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    Sexuality in the Age of Empire (2011)

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    Sexuality in the Age of Empire (2011)

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    62 views67 pages

    Sexuality in The Age of Empire (2011)

    Uploaded by

    AbuAbdur-RazzaqAl-Misri
    Sexuality in the Age of Empire (2011)

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 67
    Sex, Religion, and the Law: The Regulation of Sexual Behaviors, 1820-1920 LOUISE A. JACKSON ‘and voluntary bodies ports for evidence ficking, the exchange and pimps, and the “rescue” of * SH REL of age (youth as a time of innocence). These understandings dramatically shaped responses and interventions, showing the extent ro which lawmaking and law enforcement are culturally situated, and reflecting socal values and assumptions. chap an overview of the mechanisms through which sexual behaviors were thin Western nations and their empires, charting key shifts in the period 1820-1920. It includes discussion of formal insicutions ofthe state (the law and enforcement agencies) as well as religious and voluntary societies and associations, but i also deals with the continued significance of informal community and neighborhood sanctions. ‘The term “regulation” is used here to encompass the strategies of prohibition and punishment containment, prevention, social condemnation, and circum scription. WI itself requires careful s economic, and political contexts that shaped i will be cor attention to the relationship berween strategies of sexual regulation and the organization of space and place. Differences between urban and rural areas, the dichotomy of public and private as separate structuring concepts, and the relationship among local, national, and colonial agendas will all be touched upon, Regulation involved judgments as to specific sexual behaviors that were permissible between specific categories of people, often in relation to specific types of places. In terms of the criminal law and the delineation ‘of sexual offenses, the legacy of the nineteenth century was signifcens, since it shaped the parameters of a legal system that in many cases were not challenged until the 1960s. iced SHOCK CITIES 15 histories of nineteenth-century sexuality tend to foreground the ‘growth of the “modern” institution of the bureaucratic nation-state in western Europe and, in particula, its development in response to industrialzation, urbanization, and population growth. By 1890 the population of London (che largest city inthe world) had grown to over four million, New York had topped two-and-a-half million, and the population of Paris followed closely bbchind. The fist half of the nineteenth century had seen significant urban ‘expansion in Britain as “the frst industrial nation,” while the later decades ‘of the nineteenth century produced steep increases in North American popt- lations as a result of migration from Europe.* The problem of how, ex- actly, to manage increasingly concentrated masses of people through the ‘organization and regulation of city space was a matter of concern for local A JACKSON ss as well as national and, ultimately, colonial governments. Where small eral ‘communities were associated with social fami ‘was soon assumed by contemporary commentators that the growth of cites was leading to anonym ity and the loss of traditional tes and moral influences fora younger genera ‘ion who had migrated for work. The ealy-ninetenth-century lack of sanitary and planning controls resulted in overcrowded living conditions, poor hous ig stock, and the spread of contagious diseases such a8 cholera, which was ‘widely assumed until the 1850s 1 be airborne. From the 1830s onward social ‘commentators linked the slum dwelling, deprivation, and disease they saw in Europe’ largest cities with incest and sexual corruption. This medico-moral framework assumed that immorality, like disease, was contagious.’ According to the French socal scientist Eugéne Bure, writing in 1840, “inthe heart ofthe ‘very busiest centres of industry and trade, you see thousands of human beings reduced to a state of barbarism by vice and desttuton.”* Governments were sfraid “lest formidable dangers may some day burs forth from amid these de- ‘graded and corrupted people.”” The prevalence of common lodging houses, in which strangers rented dormitory bed spaces fr the night, also received regu lac criticism. For Friedrich Engels the “shock city” of Manchester, England, was a waming of what was to come for other less developed industrial cen ters. Despite his ant-capitalise analysis, he repeated rumors that linked pov- cerry with sexual transgression, describing the city’s common lodging houses 35 “the scene of deeds against which human nature revolts, which would perhaps never have been executed but for thie forced centralisation of vce."* With the emergence of a bourgeoisie, or middle class, that identified itself closely with respectability and, in paticulae, the impeccable moral status of women, sexual incontinence was mapped onto a decadent aristocracy and an idle poor lass and race. Moreover, by the 1880s references to construct the to degeneracy were comme poor as atavistic, depraved, Yer the bourgeois fear of the “great unwashed” who formed the mass of the urban poor led to litle in che way of direct state intervention, although arrempts by voluntary organizations to rescue and rejuvenate street children reflected an envitonmentalist approach that aimed to combat hereditary tats. Georges-Eugine Haussm boulevards was motivated by a grandiose vision for the new French empice rather than the amelioration of the conditions of the poor, who were merely ransported to ghettos on the outskirts ofthe city. The late-nineteenth century saw the piecemeal construction of “model dwellings"; shown these i in razing brothels and common lodging houses. iatives to have been more eff "6 SIX, RFLIGION, AND T aw modern police public order: obstructions to easy for example, they were behaving in 1 “riotous or indecent manner” (1824 Vagrancy Act, England and Wales) or ‘were soliciting *to the annoyance ofthe inhabitants or pi ropolitan Police Act, London). Specific places such as parks, public squares, ‘and central thoroughfares were the focus of “clean-up” campaigns, while some dareas that were associated with prosttution—such as London's East End—saw_ OUISP A JACKSON © ‘own devices. Even if prostitution 108 prostitutes” were often ‘threatening, given the ‘on tothe figure ofthe centered on whether legal but Cranage bls mg soe the dese problem, In Paris municipal regulations created a system of police registra tion and medical inspection chat was, through the writings of Alexandre Jean + Duchitele, justified as a sanitary and medical response. In (CD) Acts of the 1864, 1867, and 1869—was introduced in partially in response to the Crimean War; these involved forced ies were frustrated by the efforts of Josephine Butle tific approach, society in which men to a range of British colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century, although they were “not simply or uniformly imposed” and were sometimes resisted or abandoned as unworkal ther forms of containment were ‘the 1890s municipal authorities iors might be subjected to offical ser eral approach to governance (which ‘emphasized mi hat a balancing act was constantly being attempted between individ ual freedoms and public surveillance in the name ofa broader natio autonomy wa fiercely protected by the profession [FIGURE 52: The Lock Hospital, Hyde Park inetenth century. Thomas Hosmer Shephes Libraey, Londos. the Times reported that lawyers in court “expressed the utmost indignation Jing should be an open gents provocateus) Ina .e of woman's “absolute sovereignty over her own subsequent decades, concerns that “respectable” women might of police methods incorrectly arrested fon Regent Street, London, by Cons leading to complaints thatthe police should not be acting a5 prostittion-rlated offenses in London dropped by more than a LOUISE A. JACKSON » sions to arrest were often made on the spor by ordinary street constables, who ‘themselves wielded considerable levels of autonomy in deciding whether 10 invoke judicial procedure or to dismiss with a warning. The policing of public a8 Stefan Slater's work on the policing of prostt has recently demonstrated, the about the spread of “khaki fever” among young women pled to the entre female populatio: lading tothe demonization of women. RELIGION AND THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR " through discipline, the newer fe vulnerable young women who were either once len” oF in danger of “falling” moral welfare work was seen in terms of "womai ‘was assumed that the nobility and virtue of true womanhood would shine . A controlled environment of Bible study, was designed to equip Rescue homes were run those “saved” for employment as domestic servant along denominational lines by Catholic and Anglican sisteshoods and also ion Army emphasized its will on was supported and encouraged but not assumed. sector worked closely deliver welfare provision to adolescent gils perceived to be in moral or sexual danger As a number of recent st [New York. Colored wood engrs¥ JACKSON a jon relating to the protection of children and young people ions permitting young women under the age from abusive and violent ses, mature young, women of the urban poor (and in the United red for staying out late at night or for exuberant behavior that was out of Keeping with bourgeois notions of feminine respecta ‘of *moral danger” reflected assumptions about gender difference and the sexual double standard, since it wa to boys. There has been considerable debate a to wheth rescue” work might be identified as feminist ventions reinforced rather than challenged the 88 “poor creatures” 50 objected. The than social garded and to what extent the gender order. In depicting the women they worked wi fered kindness and sympathy ¢ 3° women as “victims” ro be saved— constructed them a8 “othec” and reputations) Use ofthe ehurch courts subs they had been prominent in the nineteenth century (they were formerly dis solved in England in 1855) ample, through the development of divorce law in Protesta were some anomalies: incest stood outside legal prohibition in England from 1855 until it was made a statutory offense in 1908, This general trend was not a simple issue of the de ough their formal regulatory fu Tost. Rather, evangelical groups emerged with two important but related roles. First, as we have seen, they increasingly of- fered an important role as welfare performing a social work func here the state itself provided 0 develop significant capacity JON, AND THE LAW as campaigning and lobby groups in re sexuality. The high poine ofthis activity occurred between 1880 and 1914 as a coalition of social purity organi ‘increasing pressure on govern was significant as debates spread to colonial a section of this chapter will demonstrate. Final tion to state legislation relating t0 sons (often with feminist support) put by encouraging or instituting prosecutions (for sexual assault of minors or ‘obscene publications, in the case of the National Vigilance Assocation) or through ther own systems of surveillance of brothels (which were not aways welcomed by police forces. SEX CRIME AND THE RULE OF LAW “The nineteenth century saw significant changes inthe criminal law relating to rape and sexual assault that arose from debates about the age of consent. The romantic ideal of ehildhood, which grew in influence from the lae-eighteenth century onward, viewed children as innocents in need of protection from sexual knowledge and contamination. The frst Societies fr the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were founded in the 1860s (France and the United Stats) to protect child victims, to prosecute cases of abuse and neglect, and to cam ign on issues relating to child welfare. In France the Code Pénal was revised in 1832 to make any attempt at sex with a child under the age of eleven punishable by fve-to twenty-year prison sentence; this was raised to the age lof twelve in 1863 (and twenty if the offender was a parent or guardian). French forensic specialists Adolphe Toulmouche and Ambroise Tardiew ‘were investigating the sign of sexual abuse on the bodies of both male and fer Iden inthe 1860s, Elsewhere, however, debates tended to focus on ki ly, a result of the preoccupation with vireous femininity. In England and Wales the age of consent for girls was raised from twelve to thir teen in 1875, while the 1880s saw the emergence of orchestrated campaigns in its colon Laternineteenth

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