Anny Middon comments:
>It's my understanding that small families haven't always been a matter of
>choice, either. [snip] In times in which women live in semi-starved
>condition, they often are not fertile. If body weight falls below a certain
>level. menstruation ceases and the woman will not be able to conceive
I quite agree! There are lots of reasons for involuntary infertility,
including sexually transmitted diseases (which I'm inclined to attribute some
of those small French families to, given the practically routine assumption in
the society that all men went to brothels), under-nutrition, and sexual
ignorance. There is a good book by Janet Farrell Brodie on Contraception and
Abortion in C19th America which details all sorts of hygienic practices women
were following which might have reduced their chances of conceiving even
though they weren't deliberately practising contraception, and also, why women
practising what they thought was the safe period found it worked, even though
it was nothing like what we now know to be the time of ovulation.
Given half a chance, I can go on and on about birth control, fertility, etc;
so I was trying not to in my previous posting...
Can't think offhand of any sf/fantasy about infertility caused by
malnutrition--I have a faint idea there is something somewhere about an STD
which is a contraceptive--anyone have any ideas?
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:27 PDT