Single Mothers and their Children: Disposal, Punishment and Survival in Australia

by Shurlee Swain, Renate Howe

This is a powerful and moving history of single motherhood in Australia. It tells the story of these women and their children and the lives they constructed. The book covers the period from the 1850s, when abandonment and infanticide were not uncommon, to 1975, when the legal status of illegitimacy was abolished. While tracing profound changes over this period, the authors find much continuity. The book covers issues of baby farming, infanticide, abortion, sex education, birth control, adoption and marriage, in effect becoming a history of sexual practice in Australia.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1995