AskSocialScience According to Unwin, after a nation becomes prosperous it becomes increasingly liberal with regard to sexual morality and as a result loses it cohesion, its impetus and its purpose. The process, says the author, is irreversible: “The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it […]
In his book, Sex and Culture, professor Unwin studied eighty ‘uncivilized’ cultures and compared his results with sixteen ‘civilized’ cultures extending over the last 4,000 years. He found that when strict heterosexual monogamy was practiced, the society attained its greatest cultural energy, especially in the arts, sciences and technology. But as people rebelled against the […]
I have to disagree somewhat with the previous reviewer. Unwin is a very methodical anthropologist, and so he carefully distinguished between the facts that he uncovers and the explanation he offers of those facts. The primary thesis of this book is that the development of a society correlates with its regulation of female prenuptial chastity. […]
Review by Kirk Durston. Unwin examines the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there is a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures. What makes the book especially interesting is that we in the West underwent a sexual revolution in the late 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s and are now in […]
By Philip Yancey. A decade before [Joseph] Unwin did his research, followers of Vladimir Lenin were espousing a very different “Glass of Water” theory about sex. Sexual desire is no more mysterious or sacrosanct than desire for food or water, they declared, and rewrote the Soviet lawbook accordingly. That theory soon collapsed, and Soviet society […]
by JD Unwin Article in Journal of Christian Reconstruction 1977 And when a generation arrives which has known no sterner discipline, but which spends its early years in an atmosphere of submission to impulse, it does not add one whit to what has gone before, but, sinking into unrelieved lethargy, ekes out its meager existence […]
by Joseph Unwin. Published incomplete after his death in 1936 (written during great depression) If we allow group B to remain sexually free, and insist that all the women of group A shall be pre-nupitally chaste, in the third generation group A will begin to erect temples to a god, while group B will remain […]
Dr. Unwin’s studies were interrupted by his death at age 40 Dr. Pitirim Sorokin: During the first stage of the Revolution, its leaders deliberately attempted to destroy marriage and the family. Free love was glorified by the official ‘glass of water’ theory … Within a few years, hordes of wild, homeless children became a menace […]