The highest pleasure of which woman's nature is capable: breastfeeding and the sentimental maternal ideal in America 1750-1860

In the mid eighteenth century, Enlightenment debates about women's social role prompted a flurry of discussions about motherhood. Advice manuals, images of mothers, and women's personal writings highlighted breastfeeding as one of the most important maternal duties. This thesis argues that by the end of the eighteenth century advice manuals developed a new focus on the emotional and physical pleasure of breastfeeding. This rhetoric of pleasure contributed to the construction of a sentimental maternal ideal that remained the most important feminine script well into the nineteenth century, although the personal writings of mothers suggest that this ideal did not always reflect experience. At the same time, the erotic undertone in public discussions of breastfeeding suggested ambivalence toward maternal sexuality by both embracing and disguising women's pleasure. I suggest that the pleasure of breastfeeding offered possibilities for mediating and exploring sexuality within the context of marriage and socially sanctioned motherhood