Blog 3 - History of the Family

Question: Describe the Puritan approach to sexual desire. What was the ideal of sexuality in colonial America? How did people learn about sexuality? How did colonial society deal with sexual “deviance” and what were the two main goals of regulating it?

The Puritans, of early colonial America, strongly believed that sexual expression was “a duty and a joy within marriage, and for the purpose of procreation” (16). Furthermore, authority figures such as the clergy preached and emphasized “marriage as the only suitable outlet for sexual desire and warned against both masturbation and premarital sex” (16). Puritans believed that sex was to only occur between a married couple and for the purpose of reproducing offspring, rather than physical gratification.
People typically learned about sexuality “from two primary sources: observation within the family and moral instruction from parent and church” (16). Growing up in colonial America people could see that “procreation was everywhere, in the barnyard and in the house” (17). There were a number of accounted incidences where young boys would experiment sexually with farm animals. Young Puritans also learned about sexuality in the house from hearing or seeing sexual activity among adults. Colonial houses were usually rather small and it was normal to have all family members sleep in one room, and in some cases they would all share one bed. However, “whatever they observed, children learned early on that sexual behavior ought to be limited to marriage. Clergy and lawmakers of the time also played a role in teaching Puritan youth about sexuality – constantly aiding youths to channel their sexual desires towards marriage. Although the Puritan ideal of sexuality was extremely clear there were a number of individuals who defied the laws of the community when “they committed adultery, sodomy, incest, or rape, or when women bore bastard children” (27). Because the family was such an important component of colonial life and economic survival demanded family living authorities went to great lengths to regulate sexual deviance that threatened their ‘natural’ way of life. “Laws against extramarital sexuality carried harsh penalties – even behaviors that might lead to sex outside marriage required punishment” (28). Penalties usually included some sort of public humiliation, such as whipping at the post or sitting in the stocks (27). In other cases the offender would have to pay a certain fine. In many colonial developments “public confession and repentance both restored the individual to the congregation and at the same time confirmed the propriety of sexual rules” (27). In extreme cases of deviance however, such as sodomy, buggery, and bestiality the penalty of the crime was capital punishment because they defied the norm of reproductive sexuality. “The regulation of deviance served the larger function of reminding the community at large that sexuality belonged within marriage, for the purpose of producing legitimate children” (28). In the South, sexual offenses began to include those that threatened the racial dominance of whites over blacks. The punishment for black men who sexually assaulted white women were extremely harsh; usually “prescribing castration for blacks who attempted to rape white women” (31).
Colonial America had a clear notion of sexuality, “the family provided the only acceptable outlet for sex, with the primary goal of producing legitimate children” (38). Because the family was the central unit of life and survival people in colonial American went to extreme ends to protect and uphold these ideals.

Question: D’Emilio argues that the relationship between capitalism and the family is contradictory. Explain this argument, and then summarize his argument about gay identity and capitalism. Do you agree with this argument? Why or why not?

In his article Capitalism and Gay Identity, John D’Emilio argues against the common belief that ‘gay men and lesbians always were’ and instead asserts that gay men and lesbians have not always existed. D’Emilio claims that homosexuality is a by-product of history and has only come into existence since the industrial revolution and the development of capitalism. He also asserts that the relationship between capitalism and the family is contradictory. D’Emilio asks, “How is it that capitalism, whose structure made possible the emergence of a gay identity and the creation of urban gay communities, appears unable to accept gay men and lesbians in its midst” (108)? “On the one hand, capitalism continually weakens the material foundation of family life, making it possible for individuals to live outside the family, and for a lesbian and gay male identity to develop. On the other hand, it needs to push men and women into families, at least long enough to reproduce the next generation of workers” (110).
The expansion of capital, D’Emilio argues, has had a profound effect in the “structure and functions of the nuclear family, the ideology of family life, and the meaning of heterosexual relations” (102). These changes are what D’Emilio believes to be directly connected to the appearance of a collective gay life. In 17^th century colonial living the “family was truly an interdependent unit of production: the survival of each member depended on the cooperation of all” (103). In the 19^th century however, these family dynamics changed greatly: “men and women were drawn out of the largely self-sufficient household economy of the colonial era into a capitalist system of free labor” (103). “By the mid 1800s, capitalism had destroyed the economic self-sufficiency of many families, but not the mutual dependence of the members” (103). Gradually the family moved from a unit that produced goods to an institution that produced emotional satisfaction and happiness. Furthermore, as a result of moving away from a society where men and women needed the labor of children there was a significant decline in the birthrate. D’Emilio points out that, “the decline has been continuous for two centuries, paralleling the spread of capitalist relations of production” (104). By “fostering the separation of sexuality and procreation, capitalism has created conditions that allow some men and women to organize a personal life around their erotic/emotional attraction to their own sex” (104). As a result of capitalism survival was no longer based on one’s participation within a nuclear family and individuals were able to survive beyond the confines of the family.
D’Emilio uses the Kinsey studies of the 1940s and 1950s to further support his theory about capitalism and gay identity. “The Kinsey studies found significantly more men than women with predominantly homosexual histories, a situation caused, I [D’Emilio] would argue, by the fact that capitalism had drawn far more men than women into the labor force, and at higher wages” (106). Overall, D’Emilio’s main point in his article is that “capitalism has created the material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a central component of some individual’s lives” (109).
I think that D’Emilio, in his article Capitalism and Gay Identity, is convincing in his argument. It seems that homosexuals were able to identify more with their sexuality and establish gay/lesbian sub cultures as a result from capitalism; in the sense that survival no longer depended on one’s participation within the nuclear family. I agree with D’Emilio that capitalism was a key factor in enabling men and women to identify with their homosexuality; in “colonial society family was so pervasive that they even lacked the category of homosexual or lesbian to describe a person” (104).