| Description |
vii, 215 pages ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction: Assessing the Problem -- 1. Bastards and Children of the Parish -- 2. Statistics and the Birth of a Social Problem -- 3. Reproducing at the Nation's Expense -- 4. Illegitimate Genes and Racial Inferiority -- 5. The Immorality of the White Working Class -- 6. Illegitimate Infancy: A Deadly Risk -- 7. Offspring of Feeble and Neurotic Minds -- 8. Fatherless Societies Go Primitive -- 9. Murphy Brown, Feminism and Female Selfishness -- 10. The Possibilities of a Postmodern Illegitimacy |
| Summary |
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, associations with racial and intellectual inferiority, the dangers of fatherless families, and the supposed selfishness of excessively independent women |
| Analysis |
Australia overseas comparisons |
|
Behaviour |
|
Ethics |
|
Great Britain |
|
Illegitimacy |
|
Prejudice |
|
Single parents |
|
Social values |
|
United States |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 189-211 |
| Subject |
Illegitimacy -- History.
|
|
Illegitimacy -- Social aspects -- History.
|
|
Illegitimacy.
|
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Single-parent families -- Economic aspects.
|
|
Single-parent families -- Social aspects.
|
| LC no. |
98026653 |
| ISBN |
0521620341 |
|
0521629748 (paperback) |
|
