Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:09:39.046Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on Entitlement to a Child in Australian Women's Journals 1947–1987

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Juliet Harper
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the Macquarie Dictionary, a family is defined as “parents and their children, whether dwelling together or not”. To be a couple with no children puts one outside of this category when family is defined in that way. Indeed, it is only recently that the term “single parent family” has been coined and accepted as an alternative type of family structure. Prior to the seventies the reference was to the “single mother and her child” and earlier still, “unmarried mothers” and “illegitimate children” — “fillius nullis”, child of nobody, until the Children's Equality of Status Act in 1977.

Society still appears to hold the nuclear family as the ideal2 that is a male and a female, preferably married with one or more children. A couple remain a couple and are not considered a family until such time as they have a child. For those who wish to have a child but are unable to have one, this constitutes a painful situation, but one towards which society feels compassion and in the view of the author, supports the notion that couples are entitled to a child.

Type
Child Bearing
Information
Children Australia , Volume 15 , supplement 4: The State of Australia's Children , 1990 , pp. 8 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Macquarie Dictionary (1981) Macquarie University Library, Sydney, p.644.Google Scholar
2. Sutherland, C. (1984) Single Motherhood: A Personal View. Australian Social Work, 37, 21–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Australian Women's Weekly (1947), March 8, p.21.Google Scholar
4. Woman (1950), October 9, pp.36–38.Google Scholar
5. Australian Women's Weekly (1954), September 8, p.26.Google Scholar
6. Woman's Day (1957), November 18, p.23.Google Scholar
7. Woman (1947), July 14, p.18.Google Scholar
8. Woman (1950), March 27, p.19.Google Scholar
9. Woman's Day (1958), March 31, pp.3 & 7.Google Scholar
10. Australian Women's Weekly (1947), March 8, p.19.Google Scholar
11. Woman (1951), September 10, p.5.Google Scholar
12. Australian Women's Weekly (1957), May 22, p.24.Google Scholar
13. Australian Women's Weekly (1959), May 20, p.29.Google Scholar
14. Woman's Day (1959), August 24, pp.20–21.Google Scholar
15. Australian Women's Weekly (1964), March 11, p.29.Google Scholar
16. Woman's Day (1965), March 15, p. 87.Google Scholar
17. Woman's Day (1969), December 1, p.99.Google Scholar
18. Woman's Day (1962), February 5, p.75.Google Scholar
19. Australian Women's Weekly (1963), January 9, p.5.Google Scholar
20. Woman's Day (1963), May 20, p.15.Google Scholar
21. Woman's Day (1966), August 8, p.4.Google Scholar
22. Australian Women's Weekly (1966), January 12, pp.4–5.Google Scholar
23. Woman's Day (1961), June 19, pp.4–5.Google Scholar
24. Woman's Day (1962), February 19, p.7.Google Scholar
25. Australian Women's Weekly (1968), February 7, pp.2–3.Google Scholar
26. Australian Women's Weekly (1968), July 17, pp.4–5.Google Scholar
27. Woman's Day (1972), April 10, pp.2–5.Google Scholar
28. Australian Women's Weekly (1979), July 4, p.125.Google Scholar
29. Woman's Day (1977), February 7, p.22.Google Scholar
30. Woman's Day (1978), October 22, p.82.Google Scholar
31. Australian Women's Weekly (1977), July 27, pp.24–25.Google Scholar
32. Woman's Day (1973), July 30, pp.6–7.Google Scholar
33. Australian Women's Weekly (1975), May 14, pp.57–58.Google Scholar
34. Australian Women's Weekly (1977), May 25, p.43.Google Scholar
35. Australian Women's Weekly (1984), November, p.119.Google Scholar
36. Australian Women's Weekly (1980), September 3, p.60.Google Scholar
37. Australian Women's Weekly (1980), October 22, p.57.Google Scholar
38. Australian Women's Weekly (1982), November 3, p.93.Google Scholar
39. Woman's Day (1985), July 15, p.92.Google Scholar
40. Woman's Day (1986), September 1, p.93.Google Scholar
41. Woman's Day (1986), December 8, p.87.Google Scholar
42. Australian Women's Weekly (1987), February, p.225.Google Scholar
43. Woman's Day (1985), July 8, p.82.Google Scholar
44. Woman's Day (1985), September 2, p.69.Google Scholar
45. Woman's Day (1986), February 3, p.68.Google Scholar
46. Winkler, R. & Van Keppel, M. (1984). Relinquishing mothers in Adoption: Their long-term adjustment. Melbourne: Institute of Family Studies.Google Scholar
47. Parliament of NSW Legislative Council (1989). Accessing Adoption Information. Standing Committee on Social Issues.Google Scholar