L. Maren Wood

Ph.D. Student
marenwood@unc.edu

Major Field: U. S. History

Advisor: John Wood Sweet

Major Field: Early American History and History of Sexuality

Other Fields: Modern British History

Research Interests: In my dissertation, "Dangerous Liaisons: Narratives of Sexual Danger in the Anglo-American North, 1750 to 1820" I seek to understand why late eighteenth-century Anglo-Americans became preoccupied with stories about sex, especially narratives in which sex was perceived as dangerous. Historians of sexuality have identified the late eighteenth century as an important moment in the transformation of sexual ideologies.  Sex became increasingly politicized and connected to ideas about nationhood and citizenship.  The regulation of sex was part of a larger transition in which populations were regulated, categorized, and controlled.

I argue that Anglo-Americans adapted existing narratives of sexual danger, imported from Europe in everything from popular novels to scientific works, to suit the political goals specific to the early Republic. The increased attention given to sexuality in the print culture of the early Republic was connected to discussions of Republican virtue and the belief that the American experiment would only survive if citizens and their dependents displayed virtue; virtue was in part defined by one?s ability to control one?s sexual passions.

Narratives of sexual danger reflected a belief that immorality would undermine the family, the basic unit of the Republic. Seduced maids, prostitutes, divorced wives, and illegitimate children existed outside the national culture where male heads of households were citizens who governed, and represented, their dependents. American authors claimed that citizens only needed to look at the history of Rome to see how sexual immorality corrupted a Republic and led to its downfall.