Contraception A History

by Jü; tte, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780745632711
• ISBN10: 0745632718
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-12
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Contraception is not an invention of modern times, nor is it a purely personal matter. Social institutions such as the church and the state have exerted their influence as effectively as doctors, population theorists, and the early pioneers of the feminist movement. All of these claim a special expertise in matters of ethics and morality, and so have shaped the discourses on and practices of birth control over the centuries.In this engaging new book Robert Jutte offers a history of contraception from the Ancient world to the present day. He distinguishes two broad phases: first, a long phase, extending from the Ancient world up to the 18th century, in which birth control was part of a traditional form of sexual knowledge what Jutte calls, following the French social philosopher Michel Foucault, the ars erotica. In the second phase, which began in the 19th century, practices of birth control are increasingly shaped by the emerging models of scientific knowledge, while still retaining some vestiges of the erotic arts.In addition to the contraceptives we know and use today, from coitus interruptus to the condom and the pill, Jutte considers other methods of birth control as diverse as the use of herbal potions and vaginal pessaries, the castration of young boys and the enforced sterilization of men and women. This comprehensive history of one of the oldest and most widespread of human practices offers a rich and nuanced account of how men and women across the centuries have struggled with the needs both for sexual gratification and for limitation of offspring, while also looking beyond the present to catch a glimpse of how contraception might evolve in the future.

Author Biography

R. Jutte, Head of the Institute of Medicine at the Robert Bosch Foundation and Professor of Modern History, Stuttgart University


V.Russell, Translator

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
Illustration acknowledgements	p. viii
Foreword	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Ars erotica: The Early Art of Contraception	p. 11
The economics of sexual reproduction: birth control in the ancient world?	p. 11
Calls for greater fertility: origin of the ethics of procreation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam	p. 17
The not so secret wisdom of ancient medicine	p. 29
Poetic truth: deliberate infertility as a theme in ancient literature	p. 37
Unfruitful activities: 'suppositories for women' and herbal potions	p. 42
Transformations: The Supposed Repression of Knowledge about Contraception in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times	p. 51
A history of demographics and the origins of birth control	p. 51
Secreta mulierum: female wisdom on pregnancy and contraception	p. 62
Sexual desire and atonement: the theology of the 'sinful flesh'	p. 75
Castration, condoms, Casanovas: old and new methods of contraception	p. 89
The Beginnings of scientia sexualis in the Nineteenth Century: The Impact of Moral and Political Imperatives on the Debate about Contraception	p. 106
(Neo-)Malthusianism and its demographical implications	p. 106
A fresh approach to knowledge: sex education pamphlets and their readers	p. 117
Sexual politics: intensified control and resistance to it	p. 139
The practice of 'being careful': between tradition and progress	p. 144
An Everyday Regime: The 'Democratization' of Birth Control in the Twentieth Century	p. 157
The promise of deliverance: contraception as emancipation	p. 157
The 'Nationalization' of contraception: enforced sterilization and national birth control programmes	p. 174
Changes in sexual morality and the waning influence of religion	p. 186
Simultaneous existence of old and new methods of contraception	p. 199
Future Prospects	p. 216
The 'Pill for men': the contraceptive of the future?	p. 216
Notes	p. 221
Bibliography	p. 237
Index	p. 247
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