- Author: Yeom, Woon Ok
- Title: The British Eugenics Movement and Sexuality: The Control of Venereal Diseases and the Premarital Health Schedule
- Language: Korean
- Journal: Women and History 1: 221-252
- Publication Year: 2004
- Publisher: Korean Association of Women's History
■ Abstract In 1883 Francis Galton invented the term 'eugenics' which means racial improvement through selective breeding. The discourses of national efficiency, race-degeneration and eugenics were flourished in the early twentieth century when British empire began to decline. With the foundation of the Eugenics Laboratory and the Eugenics Education Society in 1904 and 1907, the British eugenics movement started and interfered in several reforms, such as divorce law reform, family endowment, birth control and population policy.
Although venereal diseases, such as syphilis is not a hereditary disease, it is closely related to the health of mother and child. From the early years, the Eugenics Society proposed that sex education should be done at home and school in order to prevent venereal diseases. In 1930s the Society propelled 'the Premarital Health Schedule' which required the engaged couples to exchange the certificate of health before marriage. This paper argued the relationship between the control of sexuality and eugenics through analysing the activities of 'the National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases', 'the British Social Hygiene Council' and the Eugenics Society.
The Eugenists regarded the prevention and cure of congenital syphilis as a eugenic problem because it provoke mental defective, mental disorder, blind and deaf. When they confronted mental deficiency, the eugenists stressed the necessity of taking into consideration not only hereditary factor but also environmental factor. The protection of mother's body which constitute the environment for fetus could be the important task for preventive eugenics. Congenital syphilis is also related to the economy of welfare. Considering the expenses for care of the disabled, it would be better to prevent their birth. The National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases' and 'the British Social Hygiene Council' shared the same premises with eugenics.
Free love, free sexuality and the reproduction of 'excellent' illegitimate children were not true for the British eugenics. The Eugenics Society and other related societies for combating against venereal diseases made an effort for the elevation of the quality of further generation through sex education and marriage counselling. Consequently, the British eugenics movement attempted to control the sexuality for the stabilization of monogamy as a social institution.
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