Sex, Scandal, Satire, and Population in 1798: Revisiting Malthus's FirstEssay

Malthus and gender

“…1800. Analysis of what came to be called ‘gender’ has been implicit here and there in my own work on Malthus, and in those of other Malthus scholars (Bederman, 2008; Davenport, 1995; McCann, 2017). At one level, it's no news that sex was core business for Malthus in his Essay .…”

“…In this lecture I revisit the Essay for Malthus's explicit discussion of how this law of population and resources operated via men and women, engaging ideas about masculinity and femininity c. 1800. Analysis of what came to be called 'gender' has been implicit here and there in my own work on Malthus, and in those of other Malthus scholars (Bederman, 2008;Davenport, 1995;McCann, 2017). At one level, it's no news that sex was core business for Malthus in his Essay.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2008

“…Perkyns discusses how the Board of Guardians of a Kentish workhouse treated children, and Francus uses literary sources to illuminate the perennial threat to property rights posed by bastards. Bederman, finally, argues that Malthus's Essay on the principle of population (1798 ) was framed initially as a satire on the acceptance by Godwin and Wollstonecraft of forms of sexual egalitarianism that threatened society with rising illegitimacy and increasing poor rates.…”

Reflections on the value of books

“…And my work has been transformed by the capacity to then access, say, Archive.org, to read and perform keyword searches on first edition scholarly texts written in those same distant years that also refer to the diffusion of X idea. I do not miss the white gloves and expensive photocopies too much—although nothing surpasses holding said first edition in the palm of one's hand on visits to the world's great libraries, especially if the pencil marginalia are intact (on which, see Bederman, ).…”