Imperatives to Reproduce: Views from North-west England on Fertility in the Light of Infertility

Abstract

The two quotations cited above, from quite different writers, writing from different vantage points and for different purposes, exemplify interlinked strands of what, from an anthropological perspective, might be termed ‘Western’ concepts of reproducing persons.¹ On the one hand, an emphasis on the nurturing and social aspects of parenting and, on the other, the primacy of biology in the activities of humans. These two strands can also be discerned in more specific English kinship ideas which emphasise both the reproduction of individuals and the creation of relationships. As Marilyn Strathern notes:

English kinship constructs … are as much about reproducing the essentialism of individuality as they are about relational definitions of personal identity. That is precisely their contemporary power.

(Strathern, 1993)

In terms of the real world in which we live and where we try to cherish our dear ones, Oedipus does escape his fate, he does not murder the man who saved him from death, nurtured him, gave him a bicycle, had his teeth straightened, paid for driving lessons, etc. Nor does he impregnate the woman who wiped his bum, taught him to sneeze, and catered to all the indignities of childhood that effectively de-eroticise the relationship between mothers and sprogs. Oedipus’s genuine filial feeling are not outraged. His biological parents are perfect strangers.

(Carter, 1992)

Biology cannot tell us how to behave in the modern world. It can often explain why we do certain things. Baroness Warnock states ‘My argument will be that, though the philosopher will not produce proof or certainty, yet analysis itself may be, in a modest way, useful. It may lead, though slowly, both to better decisions and to the possibility of explaining a decision once it is made’. The word biologist could just as easily be substituted for philosopher. (Potts, 1992)