ABSTRACT
In Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, Elaine Tyler May undertakes the daunting task of binding together the parallel themes of political containment and domestic cultural "containment". May demonstrates that birth control played an important role in shaping domestic containment. The subject of May's secondary focus feeds into the notion of early marriage and birth control. May intends to show how domestic containment depended on the image of woman as both the bearer of children and a romantic partner with a willing but nevertheless controlled sexuality. Overall May illuminates the 1950s as a progressive period in terms of eroticism, birth control, and sexuality, demonstrating how these played key roles in encouraging marriage and procreation. This runs counter to the popular idea of the 1950s as a sexually repressed period. May's study attempts to open up an era sealed by a cultural memory that simplifies, and mythologizes, certain truths.
