"The Improper Arts": Sex in Classical Political Economy

Abstract

THE CONCEPT OF RATIONAL ECONOMIC MAN was the brainchild of classical political economy-Adam Smith, Robert Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, and their contemporaries. Of the famous trio just named, however, only Bentham ever suggested that rational economic man should be rational in bed, and his writings on the subject (many unpublished until the twentieth century) remain largely ignored. The otherwise conventional James Mill alluded indirectly to the use of contraception, and the self-educated radical Francis Place actively campaigned for it. Yet few historians of economic thought have credited either of them with any important innovation. Classical economists' concern with population centered on the consequences and determinants of demographic growth. Matters relative to sexual intercourse, at first blush, may seem only marginally salient to that theme. Yet one consequence of the passion between the sexes-the conception of children-plays a central role in determining population growth. How odd, then, that economists were so reluctant to direct their dispassionate, scientific gaze at issues of sexual rationality and self-interest. Many, though not all, were apparently influenced by prevailing social norms and religious doctrines. In this essay, I hope to provoke further research by outlining a critique of the discourse on sexuality in early political economy, emphasizing two related issues. First, despite their claims to a rational, secular view of the world, most early political economists accepted conventional standards of heterosexuality and female monogamy and espoused the view that contraception was immoral as well as improper. Second, they not only underestimated the influence of rational self-interest on the practice of sexual in