Modern Revivals in Economic & Social History S.
2 total works
Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England
by J.A. Banks and Olive Banks
Published December 1964
Having demonstrated that their economic aspirations and circumstances were a necessary but not a sufficient cause for the onset of family limitation by the English upper and middle classes, another suggested explanation, the emancipation of women, is examined in this study. This shows how the feminists were little involved in the family limitation campaigns, and concludes that such emancipation was less important than the rising standard of living.
Family size and the birth rate declined in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. This work looks at the interplay of the rising standard of living, the emancipation of women, the attitude to children and education, and the effects of the meritocratic ideal and religious sexual morality.