Prescribers and rebels: Attitudes to european women's sexuality in New Zealand 18601916

Abstract

This paper explores the divergence between prescriptions about female sexuality and the realities of female behaviour. In particular the paper defines the manner in which those who spelt out the prescriptions defined and sought to control deviance. In every period and culture some groups try to prescribe norms of social behaviour and focus almost obsessively on women and their sexual role. These issues loomed large in New Zealand, a country of recent settlement whose social pundits were eager not to repeat in the new world the mistakes of the old one.

The medical profession, politicians, and women reformers were most important in defining social mores. Physiology provided the ‘scientific≐ basis for separate sexual roles and the double-standard; politicians enacted controlling legislation, and groups of women attempted to reform their recalcitrant sisters. Institutions were set up and laws were passedMagdalen Institutes, the Contagious Diseases Actto ensure control and conformity.

While the study of social attitudes informs us about the dominating ideologies, they should not be viewed in isolation from the actual behaviour of the women concerned. The extent of ex-nuptial births, abortion and prostitution, as expressed in statistics, supplemented by impressionistic evidence, shows a constant resistance on the part of a large number of women. The treatment of deviants unmarried mothers, prostitutes-indicates not only the degree of intolerance of pre-First World War New Zealand but also measures the gap between prescription and reality as well as the efficacy of social control.