The Sex Side of Life: The Story of Mary Ware Dennett [Hardcover]

Constance Chen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

The publication of Constance M. Chen's "The Sex Side of Life" rescued from obscurity the life and accomplishments of an extraordinary woman: Mary Ware Dennett, suffragette, peace activist, and crusader for the right to obtain and distribute information about contraception. In her battle to make birth control information accessible to all, Dennett tangled both with reluctant Congressmen and Margaret Sanger. At a time when family-planning information and Draconian communication laws are at the center of national debates, this biography is as timely and important as ever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Suffragist, pacifist in WWI, artisan in America's Arts and Crafts movement, mother, advocate of sex education, Mary Ware Dennett (1872-1947) launched the nation's first birth control organization, the National Birth Control League, in 1915. She fought to make contraceptive information available to everyone, a stance that put her at odds with her arch rival, Margaret Sanger, whose "doctor's only" bill submitted to Congress would have empowered a male medical elite to supervise all birth control knowledge. Dennett's YWCA-endorsed pamphlet, "The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People," was judged obscene under the Comstock Act, and in 1929 this Boston-bred, 57-year-old grandmother was convicted in a sensational criminal trial of sending indecent material through the mail, a decision reversed on appeal. Her 13-year marriage to well-connected, lofty, arrogant architect William Hartley Dennett ended in a scandalous divorce in 1913, after he virtually moved into his married lover's house under the same roof as her physician husband. Mary won legal custody of their two sons, but her ex's refusal to pay child support left her destitute. This is a gripping, timely biography of an unjustly forgotten feminist pioneer. Chen is a founding editor of Men's Journal. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Chen, a Harvard graduate and one of the founding editors of Men's Journal, has, with her first book, saved one of America's leading female figures from undeserved obscurity. Her excellent, well-researched, and well-written biography of Mary Ware Dennett is the first in-depth study of the influential birth-control and sex-education advocate. Dennett was also variously involved with other movements, including American Arts and Crafts, single-tax socialism, suffrage, free trade, peace, civil liberties (especially freedom of speech), homeopathy, and consumer protection. The trial (and ultimate vindication) regarding the "obscene" nature of her pamphlet, "The Sex Side of Life," is considered a landmark case in censorship law. Chen views Dennett's remarkable life and achievements within the economic, political, and social contexts of the times. Her book deserves wide readership. Recommended for all libraries.
--Kathleen L. Atwood, Pomfret Sch. Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: New Press; First edition. edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565841328
• ISBN-13: 978-1565841321
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #79 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Abortion & Birth Control

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A great resource apart from the author's biases, January 26, 2009

By 

Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: "The Sex Side of Life": Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading this book and would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the not-that-long-ago struggle to make birth control and information about sexuality legal and respectable. Mary Ware Dennett was a feminist, a pacifist, a suffragist, an artist, and a pioneer in the fields of sex ed and family planning; it's a shame that most people today don't even know who she was. Prior to reading this book, I had only known about her sex ed pamphlet she had originally written for her two sons Carleton and Devon, and was happily surprised to discover that she did a lot more than just that. In addition to all of her abovementioned achievements, she was also involved in radical politics, defied the prevailing "wisdom" of the time by being granted full and exclusive custody of her children after her divorce (caused by her husband's intense friendship with another woman, a friendship that went far beyond the usual bounds of a man and woman being close friends), and was involved in the new movement for twilight sleep. Today twilight sleep seems like a welcome relic of the past, but one can understand why so many women, Mrs. Dennett among them, embraced it, since she'd had three very painful deliveries in this era when women still put their lives on the line every time they gave birth, and had no way to prevent it other than celibacy.

It both saddened and shocked me to read, once again, just how severely people were in the Dark Ages about birth control and sexuality not that long ago in human history. The sexual double standard might still be around, sadly, but in Mrs. Dennett's day, it was the stuff of nightmares. And the Comstock Act made even providing information about birth control illegal. She had so much to go up against when she wrote her pamphlet for young people, like the prevailing attitude that any information about anatomy or sexuality was considered automatically dirty, obscene, not for polite company, and bound to lead children astray. Fear and ignorance were considered bliss. Happily, though, she did become politically active at a time when society was starting to loosen its bonds of Victorian morality, and there was a large market for her pamphlet. It was odd, to say the least, that she wasn't taken to court on account of it until ten years after it was professionally published.

This book probably would have been close to perfect had it not been weighed down by Ms. Chen's frequent biased and opinionated language, which seems really unprofessional in a scholarly biography. Her attacks on Margaret Sanger in particular come across as childish and mean-spirited. After reading this book, I'd agree it is true that Mrs. Sanger probably does get too much of the credit for the birth control movement, but Ms. Chen could have voiced her criticism of her methods and compared them to Mrs. Dennett's methods without sounding like an attack dog. Some of the language she uses when talking about how her husband Hartley was carrying on his weird "spiritual friendship" with Margaret Chase (not to excuse their inappropriate behavior) also came across as too condemning and judgmental, like she were writing about close personal friends instead of adopting a more neutral fashion to convey information. I also would have liked to have gotten more information on Mrs. Dennett's last two decades after her trial. Still, since this is one of the few books available on her, it's a very good start. It should be required reading for the young women of today, who take for granted the freedom they enjoy today and don't even know about a time when access to birth control was literally a matter of life and death for many women.

3.0 out of 5 stars Mary Ware Dennett, December 2, 2007

By 

K. Powell "History Student" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "The Sex Side of Life": Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education (Paperback)

It is unfortunate that there are so few books that even give Dennett the time of day. Most just mention her as an aside and Chen gets it right in the beginning of the book when she lists the endless afronts done to Dennett in current historical works on the Birth Control Movement. They do get her name wrong, her accomplishments get confused with others' and Sanger gets all the attention because she demanded it. The only downside here is that this is one of the only current books that is exclusively about Dennett and it is highly opionated. Chen lets out seemingly angry and defensive comments toward Dennett's rivals and regularly is hypocritical in her defense of Dennett. I understand why, but it does make it difficult to use in my research.