The History of Fatherhood in Norway, 1850–2012

198 Pages·2013·2.546 MB·English

by  Jørgen Lorentzen (auth.)

The History of Fatherhood
in Norway, 1850–2012
Global Masculinities
Edited by Michael Kimmel and Judith Kegan Gardiner
Michael Kimmel is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including: Men’s
Lives , Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men , The Gendered Society , The
Politics of Manhood , and Manhood in America: A Cultural History. He edits Men and
Masculinities , an interdisciplinary scholarly journal, and has edited the Encyclopedia
of Men and Masculinities and the Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities. He
consults with corporations, NGOs, and public sector organizations all over the world
on gender equity issues, including work–family balance, reducing workplace discrimi-
nation, and promoting diversity.
Judith Kegan Gardiner is professor of English and of Gender and Women’s Studies
at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her books are Craftsmanship in Context:
The Development of Ben Jonson’s Poetry and Rhys, Stead, Lessing, and the Politics of
Empathy. She is the editor of the volumes P rovoking Agents: Gender and Agency in
Theory and Practice and Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory , and a coeditor of
The International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities . She is also a member of the
editorial board for the interdisciplinary journal Feminist Studies .
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The History of Fatherhood in Norway, 1850–2012
By Jørgen Lorentzen
The History of Fatherhood in
Norway, 1850–2012
Jørgen Lorentzen
THE HISTORY OF FATHERHOOD IN NORWAY, 1850–2012
Copyright © Jørgen Lorentzen, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-137-34337-6
All rights reserved.
This translation has been published with the fi nancial support of NORLA
First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
W here this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-46564-4 ISBN 978-1-137-34338-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137343383
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lorentzen, Jørgen.
[Fra farskapetshistorieiNorge. English]
The history of fatherhood in Norway : 1850–2012 / Jørgen Lorentzen.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Fatherhood—Norway—History. 2. Families—Norway—History.
I. Title.
HQ756.L6513 2013
306.874(cid:2)2—dc23 2013024248
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: November 2013

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Note from the Series Editors vii
Foreword i x
Introduction 1
Research on Fathers 8
Part I 1850–1927 13
The Patriarchal Father at the Hearth 13
Separate Spheres 1 9
Father’s Involvement during the Birth 22
Father as the Dearest Company 28
The Home as Man’s Refuge 34
Quantity of Time 3 9
The Distant and Authoritarian Father 43
Early Changes in Gendered Relationships 47
Ibsen and Fatherhood 4 9
The Patriarchal Father 53
The Fallen Father 57
The Loving Father 62
The Father’s Declining Presence in the Home 66
Part II 1927–1970 7 1
The Golden Age of the Housewife and the Banishment
of the Father from the Home 71
The Era of the Housewife Reaches Its Highpoint 77
Optimism about the Future in the Absence of the Father 81
The Father as a Laughing Stock 86
Murmurings of Criticism about the Father’s Absence 89
Sigurd Hoel’s Culturally Pessimistic Family Revolt 94
The Heterosexual Harmony 102
vi CONTENTS
Part III 1970–2012 107
The New Father and the Democratization of Intimacy 107
Fatherly Feelings 112
A New Trend—“Dad Books” 113
Men as Humorists 116
Men’s Differences 121
The Similarities in Fathers’ Practice 126
Recent Research on Fathers 130
Political Initiative to Strengthen the Father’s Nurturing Role 132
Absent Fathers in the Era of Fatherly Intimacy 139
The Great Fatherhood Paradox 144
My Struggle: The Struggle over Fatherhood 147
The Opening 150
Masculine Inadequacy and the Fear of the Feminine 154
Afterword 165
References 173
Index 185
Note from the Series Editors
In Sweden, a “real man” is one who does childcare for his own chil-
dren, and liberals and conservatives argue not about whether there
should be government-mandated paternity leave but about the allo-
cation of time between new mothers and fathers. In China, years
of enforcing a one-child rule have led to a population with a vast
demographic imbalance in the number of males over females, with
consequences yet to be determined. In Iran, vasectomy is becom-
ing increasingly popular as men seek to take more responsibility
for family planning in an atmosphere of restrictive gender roles. In
the Philippines, government-supported export of women as nurses,
maids, and nannies to first-world countries alters the lives of boys
and girls growing up both at home and in the developed countries,
and Mexican American men adapt to their wives’ working by taking
more responsibility in housework and childcare, while their ideology
of men’s roles changes more slowly. And throughout the world, war-
fare continues to be a predominantly male occupation, devastating
vast populations, depriving some boys of a childhood, and promoting
other men to positions of authority.
Global Masculinities is a series devoted to exploring the most
recent, most innovative, and widest ranging scholarship about men
and masculinities from a broad variety of perspectives and meth-
odological approaches. The dramatic success of Gender Studies has
rested on three developments: (1) making women’s lives visible, which
has also come to mean making all genders more visible; (2) insisting
on intersectionality and so complicating the category of gender; and
(3) analyzing the tensions among global and local iterations of gender.
Through textual analyses and humanities-based studies of cultural
representations, as well as cultural studies of attitudes and behaviors,
we have come to see the centrality of gender in the structure of mod-
ern life and life in the past, varying across cultures and within them.
Through interviews, surveys, and demographic analysis, among other
forms of social scientific inquiry, we are now able to quantify some
of the effects of these changing gender structures. Clearly written for
both the expert and more general audience, this series embraces the
viii NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITORS
advances in scholarship and applies them to men’s lives: gendering
men’s lives, exploring the rich diversity of men’s lives—globally and
locally, textually and practically—as well as the differences among
men by social class, “race”/ethnicity and nationality, sexuality, ability
status, sexual preference and practices, and age.
MICHAEL KIMMEL AND
JUDITH KEGAN GARDINER
Foreword
This book is the result of two research projects financed by
The Research Council of Norway. The first project, “Men and
Masculinities,” was a part of the Research Council’s program,
“Gender Research: Knowledge, Boundaries, Change” (2001–
2007), and the second project, “Being Together, Remaking Public
Intimacies,” was part of The Research Council’s Program on
Assigning Cultural Values (KULVER) (2008–2012). Funding for
the translation of this book into English was provided by NORLA,
for which I thank them enormously. I would also like to thank my
Norwegian editor, Ingrid Ugelvik, for all her invaluable comments
and meticulous work on my manuscript, as well as the countless
enjoyable discussions that went into creating the final book. Ingrid is,
without a doubt, one of Norway’s best academic book editors today.
Thanks also to my dear colleagues here at the Centre for Gender
Research, particularly those who were involved in the research proj-
ect “Being Together”: Wencke M ü hleisen, Unn Conradi Andersen,
Anne Lorentzen, Fredrik Langeland, Lin Pr ø itz, Arnfinn Andersen,
Å se Rø thing, Heidi Eng, Siri Lindstad, and Rannveig Svendby, who
read the last part of this book and provided such constructive and
illuminating comments. A thank you also has to go to my English
translator, Deborah Dawkin. Her attention to detail, and demand
for clarity, has in places made this English edition better than the
original.
Finally, thanks has to go to my closest family, Nefise, Andrea,
Adrian, and Julian, who ultimately give my life meaning.
Oslo, August 2013