Authors reveal the main trends in reproductive behavior of noblewomen in the second half of XIX and the beginning of the XX c. The noblewomen are in the center of the research, because the modernization of reproductive behavior was the most pronounced in this social stratum. The study is based on the women’s private documents, case histories and cases described by physi-cians. Among approaches and methods employed one should mention the fol-lowing: socio-constructivist, micro history, gender history, social and cultural anthropology, biographical method, case studies.
Modernization of Russian society, the destruction of the patriarchal family, emancipation, availability of new areas for gender identity in the second half of the XIX c. contributed to the creation of a new type of mating behavior of noblewomen. It was the revolutionary process of autonomization of sexual and procreative behavior of noblewomen. Rationalization of reproductive behavior was reflected in significant reduction of births, increasing the age of marriage and the age of first pregnancy, widespread dissemination of contraception. A new type of fertility was formed very quickly — within one generation.
The reduction of births in woman’s life in terms of social construction of “conscious motherhood” led to the growth of maternal roles value in female per-ception and dissemination of child-centrism. Planning of a family became an important component of the Russian noble families. Sexual life of a married woman became more and more independent of her reproductive abilities.read in PDF>>>
