Browsing by Author "Richardson, Laura Jane"

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    Between duty and desire : pre-nuptial pregnancy and unmarried motherhood in Anglican Cape Town during the first half of the twentieth century
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Richardson, Laura Jane; Fourie, Johan; Ross, Robert; Kok, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Throughout the first half of the twentieth century couples were exhorted by both the church and secular authorities to delay sexual intercourse until after marriage, but popular attitudes towards premarital sexuality did not always reflect those of the authorities, nor were such attitudes necessarily a good index of popular behaviour. Marrying qualitative and quantitative techniques in a way that is sensitive to the limitations of both approaches, this thesis presents an interpretation of new evidence regarding prenuptial pregnancy and unmarried motherhood amongst a select group of South Africans living in Cape Town during this period. In so doing, it aims to shed light on the complex relationship between prescription and practice in the intimate lives of ordinary men and women. At the Cape, as in many other areas of the globe, the early to mid-twentieth century – an era often referred to as the ‘golden age’ of marriage and the family – saw a higher share of couples than ever before going to the trouble and expense of contracting marriages recognized by law. Nonetheless, the quantitative evidence presented in this study, compiled using individual-level birth and marriage records drawn from seven socio-economically diverse Anglican parishes in Cape Town, shows that, despite growing pressure towards marriage, out-of-wedlock pregnancies accounted for a substantial proportion of births, particularly within working class coloured communities. Although many out-of-wedlock pregnancies resulted in marriage, falling pregnant outside of wedlock was risky, especially for women from fragile family networks. Initially there was very little help available for women who, having fallen pregnant outside of wedlock, were unable to secure marriage, and while caring for unmarried mothers and their infants did slowly come to be regarded as necessary, if unpopular work, the social stigma attached to unmarried motherhood continued to influence the kinds of assistance they received. The qualitative evidence is used to examine some of the debates that emerged between female philanthropists, social workers, medical professionals and moral conservatives regarding the care of unmarried mothers, looking especially at notions of female deviancy and how these shifted to reflect different moral and political agendas. In addition, case records from two Anglican unmarried mothers’ hostels are used to contrast the ideas put forward in these debates with the actual courtship experiences of unmarried mothers in Cape Town. These records support the hypothesis that attitudes towards premarital sexuality tended to be more ambiguous and courtship experiences more diverse than has previously been supposed.