Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England

Originally published in 1978, this title contends that the great interest of the 19th-century birth control debate is that it reveals that there was not a growing consensus of opinion on the question of family planning but rather two cultural confrontations.

Angus McLaren

Preface. Introduction. Part 1: Background to the Birth Control Debate 1. Quackery and Control of Fertility in Eighteenth-Century England Part 2: Contraception and the Class Struggle 2. The Beginning of the Birth Control Debate 3. Contraception and Working-Class Movements 4. Birth Control and Medical Self-help 5. Birth Control and the Morality of Married Life Part 3: Neo-Malthusianism and its Late Nineteenth-Century Critics 6. The Malthusian League 7. Birth Control and the British Medical Profession, 1850-1914 8. Birth Control and Eugenics 9. Socialists and Birth Control: the Case of the Social Democratic Federation 10. Socialists and Birth Control: Freedom or Efficiency 11. Feminism and Fertility Control Part 4: Theory and Practice 12. Birth Control and the Working Classes 13. Abortion in England, 1890-1914. Conclusion. Index.