Measuring Immorality: Social Inquiry and the Problem of IllegitimacyWhy do conservative politicians and scholars in Britain, Australia and the United States continue to view rising rates of out-of-wedlock births and teenage pregnancies as a threat to civilised society? This book examines the process by which social science transforms a biological event - a birth - into a social and moral problem. Drawing on Foucault's 'archaeology of knowledge', Reekie stresses the role of statistics and other social-scientific discourses in the emergence of the illegitimacy 'problem' in the early nineteenth century and its continuing cultural significance. The book illustrates the continuity in concerns about illegitimacy, including pressure on the welfare system, fears of racial and intellectual denigration, the detrimental nature of fatherless families, and the association of rising illegitimacy with the supposed selfishness of excessively independent women. |
Contents
Assessing the Problem | 1 |
Bastards and Children of the Parish | 21 |
Statistics and the Birth of a Social Problem | 27 |
Reproducing at the Nations Expense | 48 |
Illegitimate Genes and Racial Inferiority | 66 |
The Immorality of the White Working Class | 85 |
Illegitimate Infancy A Deadly Risk | 103 |
Offspring of Feeble and Neurotic Minds | 120 |
Fatherless Societies Go Primitive | 140 |
Murphy Brown Feminism and Female Selfishness | 159 |
The Possibilities of a Postmodern Illegitimacy | 177 |
| 189 | |
| 212 | |
Other editions - View all
Measuring Immorality: Social Inquiry and the Problem of Illegitimacy Gail Reekie No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal American argued Australian Australian Family Association babies bastard behaviour Bell Curve birth-rate born Britain British Charles Murray claims conservative contemporary crime culture debate delinquency discourse economic Emotional Intelligence Essay example father fatherhood fatherless feminism feminist Foucault foundling foundling hospitals girls gitimacy heterosexual human idea illegiti illegitimacy problem illegitimacy rates illegitimacy statistics illegitimate births illegitimate child illegitimate children illegitimate infants immorality infant mortality infanticide Journal Leffingwell legitimate London macy Malinowski Malthus marriage married mate mental moral Murphy Brown Murray nineteenth century out-of-wedlock births Peuchet political Poor Laws Popenoe population poverty principle race racial reform relationship reproduction scientific sexual single mothers single parenthood single-parent families social inquiry social problem social science social scientists social-scientific society sociological South Wales statisticians suggests Sydney Morning Herald teenage pregnancy tion two-parent underclass United unmarried mother unmarried motherhood unwed wedlock welfare woman women working-class young