26915__Mixiovanr.Pdf

PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/26915 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-03 and may be subject to change. mixing ovaries and rosaries mixing ovaries and rosaries Catholic religion and reproduction in the Netherlands, 1870-1970 Een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Letteren. Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.dr. C.W.P.M. Blom, volgens besluit van het College van Decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 11 mei 2005 des namiddags om 1:30 uur precies door Marloes Marrigje Schoonheim geboren op 6 april 1976 te Middelburg Promotor: Prof.dr. P. Klep Copromotor: Dr. Th. Engelen Manuscriptcommissie: Prof.dr. P. Raedts Prof.dr. K. Matthijs, k.u.Leuven Dr. J. Kok, iisg Amsterdam Table of Contents Introduction 9 1 Denominations and demography 15 — Historiography and methodology 1 Aims of the chapter 15 1.1 The Dutch fertility decline and the concept of religion 16 2 Ireland and the religious determinants of fertility 21 2.1 Demographic disparities and the conflict in Northern Ireland 21 2.2 Catholic demographic behavior and the Irish border 24 2.3 Evaluating two decades of Irish demographic variety 26 2.4 Irish demographic historiography: a case of absent Catholicism 28 3 Revisiting the matter of religion and demography: Kevin McQuillan 29 3.1 Goldscheider’s propositions 30 3.2 The curriculum of the demographic historian 31 3.3 The Church’s pathways to regulating behavior 33 4 The Dutch Case 34 4.1 The comparability of Irish and Dutch Catholics 35 4.2 Dutch historiography on denominations and demography 37 4.2.1 Hofstee and the secondary importance of religion 38 4.2.2 Following up on Hofstee 40 4.2.3 Opening up the debate: international publications and cooperation 44 4.2.4 Dutch demographic historiography: a case of absent religion 50 5 Unraveling the concept of religion: sociological methods 53 5.1 Single factors determining religiosity 54 5.2 Theories on the determinants of religiosity 57 5.3 Sociology of religion and its gains for historical demography 59 6 Mixing methods: the study of Catholic religion and reproduction in the Netherlands, 1870-1970 62 6.1 Religion on a macro level in the Netherlands: social sectarianism 63 6.2 Competitive motives for demography: meso level 64 6.3 Transmuting dogma into demography: micro level 65 7 Conclusion 67 2 A nationwide ‘intercom’ for demographic directives 69 — Pillarization and moralization 1 Aims of the chapter 69 1.1 The emancipation of the Dutch Catholics 70 2 Pillarization: the denominational pathway to propagating morality 72 2.1 Pigeon-holing on a large scale: history and meaning 72 2.2 Periodization: rise, culmination and fall 75 2.3 The origins of pillarization 78 2.4 State discipline and the confessional pillars 80 3 The moral nation 82 3.1 Diagrammatized morality 83 3.2 The ‘moralization offensive’: from Liberal initiative to confessional crusade 86 3.3 From Neo Malthusianism to the Public Decency Act 88 3.4 The women’s issue: a moral issue 90 3.5 Morality, pillarization and demography 95 4 The Catholic ‘intercom’ for demographic directives 97 4.1 The Catholic National Party: setting the tone in the pillar 98 4.2 Catholic organizational pillarization: snaring the flock 101 4.3 The clergy: one and all supportive of Catholic pillarization 105 5 Conclusion 107 3 Scaling down the religious determinant in the municipality 111 — Demographic, socio-economic and cultural situations of three case studies 1 Aims of the chapter 111 1.1 Intentional wrong or farmers’ stubbornness: political dissent in Mheer 112 2 Getting round to case studies: selecting Dutch Catholic municipalities 115 2.1 In the midst of all transitions: 1930 115 2.2 The negative case analysis and the selection of municipalities 117 2.3 Data and variables 120 3 General characteristics of the case studies: location and size 123 3.1 Mheer and St Geertruid 123 3.2 Roosteren and Ohe en Laak 125 3.3 Grave and Escharen 127 4 Deviating demographic behavior? Fertility and nuptiality 131 4.1 Mheer and St Geertruid 131 4.2 Roosteren and Ohe en Laak 134 4.3 Grave and Escharen 136 5 Demographic causes of deviating behavior: sex-ratios, infant mortality 139 5.1 Mheer and St Geertruid 139 5.2 Roosteren and Ohe en Laak 144 5.3 Grave and Escharen 148 6 Socio-economic causes: industrialization and agricultural modernization 153 6.1 Mheer and St Geertruid 153 6.2 Roosteren and Ohe en Laak 157 6.3 Grave and Escharen 161 7 Cultural causes: mobility and religious multiformity 165 7.1 Mheer and St Geertruid 166 7.2 Roosteren and Ohe en Laak 168 7.3 Grave and Escharen 170 8 Conclusion 173 4 “We put up with what we were told” 178 — Catholic women on the regulation of fertility 1 Aims of the chapter 178 1.1 The Vatican, morality and post-war restoration 179 2 Affecting fertility: the doctrines of the Catholic Church 182 2.1 Sin, Church and forgiveness 182 2.2 Marriage, parenthood and the gendered division of tasks 184 2.3 Sexuality versus procreation 187 3 Internalizing doctrines: Catholic attitudes to family planning, contraceptives, sexuality and motherhood 189 3.1 Persisting in deviance: desired family size and family planning 191 3.2 Only if Church-approved: the use of methods of birth control 193 3.3 Practicing what is preached: sexual experience 196 3.4 Compliance and a sense of duty: the motherhood ideology 199 3.5 Effectiveness of indoctrination: variation among Catholics 204 3.5.1 Socio-economic position and education: the Catholic exception 204 3.5.2 Religiosity and the obedience to Church doctrines 206 4 Pathways of pronatalism: women’s accounts of indoctrination 208 4.1 The sources: letters of mothers of large families 209 4.2 Imposing the rules: the Church’s means of indoctrination 211 4.2.1 The priest’s marital message 211 4.2.2 Deterrence: Church punishment 214 4.2.3 By courtesy of the Church: permission to practice birth control 216 4.2.4 “Father, I abused matrimony”: confession 220 4.2.5 Crossing the threshold: house visits 223 4.3 A matter of the conscience: faith, fear and guilt 225 4.3.1 ‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb’: faith and family size 225 4.3.2 The price of sinning: guilt and fear 227 4.4 The Catholic social standard of fertility 231 4.4.1 Youth: the mother-to-be 231 4.4.2 A matter of mutual agreement: pronatalism in marriage 233 4.4.3 Just like everyone else: fertility and the Catholic community 234 5 Conclusion 237 5 That rag freedom! 241 — Catholic faith and fertility in the Netherlands, 1870-1970 1 Aims of the chapter 241 2 Catholic religion and reproduction in the Netherlands, 1870-1970: conclusions 241 3 The final blow for Catholic fertility, 1960-1970 244 4 Mixing ovaries and rosaries: observations 249 List of graphs 252 List of tables and maps 254 Bibliography 255 Word of thanks 278 Summary 281 Samenvatting 284 Curriculum vitae 287 Introduction In her 1963 novel The Unicorn Iris Murdoch ventured to demythologize Christian- ity.1 The life of the leading character of the book, a woman who rejects the world and allows herself to be imprisoned, is an imitation of the life of Christ. Together with the other characters of the book, the leading character is enslaved in the ‘magical’ cycle of the events that portray the odd relationship between spirituality, sex and power. Throughout the story the scene of action unfolds as an erotic prison masquerading as a place of religious retreat, demonstrating that the impulse to worship is ambiguous and rarely pure. Only one of the characters in The Unicorn remains outside the chain of power that connects human sexuality and spirituality – a Platonist who watches the events of the story from a distance and describes the automatic communication of power and suffering in which the others are involved. “In morals, we are all prisoners,” this ageing contemplative is found arguing, “but the name of our cure is not freedom.”2 The demythologization of Christianity has been a particularly bitter pill for the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike the Anglican Church or many of the Protestant denominations, it refused to take part in any of the shifts in moral norms and val- ues that have characterized the history of secularization in many industrialized countries during the twentieth century. With every statement on current morality the Vatican, claiming to represent the whole Catholic world community, not only demonstrated its dismay and despair but also the growing gap between the Church’s moral doctrines and the ethical standards held by large population groups, amongst them the Church’s own members. With Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s July 2004 letter to the bishops, for example, the Vatican officially denounced feminism. In its effort to blur differences between men and women, Ratzinger argued, feminism eroded the institution of the family based on a mother and a father and 1 Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn (London 1963), Peter Conradi, The saint and the artist: a study of the fiction of Iris Murdoch (London 2001) 133-166. 2 Murdoch (1963) 114. 10 mixing ovaries and rosaries created a “virtual” equivalency of homosexuality and heterosexuality.3 However, Ratzinger’s moral reprimand has hardly affected the activities of feminists or the growing numbers of advocates for same-sex marriage – nor will many nominal Catholics feel concerned about his message.4 The consequences of the statement impinged mainly on the devout part of the flock, as the document formed a possi- ble occasion for Church conservatives to condemn any form of advocacy for women in the Catholic community.

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