J. D. Unwin: Difference between revisions

Unwin was born on December 6, 1895, in [[Haverhill, Suffolk]]. He was educated at [[Shrewsbury School|Shewsbury School]]. His enrolment at [[Oriel College, Oxford]] was interrupted by the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914. He served in the [[Northamptonshire Regiment]] and the [[Tank Corps (United Kingdom)|Tank Corps]], where he was twice wounded and awarded the [[Military Cross]]. After the war, he spent some years in [[Abyssinia]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |date=8 August 1936 |title=Obituary – J.D. Unwin |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/138234b0.pdf |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |volume=138 |issue=3484 |page=234|doi=10.1038/138234b0 }}</ref>

In ''[[Sex and Culture]]'' (1934), Unwin studied 80 primitive tribes and six known civilizations through 5,000 years of history. He claimed there was a positive correlation between the cultural achievement of a people and the [[Chastity|sexual restraint]] they observe.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Unwin |first=Joseph Daniel |url=http://archive.org/details/b20442580 |title=Sex and Culture |date= |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1934 |publication-place=London: Humphrey Milford |page=412 |language=en |quote=Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; the evidence is that it cannot do both for more than one generation.}}</ref> [[Aldous Huxley]] described ''Sex and Culture'' as "a work of the highest importance" in his literature.<ref>{{Cite book |title= Ends and Means |last=Huxley |first= Aldous |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=1946 |location=London |pages= 311–2 |chapter=Ethics |chapter-url= https://archive.org/stream/endsandmeans035237mbp#page/n320/mode/2up}}</ref>

Unwin also stated, "In the past, too, the greatest energy has been displayed only by those societies which have reduced their sexual opportunity to a minimum by the adoption of absolute monogamy [...]. In every case the women and children were reduced to the level of legal nonentities, sometimes also to the level of chattels, always to the level of mere appendages of the male estate. Eventually they were freed from their disadvantages, but at the same time the sexual opportunity of the society was extended. Sexual desires could then be satisfied in a direct or perverted manner [...]. So the energy of the society decreased, and then disappeared." He further notes, "No society has yet succeeded in regulating the relations between the sexes in such a way as to enable sexual opportunity to remain at a minimum for an extended period." And thus, all societies have collapsed. His hope for the future is that, "by placing the sexes on a level of complete legal equality, and then by altering its economic and social organization in such a way as to render it both possible and tolerable for sexual opportunity to remain at a minimum for an extended period," a society may flourish. However, he offers no data to support his hope.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Unwin |first=Joseph Daniel |url=http://archive.org/details/b20442580 |title=Sex and Culture |date= |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1934 |publication-place=London: Humphrey Milford |page=431-2 |language=en}}</ref>

* ''[[Sex and Culture]]''[[Sex and Culture|,]] 1934 book by J. D. Unwin