Being infertile comes with a number of difficulties, with one of the most prominent difficulties being the stigma that comes with it. Said stigma can come from different sources such as strangers, relatives, or even society. Some common manifestations of this form of prejudice include:
- Parents who want grandchildren might be ashamed of any of their own children who are sterile, sometimes to the point of disowning them.
- Mean in-laws might demand that their relative get divorced from their spouse and remarry someone capable of having children.
- Adulterers who want children might cheat on their infertile partners in order to have them with their cheating partner, with some even going so far as to blame their lover for failing to have children.
- A common variation of this trope involves an infertile person (usually a man) assuming that their lover is the infertile one, even if the medical results say otherwise, and cheating and getting divorced in order to have children with their new lover. Said adulterer will usually realize their own infertility after they discover that the protagonist has had children with their Second Love.
- Societies that place importance on having children will often ostracize infertile people.
- People who don't have children will sometimes be assumed to be infertile by people who look down on childless people.
- Some religious people might view sterility as being a result of divine punishment and/or a consequence of evil deeds done in a past life.
- A king and queen both unable to produce heirs would cause a Succession Crisis.
Sub-Trope of Bullying the Disabled. Societies and characters that believe in Mandatory Motherhood and/or that Not Wanting Kids Is Weird will often be guilty of this.
No Real Life Examples, Please!, as while this is certainly something that happens in real life it's a very sensitive topic.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Delicious in Dungeon: Half-elves are born infertile, and it's one of several factors that contribute to Half-Breed Discrimination in Elven society. Some elves even assume that a half-elf Dungeon Lord would use their power to become fertile or even a full-blooded elf.
- Made in Abyss: Among the outcasts making up the Ganja Corps was a little girl named Irumyuui, who was abandoned by her tribe and marked with a tattoo of shame when she was discovered to be infertile. When the Corps was struck by a strange disease from drinking parasite-infested water, their leader Wazukyan gave an artifact called a Cradle of Desire to Irumyuui, hoping her wish could cure them. It instead granted her desire to cure her infertility, making her give birth to hundreds of stillborn rabbit-like creatures that ended up being eaten by the Corps members to cure the disease.
Fan Works
- Bandit's Belt:
- Brandy has a medical condition which means she struggles to conceive, which leads to her having a hard time finding love, with her ex-boyfriends not wanting to have a partner who most likely won't be able to have kids with them.
- Junior says he has a friend who's adopted because his mother can't have kids, which leads to domestic squabbles with the father calling the mother a "sock" for her inability to have kids.
- Making A Monster: Bubblegum is a fluffy who was expected to be a good breeding mare, as her parents both came from long lines of alicorns, but she turned out to be infertile due to a malformed womb. A breeder bought her for $15,000, and when she couldn't get pregnant, he cut off her legs, convinced that it was somehow her fault. After a few more failures, he dumped her at a shelter.
Films — Live-Action
- Beetlejuice: Implied and downplayed with Adam and Barbara; Barbara's cousin Jane at the beginning of the film keeps badgering them to sell their beloved house because it's too big for them and ought to be used by a family. While Jane apologizes after seeing Barbara's hurt expression, implying she's had a history of miscarriages or infertility, the fact that Jane keeps bothering them about it regardless shows how little she cares.
Literature
- The Bridgerton Series: Discussed but subverted in The Duke and I. When Daphne is told by Simon that he can't have children, which is the reason he has avoided romantic commitments for so long, Daphne, assuming it's because he's physically incapable of it, chooses to be with him regardless of her heartache that she'll never be a mother. It's when she discovers he's physically capable of having children but refuses to in order to spite his late father, banking on her ignorance to get away with this deception, that she gets angry and pulls a Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male on him.
- The Handmaid's Tale: Inverted. The infertility facing the Republic of Gilead (formerly the USA) primarily affects men, but because Gilead's society has been restructured into hyper-misogynist Christo-Fascism, the low birth rate is used as a justification for the systemic sexual abuse of women.
- Hawaii: A group of Polynesians is setting out to colonize a new island — what will be Hawaii. Teroro wants to take his beloved wife Marama. His brother Tamatoa insists that they cannot take Marama because she is infertile: They're setting out to populate a new island and space on the boats is too limited to bring anyone who's not strictly useful. After much anguish, Teroro agrees to this and departs with a new wife. However, he comes to regret his decision and eventually makes an incredibly dangerous return journey back from Hawaii to get Marama and bring her over.
Teroro: I'll take Marama.Tamatoa: [hesitated, then took his brother by the hands] Marama may not go. We will take only women who can bear children.Teroro: I would not want to go without Marama. She is my wisdom.Tamatoa: I am sorry, brother. Only women who can bear children.
- Judge Dee: Inverted; one of the murderers in The Chinese Nail Murders has eight wives but no children. It's later revealed he's infertile but takes it out on his wives and concubines.
Judge Dee: Then it suddenly dawned on me what must be wrong with Chu. A healthy, vigorous man who has no offspring although he has eight wives, suggests that he has a physical defect; and one that may sometimes have dangerous effects on a man’s character. [...] I also talked with Chu’s eight wives; what they told me about their life with Chu I wish to forget.
- Merry Gentry: Fertility is very important to the sidhe, especially since centuries of inbreeding and magical decline have made it very hard for them to reproduce. Merry gets told by her aunt, the Queen of the Unseelie Court, that her aunt has discovered that she's infertile and therefore she plans to abdicate once either Merry gets pregnant or her son, Merry's cousin, impregnates someone. Merry notes to herself that if the Unseelie Court ever found out that they had an infertile ruler, said ruler would be given a public execution as part of a fertility ritual because to the sidhe, the fertility of the ruler is literally the fertility of the court.
- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: One of Mma Ramotswe's cases is a woman who was divorced by her husband when she couldn't have children, whose new wife (and secretary) promptly gave him three.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: In the backstory, Maegor the Cruel treated his first wife, Ceryse Hightower, quite poorly for failing to give him the son he desired. He eventually publicly declared she was barren and polygamously married Alys Harroway, who he believed would give him children, with the full support of his mother. Ceryse's brother-in-law tried to help by having a septon pray over her every night to make her fertile, but she eventually couldn’t take the humiliation anymore and moved back in with her father. While Ceryse and Maegor eventually reconciled to some extent, he blatantly favoured Alys and his third wife, Tyanna, over Ceryse (well, until Alys had a stillborn child and Tyanna persuaded Maegor she'd cheated on him), which made her pretty bitter; it was rumoured Maegor eventually had Ceryse killed for criticising him. It's strongly implied that it was actually Maegor who had fertility problems given that none of his six wives bore him a living child; Tyanna also claimed to have poisoned Maegor's other wives to cause infertility and miscarriages.
- Terok Nor: Corat Damar's fiancee Veja Ketan, a war correspondent, is rendered infertile by an injury. Due to the patriarchal nature of Cardassian society, Damar breaks off the engagement and she's an outcast.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns: Rasheed is never all that nice to his wife Mariam (who is forced to marry him when she's only 15), though early in their marriage he at least makes some attempts to treat her well and she is optimistic things will work out, especially when she gets pregnant. Unfortunately, Mariam miscarries, with all her subsequent pregnancies ending the same. Rasheed becomes increasingly cold and contemptuous towards Mariam with each miscarriage; he makes it clear he only married her to get children and has no other use for her (besides her cooking and cleaning for him). Rasheed initially blatantly favours his second wife Laila over Mariam because she successfully carries a pregnancy to term, though he becomes disenchanted with her because she gives birth to a daughter rather than a son and openly defies him, including standing up for Mariam (he also rightly starts to suspect that he's not the father of Laila's daughter).
- The Work and the Glory: Jessica's repeated miscarriages are not the sole source of tension in her relationship with Joshua, who married her On the Rebound and is still hung up on Lydia McBride — but it doesn't help, when they both want children. The fact that his chosen method of coping with the situation comes from a bottle doesn't help either. And when Jessica is fed up with his ongoing crush and cries out for him to let go, pointing out that Lydia married his brother and is probably carrying Nathan's child by now, Joshua throws in her face, "At least Lydia can have children." (Jessica later separates from him while pregnant again, and this time is able to carry the baby to term — but she won't take him back without firm assurances about better behaviour, which he's unwilling to give.)
Live-Action TV
- Andromeda: The Social Darwinist Nietzscheans see infertile individuals as a waste of genetic material and often kill them. The Drago-Kazov Pride uses them as Cannon Fodder, promising breeding rights for their relatives if they prove themselves.
- In one episode, Tyr infiltrates a rival pride and takes a man hostage. Tyr refers to the man as a "potential husband and father", expecting the other members of the pride to value his life. They respond that he's infertile and therefore who cares if he dies?
- Birds of a Feather (1989): Part of the reason Chris treats Sharon like dirt at the start of the series is because he believed that she was infertile. In a shocking twist, a cheating Sharon finds out she is pregnant with Dave's baby in "Women's Troubles" while Chris is still in prison, meaning that it was Chris all along who was the infertile one. It's later mentioned in "Time and Tides" that Chris briefly considered suicide after learning it was him.
- The Sopranos: Christopher gets furious and nearly breaks up with Adriana after she confesses that she had a botched abortion before she started dating him that left her unlikely to bear a child to term, referring to her as "damaged goods". Tony and the other mobsters are able to convince Chris to take her back by suggesting that modern medical procedures could help with her fertility problems, but the unlikelihood that Adriana will ever give Chris the biological son he desires proves a pivotal reason why he choices to condemn her to die later on.
Mythology & Religion
- One story in the Sacred Tradition of Orthodoxy and Catholicism has Joachim and Anna, parents of the Virgin Mary, remained childless well into old age and were widely mocked and scorned by their neighbors. The situation reached its nadir when the priest in Jerusalem refused Joachim's offerings, claiming that an infertile man was unworthy of making a sacrifice in the temple of the Lord. After that, Joachim and Anna spent a long while living separately in fervent prayer, until an angel was sent to them with the news that they would conceive.
- Several times, The Bible mentions women facing ridicule for their childlessness, in particular, in cases of rivalries between the wives in polygynous relationships about who is able to bear more children.
- Rachel and Leah, despite being sisters, were at odds for many years over who would have more access to their husband Jacob, spurred on by Rachel's frustration at being barren while Leah viewed her many children as a reason for Jacob to favor her, escalating to each of them having him marry their handmaid in order to have children whom they could claim as theirs. Sadly, the conflict ended not with a reconciliation, but with Rachel's death in childbirth.
- Books of Samuel: Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. While the former had children, the latter did not, leading Hannah, who's the Top Wife, to be teased by a jealous Peninnah until God gave her Samuel, whom she dedicates to priesthood.
- Zacharias and Elisabeth, parents of John the Baptist, grew old without bearing any children. When Elisabeth finally conceived, she said that God "looked on [her], to take away [her] reproach among men".
Theatre
- In Salome, Herod, in a quarrel, accuses Herodias of being sterile. The latter acidly reminds him that she is the mother of Salome (a fact Herod remembers very well because he ogles Salome all the time) while Herod himself has no children by her or any of his concubines. He doesn't agree: as long as Herodias hasn't born him a son, she is sterile as far as he is concerned.
- In Six, fertility issues are a point of contention among the queens. Catherine of Aragon discusses her inability to produce a male heir being used as grounds for Henry to divorce her, despite her being the mother of Mary. Jane Seymour is the favorite specifically because she is the mother of Edward.
Video Games
- Warframe: The Sentients are living Organic Technology capable of reproduction... but the Orokin designed them to become infertile if they ever crossed through the Void, before sending them through it to the Tau system via Faster-Than-Light Travel. The fact that the Orokin designed them to become infertile, before forcing them into it, combined with their general demeanor and the fact that the Sentients knew they would ruin Tau if they ever arrived there, they rebelled, leading to the Old War.
Web Animation
- Autodale: Being infertile is one of the things that can get you labeled "Ugly." Autodale wants all its citizens to be perfect cogs in the machine, existing only to keep society running while having children to continue the cycle. Those who can't have children are useless to society.
- Etra chan saw it!: Hiiragi
insists that his wife Tsutsuji is at fault for their inability to have children, despite the fact that the doctors told them that there is nothing wrong with Tsutsuji. Hiiragi goes so far as to sleep with his brother Kuroki's wife Akane, who later turns up pregnant. Unfortunately for Hiiragi, Akane's baby doesn't belong to him. To add insult to injury, Tsutsuji and Kuroki later get married and are able to have a baby, which proves that Hiiragi was the infertile one all along.
- Panic Collection: Paige
became sterile due to a illness. When Natalie, the niece of Paige's husband Michael (who Natalie is also having an affair with), learns this, she calls Paige a useless woman.
- SparkTales: A common plot is for a cheating infertile husband to insist that his wife is the reason why they can't have children, even if the doctor confirms that the wife is perfectly fertile. Said husbands will typically leave the wife for another woman who is either pregnant with another man's baby or lying about being pregnant, only to later discover that his ex-wife has children of her own with her new husband, which leads to the cheater realizing that he was the infertile one.
Webcomics
- Drive (Dave Kellet): Simultaneously Inverted (because of whom the social stigma comes from) and Played Straight (because it does indeed exert social stigma with disastrous results). One of the big problems with the Vinn virus is that the "awakened", i.e. anyone infected and turned into Vinn, become completely sterile. That's one of the main reasons the Vinn infect new people with literal religious fervor: it's the only way they can propagate themselves. Ironically, the inevitable end-point will be the complete depopulation of the entire galaxy, which will cause the Vinn to fizzle out anyway once they have nobody left to infect.
- Marry My Husband: Her inability to get pregnant is one of the reasons Minhwan's parents abuse his spouse (Jiwon in the original timeline, Sumin in the new one), as they want grandkids to continue the Park family line. When it's discovered that Minhwan is the infertile one, his dad is quick to declare I Have No Son!.
Western Animation
- South Park: "Eek, A Penis" has Mr. Garrison transitioning back into a man and arguing that what makes you a woman is your ability to have babies. When one of his coworkers informs him that his wife had ovarian cancer and can no longer have children because of that, he tells him to "get an AIDS test, Thompson, 'cause your wife's a dude, faggot!".
