfillment.
Today's moral critics, in their attempts to convince Americans of the social and spiritual consequences of unregulated sexual behavior, often harken back to a more innocent age; as this groundbreaking work makes clear, America's sexual culture has always been rich, vibrant, and contentious.
Richard Godbeer is a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sex, Marriage, and Moral Order in Early America
Part I: Passionate Pilgrims
Chapter 1. " Chambering and Wantonising": Popular Sexual Mores in Seventeenth-Century New England
Chapter 2. "A Complete Body of Divinity": The Puritans and Sex
Chapter 3. "Pregnant with the Seeds of All Sin": Regulating Illicit Sex in Puritan New England
Part II: Sex and Civility
Chapter 4. "Living in a State of Nature": Sex, Marriage, and Southern Degenerates
Chapter 5. The Dangerous Allure of "Copper-Colored Beauties": Anglo-Indian Sexual Relations
Chapter 6. "The Chameleon Lover": Sex, Race, and Cultural Identity in the Colonial South
Part III: The Sexual Revolution
Chapter 7. "Under the Watch": The Metamorphosis of Sexual Regulation in Eighteenth-Century New England
Chapter 8. "A Hint to Young Ladies": Courtship, Sexual Danger, and Moral Agency in Revolutionary America
Chapter 9. "Martyrdom to Venus": Sexual Freedom in Post-Independence Philadelphia
Afterword
Notes
Index
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 14.4.2004 |
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Zusatzinfo | 5, 4 black & white halftones, 1 black & white line drawings |
Verlagsort | Baltimore, MD |
Sprache | englisch |
Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918) |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte | |
Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies | |
ISBN-10 | 0-8018-7891-8 / 0801878918 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-8018-7891-6 / 9780801878916 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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