Preliminary Programme

This paper project focuses on inconsistencies in existing explanations of changes in ideals of acceptable masculine norms in England through the ‘long’ 18th century. These explanations have identified and contrasted a range of possible behaviours and principles without exploring their performance in practice, although studies by Philip Carter and Paul Langford are exceptions. The paper asserts that these interpretations reflect unacknowledged teleological assumptions, notably their conceptualisation of the history of the subject as a succession of (in sociologist R. W. Connell’s phrase) ‘hegemonic masculinities’. These ‘hegemonic’ forms have included: ‘anxious, patriarchal, godly masculinity’ (mid-17th century); ‘libertine’, or ‘foppish’ masculinity (the late-17th century) and ‘polite’ or ‘civil’ masculinity (c. 1720-80). However, this approach assumes an unproblematic relationship between the dominant discourse in advice literature and the prevailing experiences of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, and privileges changes in discourse over continuities. Most importantly, it does not really explain how changes in norms occurred, because there has been little research into such changes within the lifecycle and between generations of sample populations.
These problems will be addressed through a longitudinal analysis of the practises of masculinity among two landed gentry families from the mid-seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, recasting the chronology of changes in elite behavioural norms, particularly their transmission between generations. The paper will focus on three under-researched areas of social practice. Firstly, it will explore the subjective, familial aspects of Gentry masculinities, focusing on lifecycle experiences of land owning men as sons, husbands, fathers, widowers or single men, and the defining impact of relationships with women. Secondly, it will trace how ideals of acceptable masculine gentlemanly identity and behaviour were enacted, through the rules of social ‘institutions’ such as schools, universities, clubs and societies. Thirdly, the study will analyse how landed gentility provided the template for ideals associated with manliness during the early modern period, and test existing studies’ heavy emphasis on a step-change towards new ‘polite’ forms of masculinity, based on self-control and norms of urban(e) civility in the early eighteenth century.
The paper will focus primarily on qualitative sources produced by two Gentry families, from Somerset and Dorset, and by the various institutions to which they belonged. These archives contain detailed and extensive correspondence relating to family life, schooling (particularly letters home), higher education, and social institutions (the services and positions of civil authority), and will provide the bulk of source material about the subjective, internal experiences of elite masculinity over the ‘long’ 18th century. They also offer insights into changes and continuities in expressed ideals of Gentry masculinity through the life cycle and between generations, particularly in parent-child relationships, and the intersection between public values and private, personal identities. (Show less)

This paper explores the issue of how children were thought about in relation to sexual practice, knowledge and experience in early modern England. Since Ariès’ Centuries of Childhood, there has been very little discussion of childhood sexuality in the early modern period. Children and sex in other periods are discussed usually in the context of involuntary sexual activity such as child abuse and incest. But was there a concept of child sexual abuse in this earlier period, and linked to this any recognition or understanding that there may have been some adults who had a preference for sexual activity with children? This issue is especially pertinent when examining a society where there was a dislocation between the legal age of marriage (and therefore consent); the age at which marriages generally actually occurred and the age at which children were thought to reach physical sexual maturity (puberty). The legal age of marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys (though the age of consent was lowered to 10 for girls in 1576) while the average age of marriage was much higher, the mid to late twenties. Puberty, or the age at which girls were thought to achieve sexual maturity through the onset of menstruation and hence the ability to conceive, was also thought to occur at a later age than the age of consent: around the age of 14 or 15, but could be much higher, even as late as 19. However, marriages of children before they had reached puberty, and of older men to young girls, did take place, albeit infrequently, and usually between elite families. One of the main aims of marriage was procreation; so how did early modern people view these marriages and what were their attitudes towards the consummation of marriage in these cases? Through the analysis of a variety of sources from court records to medical books and pornography I will attempt to uncover some early modern attitudes towards sexual activity, in and out of marriage, both between children and young adolescents themselves, and between the young and the mature. (Show less)