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The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History pp 99–122Cite as

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Silences: Coping with Infertility in Nineteenth-Century Germany

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Abstract

Experiences of infertility are hard to recover. Nineteenth-century women and men who encountered reproductive difficulties have left few traces in the historical record. Their silences are one of the reasons why historians of the family, gender, and sexuality were slow to turn their attention to unintended childlessness. But while the reticence of past actors is frustrating for the historian, it might have made sense to those concerned. This chapter explores how people talked or avoided talking about reproductive failure. It looks at moments of communication as represented in fictional texts, letters, diaries, and autobiographies. Drawing on stigma theory and historical studies on silences, it argues that reticence served a purpose, that it was a coping strategy and helped to avoid confrontations and challenging questions regarding the meaning of marriage, love, and reproduction.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On silences as part of communication, see Alois Hahn ‘Rede- und Schweigeverbote’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 43:1 (1991); Alois Hahn ‘Schweigen, Verschweigen, Wegschauen und Verhüllen’, in Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann (eds), Schweigen. Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation XI (München, 2013).

  2. 2.

    Almost all of the sources used for this chapter were originally written in German. Translations are by Howard Nelson and myself unless otherwise stated. Unfortunately, the German term ‘schweigen’ – usually meaning to consciously refrain from speaking – which is almost constantly used in the German sources, has no direct equivalent in English. I wish to thank Dagmar Günther and Jürgen Schlumbohm for pointing me to relevant materials. I would love to hear from readers who know of other examples of nineteenth-century diaries, correspondence, and autobiographies or literary texts dealing with infertility. Many thanks to Sandra Mass, Tracey Loughran, and Gayle Davis, who provided extremely useful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, and to Howard Nelson for his generous help and encouragement.

  3. 3.

    Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, MA, 2013), pp. 26–7.

  4. 4.

    Population discourses have been widely studied. In Germany, public anxiety regarding depopulation only emerged shortly before the First World War. In the ensuing debates, voluntary childlessness was castigated, but infertility was not given much consideration. See Christina Benninghaus, ‘“No, Thank You, Mr Stork!”: Voluntary Childlessness in Weimar and Contemporary Germany’, Studies in the Maternal, 6:1 (2014): http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.8. Accessed 6 December 2016.

  5. 5.

    On the reluctance to turn infertility into a political issue see Naomi Pfeffer, The Stork and the Syringe: A Political History of Reproductive Medicine (Cambridge 1993), chapter 1; on the grand narrative of biopolitics, see Edward Ross Dickinson, ‘Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse About “Modernity”’, Central European History, 37:1 (2004); on the preventive self, see Ulrich Bröckling, ‘Vorbeugen ist besser […] Zur Soziologie der Prävention’, Behemoth. A Journal on Civilisation, 1:1 (2009).

  6. 6.

    Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner, The Empty Cradle: Infertility in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore, MD, 1996), p. 99. See also endnote 58, p. 286.

  7. 7.

    Deborah Cohen, Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day (London, 2013), p. xv.

  8. 8.

    Aleida Assmann, ‘Formen des Schweigens’, in Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann (eds), Schweigen. Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation XI (München, 2013).

  9. 9.

    Kate Fisher, ‘Knowledge and Ignorance’, in Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming and Lauren Kassell (eds), Reproduction from Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge, forthcoming).

  10. 10.

    I cannot possibly do justice to the fast growing literature on infertility and new reproductive technologies produced in the social sciences. See, however, Arthur L. Greil, Kathleen Slauson-Blevins, and Julia McQuillan, ‘The Experience of Infertility: A Review of Recent Literature’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 32:1 (2010).

  11. 11.

    Larissa Remennick, ‘Childless in the Land of Imperative Motherhood: Stigma and Coping Among Infertile Israeli Women’, Sex Roles, 43:11/12 (2000), p. 830.

  12. 12.

    Jill Allison, ‘Conceiving Silence: Infertility as Discursive Contradiction in Ireland’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 25:1 (2011), p. 17.

  13. 13.

    Rosario Ceballo, Erin T. Graham and Jamie Hart, ‘Silent and Infertile: An Intersectional Analysis of the Experiences of Socioeconomically Diverse African American Women With Infertility’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39:4 (2015), p. 503.

  14. 14.

    Pauline Slade et al., ‘The Relationship between Perceived Stigma, Disclosure Patterns, Support and Distress in New Attendees at an Infertility Clinic’, Human Reproduction, 22:8 (2007).

  15. 15.

    Karen Throsby and Rosalind Gill, ‘“It’s different for men”: Masculinity and IVF’, Men and Masculinities, 6:1 (2004), p. 345.

  16. 16.

    On the relationship of stigma and silence in developing countries and especially on sociocultural differences in coping strategies, see Papreen Nahar and Sjaak van der Geest, ‘How Women in Bangladesh Confront the Stigma of Childlessness: Agency, Resilience, and Resistance’, Medical Anthropology, 38:3 (2014).

  17. 17.

    Letter from Friederike Brun, 22 May 1815. Quoted in Ilse Foerst-Crato, Frauen zur Goethezeit. Ein Briefwechsel: Caroline von Humboldt – Friederike Brun (Düsseldorf, 1995), p. 125. Health and reproduction were central themes of this correspondence.

  18. 18.

    Hans-Christof Kraus, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach: politisches Denken und Handeln eines preussischen Altkonservativen (Göttingen,1994), p. 330.

  19. 19.

    Bärbel Meurer, Marianne Weber. Leben und Werk (Tübingen, 2010), p. 89.

  20. 20.

    Carl Steiner, Of Reason and Love: The Life and Works of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Riverside, CA, 1994). Susanne Kord (ed.), Letzte Chancen: Vier Einakter von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Cambridge, 2005), p. 7 criticizes Steiner and others for assuming that Ebner-Eschenbach suffered because of her childlessness.

  21. 21.

    Many historians refer to literary texts and use them for illustrative purposes. But the potential of literary texts as historical sources is rarely explored more systematically. For a nuanced discussion of the historical value of literary texts, see Martina Winkler, ‘Vom Nutzen und Nachteil literarischer Quellen für Historiker’, in Martin Schulze Wessel (ed.), Digitales Handbuch zur Geschichte und Kultur Russlands und Osteuropas (München, 2009), No. 21.

  22. 22.

    Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks. The Decline of a Family, trans. Alfred A. Knopf (Exeter, 1924) [1901], p. 298. See also Theodor Fontane, Trials and Tribulations. A Berlin Novel, trans. from the 14th edition by Catherine Royce (New York, 1917), p. 111; Ignát Herrmann, ‘Childless’, in Marie Busch (ed.), Selected Czech Tales, trans. Marie Busch and Otto Pick (Oxford, 1925) 1908], p. 104; Hugo Salus, Trostbüchlein für Kinderlose [Consolation for the Childless] (Berlin, 1909), pp. 11–19.

  23. 23.

    Clara Viebig, Son of His Mother, trans. H. Raahauge (London, 1913). On the author, the novel and its contemporary reception, see Christina Benninghaus, ‘Brennende Sehnsüchte, heimliche Ängste – Kinderlosigkeit, Vererbung und Adoption im naturalistischen Roman um 1900’, zeitenblicke, 7:3 (2008): http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2008/3/benninghaus/index_html. Accessed 6 December 2016.

  24. 24.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, p. 5.

  25. 25.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, p. 11.

  26. 26.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, pp. 6–8.

  27. 27.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, p. 6.

  28. 28.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, p. 10.

  29. 29.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, p. 22.

  30. 30.

    Viebig, Son of His Mother, pp. 31–2.

  31. 31.

    Adalbert Stifter, ‘Der Waldgänger’, in Johann Grafen Mailáth (ed.), Iris. Deutscher Almanach für 1847 (Pesth 1847), p. 83.

  32. 32.

    Stifter, ‘Der Waldgänger’, p. 99.

  33. 33.

    Mann, Buddenbrooks, p. 298.

  34. 34.

    Fontane, Trials and Tribulations, p. 111.

  35. 35.

    Hans von Hoffensthal Lori Graff (Berlin, 1909), p. 261. The novel was meant to inform readers, especially young girls and their parents, about the dangers of venereal disease.

  36. 36.

    See Penny Roberts’s chapter in this volume for further discussion of this issue.

  37. 37.

    Letter from Mathilde of Hesse to Otto, King of Greece, 8 May 1849, quoted in Barbara Beck, Mathilde Großherzogin von Hessen und bei Rhein, geb. Prinzessin von Bayern (1813–1862). Mittlerin zwischen München und Darmstadt (Darmstadt,1993), p. 251.

  38. 38.

    Letter from Otto, King of Greece, to Mathilde of Hesse, 14 February 1843. Quoted in Beck, Mathilde, p. 140.

  39. 39.

    Mathilde Eckardt (ed.), Briefe aus alter Zeit. Wilhelmine Heyne-Heeren an Marianne Friederike Bürger 1794–1803 (Hannover, 1913).

  40. 40.

    For more information on the social milieu in which Wilhelmine and Marianne were raised, see Birgit Panke-Kochinke, Göttinger Professorenfamilien. Strukturmerkmale weiblichen Lebenszusammenhangs im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Pfaffenweiler, 1993); Eckart Kleßmann, Universitätsmamsellen. Fünf aufgeklärte Frauen zwischen Rokoko, Revolution und Romantik (Frankfurt a.M., 2008). On the importance of correspondence within this milieu, see Robert Vellusig, ‘Aufklärung und Briefkultur. Wie das Herz sprechen lernt, wenn es zu schreiben beginnt’, Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert, 35:2 (2011), p. 15; Rainer Baasner (ed), Briefkultur im 19. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1999).

  41. 41.

    Eckardt, Briefe, p. 45.

  42. 42.

    Eckardt, Briefe, pp. 63–4.

  43. 43.

    Eckardt, Briefe, pp. 32, 51.

  44. 44.

    Eckardt, Briefe, p. 49.

  45. 45.

    Eckardt, Briefe, p. 71.

  46. 46.

    Johann Friedrich Stark, Tägliches Gebet-Büchlein, das ist Aufmunterungen, Gebete und Gesänge für Schwangere, Gebährende und Sechswöchnerinnen. Morgen- und Abend-Gebete, Trost- und Erquickungs-Andachten samt Gesängen; (…) Für Unfruchtbare, Erinnerung, Trost, Gebete und Gesänge (…) als den fünften und sechsten Theil des täglichen Handbuchs (Stuttgart, 1846), p. 116. The first edition was published in 1727 and only had four parts: For the Healthy, the Sorrowful, the Ill and the Dying. In 1731, parts for pregnant women and for the infertile were added. The quotation is taken from the US translation: John Frederick Stark, J.F. Stark’s Daily Hand-Book for Days of Rejoicing and of Sorrow (Philadelphia, PA, 1879). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book went through countless editions. In Germany, it was the most widely used Protestant prayer book. See Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 3rd edn, Vol. 18 (Leipzig, 1906), p. 350. See also Ulrike Gleixner, Pietismus und Bürgertum. Eine historische Anthropologie der Frömmigkeit (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 280ff.

  47. 47.

    Stark, Daily Hand-Book, p. 105.

  48. 48.

    Stark, Daily Hand-Book, pp. 112–13.

  49. 49.

    Stark, Daily Hand-Book, p. 102.

  50. 50.

    Eckardt, Briefe, p. 71.

  51. 51.

    Eckardt, Briefe, pp. 70–71.

  52. 52.

    Stark, Daily Hand-Book, p.105

  53. 53.

    Bertha von Suttner, Memoirs: Records of an Eventful Life, Volume 2, authorized translation [no translator named] (Boston, MA, 1910), pp. 19–20.

  54. 54.

    On shifts in attitudes towards voluntary childlessness see Benninghaus, ‘“No Thank You, Mr Stork!”’.

  55. 55.

    Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New York, 1963), pp. 10, 94.

  56. 56.

    Adelheid Sturm, Lebens-Erinnerungen einer Professorenfrau (Breslau, 1901), pp. 39–40.

  57. 57.

    Georg Gottfried Gervinus, G. G. Gervinus Leben. Von ihm selbst. 1860 (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 325–6.

  58. 58.

    Letter to Hermann Baumgarten from 31 December 1860, quoted in Christian Jansen, ‘Wahlverwandtschaft und sexuelle Belästigung. Gefühle und Gerede in einer prominenten bürgerlichen Familie’, in Sandra Maß and Xenia von Tippelskirch (eds), Faltenwürfe der Geschichte (Frankfurt a.M., 2014), p. 90.

  59. 59.

    Kurt Hellmuth (pseudonym for Albert Jaffé), Erinnerungen und Betrachtungen eines Siebzigjährigen (Paris, 1914), p. 84.

  60. 60.

    For information on Henriette Obermüller-Venedey and an edition of her memoir and her diaries from later years, see Birgit Bublies-Godau, ‘Dass die Frauen bessere Democraten, geborene Democraten seyen […]’ Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, Tagebücher und Lebenserinnerungen, 1817–1871 (Karlsruhe, 1999).

  61. 61.

    Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, p. 112.

  62. 62.

    Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, p. 114.

  63. 63.

    Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, pp. 118, 126.

  64. 64.

    Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, pp. 134–35, 143.

  65. 65.

    Diary, 28 April 1856, in Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, p. 25.

  66. 66.

    Bublies-Godau, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey, p. 134.

  67. 67.

    Mann, Buddenbrooks, p. 298.

  68. 68.

    Marianne Weber, Lebenserinnerungen (Bremen, 1948), p. 113.

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  1. Historisches Institut, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany

    Christina Benninghaus

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  1. Christina Benninghaus
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Correspondence to Christina Benninghaus .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Gayle Davis

  2. Department of History, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, UK

    Tracey Loughran

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Benninghaus, C. (2017). Silences: Coping with Infertility in Nineteenth-Century Germany. In: Davis, G., Loughran, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_6

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