[On femininity, masculinity and biology at the turn of the century 1800]

This study examines the constructions of sex/gender present in medical manuals on sexuality and marriage, published in Sweden 1790-1830. The findings confirms Thomas Laqueur's thesis that a "one-sex-model" shaped the understanding of the human body until the eighteenth century. The ancient medical tradition is evident in the instructions on how to achieve health, and the reproduction-theories are influenced by the Hippocratian/Galenian tradition as well as the Aristotelian tradition. According to the manuals, sexualality should be connected to love and marriage, for the sake of both the young couple in love and of their future children. The parents' "fluids" and emotions at the moment of conception are believed to be crucial for the quality of the offspring. Children are also believed to inherit acquired characteristics, which makes the behaviour of the parents-to-be very important. The norms for proper conduct can be related to a bourgeois ideology of the relations between the sexes in which femininity and masculinity are defined as complementary categories. Furthermore, male domination and female subordination are inherent in "womanliness", manliness", romantic love and sexual attraction. "Nature" is--in contrast to civilisation--a normative ideal. The "natural" active male and passive female behaviour are not, however, legitimised by biological theories. Women and men are both regarded as "natural" sexual beings and the female orgasm is considered crucial for conception, although women who shows lustful feelings are considered despicable and "unnatural". ...