Darwin and the Descent of Woman

Abstract

A growing number of social historians and sociologists of science have come to think of scientific knowledge as a ‘contingent cultural product, which cannot be separated from the social context in which it is produced’, and they have begun to explore the possibility of there being direct ‘external’ or what are generally regarded as ‘non-scientific’ influences on the content of what scientists consider to be genuine knowledge.² In their view, scientific assertions are ‘socially created and not directly given by the physical world as previously supposed’.³ This is not to assert that science is merely a matter of convention — that the external world does not constrain scientific conclusions — but rather that scientific knowledge ‘offers an account of the physical world which is mediated through available cultural resources; and these resources are in no way definitive’.⁴

Children — (if it please God) — constant companion, (friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, object to be beloved and played with — better than a dog anyhow – Home and someone to take care of house — Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one’s health. Forced to visit and receive relations but terrible loss of time…

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, and books and music perhaps — compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt Marlboro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry. Q. E. D.

No children (no second life), no one to care for one in old age…

Freedom to go where one liked — Choice of Society and little of it. Conversation of clever men at clubs…

Loss of time — cannot read in the evenings — fatness and idleness — anxiety and responsibility — less money for books etc…

Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation with indolent idle fool

Charles Darwin, Notes on the Question of Marriage, 1837–8.¹