White supremacist origins of marriage advice

Jane Ward (The Conversation); Crystal Q., Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The white supremacist origins of modern marriage advice
At the turn of the 20th century, marriage was assumed to be an exercise in mutual misery.

When I was conducting research for my new book on the destructive aspects of modern heterosexual relationships, I started looking into the archives of early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage written by physicians and sexologists.

In the process I made a discovery that would radically alter my understanding of why so many parts of heterosexual culture remain mired in violence and inequality.

Almost all of the original self-help books for couples were written by proponents of the eugenics movement, an ostensibly scientific project that aimed to encourage reproduction among the white middle class, while discouraging or preventing population growth among people of color and the poor.

These early marriage manuals revealed that the project of defining healthy heterosexual marriage in the United States was also a white supremacist campaign designed to help white families flourish.

As the marriage counseling industry evolved in the 20th century, some of the key assumptions made in these original manuals would persist, even influencing marriage advice aimed at Black families.

Far from perfect unions

By the early 20th century, many prominent eugenicists were concerned about the state of marriage. White women, cowed by abusive husbands, were unwilling to have sex, and marriage increasingly seemed to be an exercise in mutual misery.

This, in their view, could limit the ability of the best elements of the human gene pool to propagate. So, with the support of the Eugenics Publishing Company, they set out to educate white readers with tips for how to achieve a friendly and harmonious marriage.

These texts reveal some common assumptions made about early 20th-century marriage. Women were not expected to feel an easy or instinctive attraction to men, nor were men expected to concern themselves with women’s emotional or physical well-being.

One point nearly all sexologists agreed upon: Women needed to understand that men were naturally inclined toward aggression and sexual selfishness, so they should cut their husbands a little slack.

William Robinson, an early 20th-century sexologist, hoped that his marriage advice manuals would address the “disgust,” “deep hatred,” and “desire for injury and revenge” that heterosexual couples felt for one another.

Marie Stopes, a British eugenicist, wrote at length about how most new brides were repulsed by the revelation of their husbands’ naked bodies, and were “driven to suicide and insanity” by men’s violence during “the first night of marriage.”

Harland William Long, another eugenicist writer, agreed, observing that “many a newlywed couple have wrecked the possibility of happiness of a life time” because “the great majority of brides are practically raped on entrance into the married relation.” More

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