Measuring Immorality: Social Inquiry and the Problem of Illegitimacy

by Gail Reekie

This book examines how social science transforms a biological event--a birth--into a social and moral problem. Drawing on Foucault's "archaeology of knowledge," the book stresses the role of statistics and other truth-telling discourses in the birth and growth of the illegitimacy "problem" since the early nineteenth century. Chapters explore the diverse discursive origins of illegitimacy's negative meanings--expense, racial inferiority, social disorder, death, mental incompetence, fatherlessness and selfishness. The book offers an international perspective.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 1998

Reviews

[SpentCello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reeke's analysis of illegitimacy is comprehensive and insightful in its outline of the history of social conceptions of children born out of wedlock, positioning illegitimacy as being inextricably linked with immorality. I particularly enjoyed Reeke's exploration of homosexuality, and how the historic denial of marriage rights to anyone but heterosexual partnerships inherently links homosexuality to illegitimacy and thus, immorality. Reeke's feminist driven social analysis of the power of social norms elevated to deeply-rooted morals is still poignant today, and much of her commentary on far-right conservative voices in social theory is directly applicable to popular influencers today who hold and proselytise similar views.

While overall I thought Measuring Immorality was an informative and comprehensive history, I did find that it was a bit too scattered - tending to jump around time periods and political persuasions very frequently throughout each chapter. Also, Reeke's distancing and attempts to present differing perspectives objectively were distracting, considering that it is so fundamentally clear that her intent is to discredit or at least problematise the conservative sociology she draws on. This is made abundantly clear in her background as a researcher, her introduction, and the way she has selected quotes, so it feels somewhat stilted and opaque when she adopts such a distant tone. This perpetuates issues that she discussed in her final chapter to do with writing objectively and using highly specialised language as a way of legitimising perspectives and theory.

I'm thankful that despite Reeke's prediction that it wouldn't happen anytime soon, the concept of illegitimacy has largely lost its social salience and has become largely irrelevant in large parts of the societies analysed in Measuring Immorality. Despite this, this book is still an interesting dive into the history of these concepts and explains a lot about how we got to where we are now.