This year is the 50th anniversary of “the Pill”, but even before then family size had decreased from previous generations. Family size in 1960 had decreased by about 1.6 children (from just under 4.0 to just over 2.0 per couple- the exact decimal varies) between 1900 and 1960, due I’m guessing to intrauterine devices and better information about rhythm method.
Speaking of rhythm method, I had assumed it was ancient or at least centuries old but apparently not, at least not in its most reliable form (though I know there’s a heavy margin for error by anyone using it exclusively). In the mid Victorian era it was still believed that the days directly before AND the days directly after menstruation were the least fertile, which must have caused many surprise pregnancies.
So I know that Victorians did practice forms of birth control, and while it was never 100% effective (even the pill isn’t, though it’s close) some forms must certainly have been better than others. According to several sources Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln practiced birth control because, among other reasons, Mary had great difficulty in labor; their son Robert was born 9 months to the week after the wedding, followed by Eddie not quite 3 years later, who was to be their last; when Eddie died they had a 3rd son, Willie, in 1850, and so that he would have a sibling nearer his age they had 2 years and a few months later. Mary was said to be so injured by giving birth to Tad that many biographers speculate they may have stopped having sex altogether (they definitely slept in separate rooms, but that was fairly common with couples that could afford it) so as to absolutely prevent a pregnancy.
Prostitutes were everywhere in the Victorian era as well, and while they had abortions or took abortifacients they must have had some means of birth control or else they’d have all had 12 kids or died before 25 since condoms were rare (almost unheard of) and prolonged period of abstinence would have been quite bad for business.
So other than the obvious answer of abstinence, does anybody know what the most likely form of birth control they or their contemporaries would likely have used? I know they didn’t write that much about such matters at the time, but I’ve wondered if interruptus was common, or forms of the rhythm method, or if perhaps the use of sponges (actual sponges) or other IUD ancestors or douching were common (and how effective is post-coital douching as birth control anyway?). Anyone have any info or have a book to recommend?
Lactation, i.e. breastfeeding, is quite effective (though not fail-safe) as a hormonal contraceptive method at least within the first six months after childbirth. It was probably the single most effective thing next to abstinence that women could do to avoid another pregnancy, at least in the short term.
Oh, and by the way, Islamic medical texts frequently discussed contraception methods and some of their information was picked up by medical authorities in Latin. Check out the Encyclopedia of Birth Control for a lot of information that may surprise you (cervical caps made of elephant dung?).
ETA: You are going to like this book, Sampiro. Check the article on “Condom”.
the ancient Mediterranean people had Silphium - Wikipedia before the plant went extinct in the 1st century AD. IMHO it’s weird that whereas the Europeans in latter centuries managed to steal and transplant species of all sorts into new areas, but this silphium thing allegedly grew only in Libya and just went extinct there without being smuggled out and widely grown elsewhere.
I’ve always assumed that PID + syphilis (not to mention malnutrition) rendered prostitutes infertile pretty quickly, and I don’t think they had much life expectancy in any case. Their children had even less, so a prostitute who got pregnant every year still would likely have no living children.
My 19th C. lit prof told us that at that time, at least, many couples were abstinent, or tried to be. Doctors frequently advised against future pregnancies. One can imagine the toll this would have on a marriage–the temptation, the frustration, the guilt, the mutual blame. Add to that an inability to discuss sex in any sort of open way, and it’s no wonder Freud found human nature to be a morass of sex and repression.
I have a sex manual ca.1903 called “Sane Sex Life”, for married couples, obviously. It has a lengthy chapter on computing the wife’s “free time” during her cycle when she could not get pregnant.
This was before much of the research and accumulated knowledge about conception, timing, implantation, etc., and about the only thing they knew in 1903 was that somewhere in the middle of the female’s cycle was a danger zone.
The one thing I never understood about the book was how you compute that danger zone. It seems like you had to experiment, and after you had 10 kids, you pretty much had it narrowed down to a few days per month.
I really liked the way they dealt with prostitution on DEADWOOD. So many western movies and Gunsmoke (on which it never said Miss Kitty was a madam but it was certainly implied) or Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman as a far more glamorous and in many ways preferable life than housewife, when by all accounts in reality a ‘common whore’ was about the most disgusting and terrifying existence to which a woman could sink. (Not talking about courtesans like Sarah Bernhardt’s mother or some of the famous actresses of the era who had a small exclusive clientele, but the women in frontier and big city brothels.)
On Deadwood Al Swearengen is abusive to some of the girls but is actually a decent pimp as far as having the girls regularly checked for clap and pregnancy (two or three times a week I believe it said). Not all of them were- Cy Tolliver’s importation of Chinese prostitutes who didn’t even have a roof over their head and who it was cheaper to just let die were based on actual people. It also shows that even at the Bella Union (the more upscale brothel for those who didn’t watch the show) violence was common, the men they serviced were usually dirty and or drunk, and there was nothing remotely like love in 99.9% of transactions. Customers could do pretty much anything they wanted that didn’t leave marks or otherwise affect her retail value. A couple of years doing that probably aged a woman 20.
When you think of the women killed by Jack the Ripper- damn, hard to imagine any existence more horrifying. Most were over 40 and worked for under the equivalent of $1 in 1880s U.S. money and probably had more diseases in their body than most third world rivers.
You forget that diaphragms were available prior to 1960, and were a popular method. Also, abortion was popular. Around the time of the Civil War, it was a hugely common method.
And perfectly legal if done before the “quickening” (when the fetus started to kick, about 4-5 months). Just look through very old newspapers & mail-order catalogs for herbal mixtures and patent medicines promising to “bring on the menses”.
Most effective? Withdrawal, I would imagine. It’s been found to be about as effective as modern condoms (as long as you pull out with time to spare, and the man has urinated since he last ejaculated). I have been using it as my sole method of birth control for 5 years, no pregnancies.
Not sure how many people knew about it or practiced it throughout history. Many different kinds of barriers and methods of abortion and sex-timing have also been used.
For most people, withdrawl. Despite what we were all told in high school, apparently studies have show there actually isn’t any sperm in pre-ejaculate (provided, as ** rhubarbarin** said, you’ve peed), and as long as you do it right, it’s pretty effective. (And honestly, even in high school I was told it only worked 60% of the time, which is terrible in comparison to something like the pill, but in comparison to nothing it’s pretty good.)
Though to give sex-ed classes credit, it probably also works a hell of a lot better for adults than teenagers. I asked my husband about it, he said he could do it now, but in no way would he have had the needed amount of self-control and awareness at 16.
I read something (I’ll have to go looking for it) that they think withdrawl is the oldest form of birth control on the planet, and people likely started doing it as soon as they made the sex=babies connection.
I’ve also read anal sex was popular, as well as “fake sex”, where the woman squeezes her thighs together tightly and the man never actually enters her (big with prostitutes, from what I understand)
I’ll have to go with murdering your husband’s pregnant concubine so that there’s no question that your as-yet-unconceived children by him will inherit.
AFAICT, there hasn’t been enough research to definitively confirm that post-ejaculation urination reliably flushes sperm out of the urethra effectively enough to prevent fertilization.
It is true, though, that studies have shown that the production of pre-ejaculate fluid itself doesn’t involve sperm, and that coitus interruptus is certainly a more effective form of contraception than nothing at all.
Intercrural or interfemoral sex, if we want to get technical about it.
That was the preferred homosexual act between males of equal class in ancient Greece and Rome. The 2000+ year old joke that the “only battle Alexander ever lost was between Hepheastion’s thighs” is a reference to this type of sex (and doesn’t really translate into English quite right- “losing a battle” has a more decided ‘feminine role in sexual act’ context somehow in classical Greece [which I’ve never studied so I can’t explain, just repeating info I’ve read]).
In the ancient world- especially Greece probably- homosexual behavior was sometimes a form of birth control. There wasn’t such a thing as “lifestyle choice” for the free and well to do classes- if you preferred sex with men to sex with women, fine, and vice versa, but you still were expected to marry and produce children, BUT to produce a reasonable number and not 16. On the social level* a wife was essentially viewed as a childlike broodmare anyway, and there weren’t enough resources even for the well to do to leave several children well provided for, so go have sex with your male slaves or your friends or their sons. While of course what goes on behind closed villa gates is anybody’s guess, anal and oral sex were only considered proper between males of different classes with, of course, the more aristocratic being the “man” in the transaction. (Today two men can be egalitarian in a sexual relationship and references to who is the “man” or “woman” are EXTREMELY offensive, but in the ancient world it was a lot more important and there was- socially- no such thing as versatility in the sex acts.)
*That was the cultural norm; as always, on the individual level all bets were off and there were women who henpecked their husbands or were respected for intellect or masters who had slaves who took the penetrative role, etc…
I guess before the 20th century that would be bucket seats in a wagon.