Avances del Cesor (Jul 2016)
Marriages and more. Eugenic discourse on mate selecting process. The case of Viva Cien Años magazine, 1935-1947
Abstract
The main objective of this article, addresses the issue of selecting, ranking and classifying mates proposed by eugenics as a scientific discipline during the thirties in Argentina. In order to achieve this, we analyze the mechanisms of discursive construction from a wide circulation media (the case of the Viva Cien Años magazine) which advised about forming marriages. We will see how an intertextuality is stablished between several discourses -as is the case of medical discourse , academic, political , religious , etc.-, that bring to follow a kind of recipe in order to choose the right partner. The argument underlying these mechanisms, trying to persuade mostly women , is based on the pursuit of racial improvement and the optimization of heritable characteristics , as a part of the " duty to the Fatherland.". These issues served as the backbone of a discourse rooted in the ideal of healthy and strong people, which the eugenicists and other professionals took and tried to spread. according to their pedagogical objective , on the one hand and their preventive objective, on the other.
