Why do conservative politicians and scholars in Britain, Australia and the United States continue to view rising rates of out-of-wedlock births and teenage pregnancies as a threat to civilised society? This book examines the process by which social science transforms a biological event - a birth - into a social and moral problem. Drawing on Foucault's 'archaeology of knowledge', Reekie stresses the role of statistics and other social-scientific discourses in the emergence of the illegitimacy 'problem' in the early nineteenth century and its continuing cultural significance. The book illustrates the continuity in concerns about illegitimacy, including pressure on the welfare system, fears of racial and intellectual denigration, the detrimental nature of fatherless families, and the association of rising illegitimacy with the supposed selfishness of excessively independent women.

Examines how illegitimacy has been constructed as a social problem since the nineteenth century.

Book Information
ISBN 9780521629744
Author Gail Reekie
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 415g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 20mm