Sedlighetsdebatten

Sedlighetsdebatten (morality debate), was the name for a cultural movement and public debate in Scandinavia in the 1880s, where sexuality and sexual morals were discussed in newspapers, magazines, books and theatrical plays.

The topic was criticism of the contemporary sexual double standards, in which it was socially acceptable for men to have premarital sexual experience, while women were expected to be virgins, and the contemporary view on prostitution, which was sanctioned as a "necessary evil" because of this double standard, an issue that had been raised by Svenska Federationen in 1878.

The debate was divided in two sides: the moderate one, were Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was the most known representative, wished to solve this double standard by demanding that men also be virgins on their wedding night, as women were. The radical one, where Edvard Brandes and Georg Brandes were the most known representatives, demanded that women be free to enjoy a sexual life prior to marriage, as men were.

Getting Married (collection) by August Strindberg and the legal court case that surrounded it was one of the perhaps most known incidents during the debate. It also caused a debate within the literary world whether literature should touch these questions at all. Other well-known works in the debate are Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (Et Dukkehjem), the novel Money (Pengar) by Viktoria Benedictsson, and the novel Pyrhussegrar by Stella Kleve.

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