History 2181A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Premarital Sex, Eugenics, Victorian Era
25 Oct 2016
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Cult of true womanhood: domesticity (separate spheres, piety (religious, christian, purity (virgin until marriage, passionless, submissiveness. Separate spheres encouraged the physical separation between husband and wife. Gave women a lot of time to spend with each other especially if before marriage by men and have their reputations ruined. Passionless doctrine completely took away women"s sexuality, and in some part men"s. They didn"t want to (cid:498)hang out(cid:499) with each other because it could lead to sex, Pre-marital sex very much ruined a woman"s reputation, she was done-for. So, women would have female friendships so that they wouldn"t be tempted. Novel: the bostonians, depicts this situation, called (cid:498)boston marriages(cid:499) wouldn"t be considered sex between the women. It rarely occurred to anyone that these friendships could be sexual in nature. If a penis was not involved, then it was not sex. Learned the art of sharing, compromise, generous and considerate to.
