(no subject)

[slemslempike]

I can't get the right keywords for this on Google it seems, so coming here to ask.

In older books when they say "he can't have children, you know" is this basically meaning that the he in question can't get an erection? This is apropos of reading Cecil by Elizabeth Eliot, and then recalling Rosamund's husband in the Abbey books (though this turned out to be a false alarm).

If that is the case, would teenageish girls (or indeed anyone) reading these books be expected to grasp (as it were) this meaning or would it be assumed that they would take the inability to have children at face value?

And when did it become possible to know about male fertility?

Comments

[oursin]

Ahem - subject upon which I can bore for England, the abbreviated version.

a) Possibly, depending on date, a War Wound of an intimate nature. Also having had mumps or some other diseases affecting the male organs of reproduction. (I incline to the mumps explanation, myself.)

b) For longer than one would think possible, well after it was known that it was possible to test sperm to see if the little swimmers were there and actually capable of doing their stuff, docs were either ignorant of this basic fact, or sexistly reluctant to do this v simple operation before subjecting the women in the picture to a load of intrusive investigations. So shooting blanks was technically known of but very concealed.

c) docs for far longer than one would think possible did conflate potency/fertility in men.

But this all may fall under the heading of Weird Literary Medical (especially in the reproductive area) Tropes - like e.g. woman who has 1 miscarriage and Can Never Bear Another Child - and of course all those plot relevant Literary Diseases. (I was once sent an article to referee in which somebody was trying to align diseases caused by particular behaviours in Victorian novels with recognised disease entities of the day - larf I fair lay on the ground.)

[slemslempike]

I did wonder about titling this "paging oursin" :)

Very interesting, thank you! So not nec about erection.

In the Elizabeth Eliot it was especially interesting as the inability to have children came to light after the man's mother writes a letter to his fiancé's father to tell him that the son can't have children, which is a shock to everyone who learns about it. The son was ill but not mumps and def not a war wound. Possibly an sti of some kind, but he later does get entangled with a woman with whom he anticipates the wedding night so either it was an erection thing that got better or she didn't mind about no children.

[oursin]

Epididymitis, a bacterial infection of the testes, can be caused by the spreading of other bacterial conditions, including STIs, but other UTIs and a range of other diseses. So it could have been a lot of things and family doc solemnly saying 'Alas, he can never be a father' after examining inflammed family jewels.

[sabethea]

With Ros’s husband, I always assumed that he wasn’t strong enough to perform any vigorous activity… including sex, because when he becomes well enough to walk, they suddenly decide he’s well enough to have children. (Ros announces Geoffrey walked across the garden to offer her an engagement ring, and Joy says something along the lines of “oh good, so you’ll be able to have all of the pleasures of marriage” or words to that effect… I was reading it earlier today, as it happens.)

[jinty]

I came here to say 'mumps'.

'Mumps'.

Though to be fair, the war wound version also sounds reasonable (esp when including lower limb paralysis or similar).