Missionary ‘Fathers’ and Wayward ‘Sons’ in the South Pacific, 1797–1825
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20063933 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alison Twells (0000-0003-2602-0029, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Pages | 153-164 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Gender and Fatherhood in the Nineteenth Century (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Macmillan Education UK (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-0-230-20785-1_11 |
| OpenAlex | W2567154891 |
| ISBN | 9780230207851 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
Fatherhood was central to nineteenth-century evangelical theology and social theory.1 As Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall have shown, the family on earth was to emulate the heavenly family. Women’s role was to ‘guide the house’ and bring up children, extending their maternal skills to the care of the local community and, more contestedly, to the regeneration of the nation. Sermons and conduct books disseminated knowledge of biblical fathers such as Jacob, Abraham and Joseph, and of God the Father, at once mysterious and known, benevolent and punishing, while implicitly prescribing good fatherly conduct. Men, as husbands and fathers, were placed at the head of the family, providing authority, protection and kindness, and operating as a role model to sons and others entrusted to their care.2 Fatherhood was also a metaphor for the wider influence or ‘empire’ of men, as notions of paternal authority contributed to emerging middle-class and, later, national cultures and identities.3 Good Christian men, as members of a missionary movement for global change, were expected to manage, guide, discipline and nurture ‘other’ males identified by missionary philanthropic discourses as objects of reform and in need of a careful steering from ‘heathen’ childhoods to Christian maturity
Empire · Family values · Kindness · Metaphor · Nature versus nurture · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
Congregational missions and the making of an imperial culture in nineteenth-century England
Religion versus empire
Western Women and Imperialism
Messengers of Grace
Gendering colonialism or colonising gender
Cultural missionaries, maternal imperialists, feminist allies
The Fatal Impact. An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific 1767-1840
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |