"Comment se font les enfans?" Sex Education and the Preservation of Innocence in Eighteenth-Century France

Abstract

Against the backdrop of high infant mortality rates, the widespread practice of child abandonment, women dying in childbirth, and the overall difficulty of bearing and raising children, the notion of family stood out as one of the great obsessions of eighteenth-century France.1 Domestic scenes of familial virtue depicting the proper behavior of fathers, mothers, and children were common in the art and literature of the day; and treatises on the correct way of educating sons and daughters abounded. However, the integrity of this model was constantly threatened by the libertine mores that the would-be virtuous families of the day saw lurking just outside their doors. Thus the new focus on family and familial virtue often masked the period's deep-seated fear of society's moral corruption. In the real, or simply perceived, struggle between the bonheur of domestic virtue and the plaisir of libertine decadence, it became imperative to educate France's youth about the dangers of debauchery. This meant teaching them about sex. But in this era of Enlightenment, how would philosophers conceptualize sex education outside the dogma of the Church? How could they promote virtue without playing upon