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Reproduction

Reproduction, as both a biological and social function, has been a salient element in defining masculinity and the lives of men in the United States. For men, reproduction has represented the continuation of a genealogical line, the establishment of social position as a household head, the demonstration of virility through fertility, and the assumption of the role and responsibilities of fatherhood. Historically, American men have more consistently defined their identities apart from their reproductive capacities and accomplishments than women have. But with the rise, spread, and then decline of the traditional two-parent nuclear family in industrial and postindustrial America, both biological and social reproduction have come to play more central roles in defining masculinity.

Reproduction in the Colonies: 1640–1800

Reproduction in the colonial and early post-Revolutionary periods directly reflected the economic necessities of agricultural production and an expansionist attitude aimed at strengthening the colonies and, later, the nation through population growth. This attitude toward nation building, reflected in high fertility rates and large families, persevered in the frontier areas of the United States into the mid–nineteenth century. American men expected to sire large families, not only to reap the economic potential of children in a household-based economy, but also to secure positions within communities as patriarchal heads of households. In Puritan New England, this patriarchal line of authority extended from God to government officials to the family father. Because they rarely passed down their inheritance to the firstborn son alone, most white men would head their own households. Following the high mortality rates in the early colonies, comparatively low mortality rates and phenomenal fertility rates drove rapid population growth in the eighteenth century.

Slavery directly affected the reproduction of thousands of men. Grounding their understanding of manhood and its social functions in whiteness, slave owners viewed male slaves in terms of their reproductive capacities, but separated slaves' reproduction from considerations of family and fatherhood. During slavery, slave owners “bred” black men to increase their labor force. While white men saw black slaves as a sexual threat to white women, they viewed their own reproductive engagement with slave women as a prerogative of racial patriarchy, overlooking, and even condoning, the rearing of children resulting from relations between white male slave owners and female slaves.

The U.S. Demographic Transition: 1800–1900

Changing masculine roles coincided with a demographic shift and the resulting fertility decline that occurred in the United States in the nineteenth century prior to the Industrial Revolution. During this period, life expectancy increased and mortality levels at all ages dropped, followed by a decline in the average family size. Thus, while the U.S. population continued to double every twenty years until 1860, the total fertility rate decreased almost in half, from 7.1 children per woman among white Americans in 1800 to 3.6 in 1900. From 1850 to 1900, total fertility among black women also declined, from 7.9 to 5.6. The later age at which couples first married and their increased participation in marital contraception (particularly by means of withdrawal) precipitated this decline. As the United States moved from a household-based and largely agricultural economy into an urban, industrial one, the economic cost of individual children increased. Children thus became less of an economic asset and more of a social and personal investment, and couples responded by delaying marriage and having fewer children.

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