Theorizing de-Christianization in women's reproductive lives in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Abstract

Several scholars argue that there is a causal link between the sexual revolution, plunging fertility rates, delayed age of first marriage and the waning influence of Christianity between 1957 and 1975, and that the most dramatic shift occurred in Canada. However, when these findings are contrasted with intergenerational family narratives gathered from women living in a culturally distinct and religiously homogeneous Canadian province, a more complex story of de-Christianization in relation to women's reproductive lives emerges. We suggest that secularization in women's lives in Newfoundland and Labrador occurred later, and appeared to coincide with two significant de-institutionalizing events – the Mount Cashel scandal in the 1980s and the end of the denominational school system in the 1990s. Moreover, even following women's reported departure from the Church, religiously-framed morality remains salient in women's descriptions of their reproductive lives, and mothers were central in imparting these mores.