Gergely Csányi – Szabina Kerényi (2021) A Semi-Peripheral Myth of the “Good Mother”: The History of Motherly Love in Hungary from a Global Perspective. In: Mayer CH. – Vanderheiden E. (eds) International Handbook of Love. Springer, Cham. (ISBN: 978-3-030-45995-6) pp. 317-332.

​https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45996-3_17

Abstract

Based on Foucault’s theory of the soul, as well as the methodological insights of Fernand Braudel and world-systems analysis, this paper demonstrates how the myth of the good and the bad mother was created by certain actors during the various cycles of the capitalist world system, and how these myths have been embedded in the logic of capitalist accumulation. We show how on the one hand these myths contributed to securing the unpaid reproductive labour, care and love necessitated by accumulation, and how on the other hand they supported a new market segment from the nineteenth century onwards by manipulating maternal conscience. First we present an outline of the history of the myth of the good mother and motherly love in the core countries of the world system, then we summarise the socialist myth of the good mother. Finally, we use empirical examples to illustrate the ways the contemporary Hungarian myth of the good mother has been shaped by dependence on the core countries and on the socialist Soviet Union.