Contraception and Its Methods, I: Natural Methods

Hionidou, Violetta

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-41490-0_8

Violetta Hionidou⁴

Part of the book series: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History ((MBSMH))

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Abstract

This chapter starts with an introduction to the publications referring or alluding to contraceptive methods before proceeding to investigate what methods users actually knew and employed. Sources such as letters to women’s magazines and oral interviews provide us with an understanding of the methods couples actually used and what women and sometimes men thought of them. The chapter focuses on the natural methods most widely employed in Greece, namely breastfeeding and coitus interruptus, but also abstinence. It is noteworthy that while all literature condemned coitus interruptus, the method was widely used.

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Notes

1.
A.J. Coale (1973) ‘The demographic transition reconsidered’, in International Union for Scientific Study of Population, International Population Conference: Liege, 1973, vol. 1 (Liege: IUSSP), p. 65.
2.
Gösta Carlsson (1966) ‘The Decline of Fertility: Innovation or Adjustment Process’, Population Studies, 20(2), 149–74.
3.
Gigi Santow (1995) ‘Coitus Interruptus and the Control of Natural Fertility’, Population Studies, 49(1), 19–43.
4.
Georgios N. Kyriakides (1882) Ta Mysteria tou Syzygikou Erotos etoi Fysiologia kai Ygieine kata tas Axiologous tes Zoes Epohas ton Syzygon, 1st edn 1865 (Athens: Io. Kostopoulos).
5.
K.P. Kardamates (1886) Peri Aunanismou, ton Apotelesmaton kai Therapeias Autou (Athens: n.p.), pp. 10–11.
6.
Antonios I. Kindynes (1889) E Steirosis para te Gynaiki kai Therapeia Autes (Athens: Vlastos Varvaregos), pp. 142–5.
7.
Markos Komnenos (1900) Ygieine tes Genetesiou Ormes (Athens: Anastasios D. Fexes); Antones Kallivokas (1923) Ygieine tes Genetesiou Ormes, translated from the French original (Athens: Hrestos D. Fexes), pp. 26–8.
8.
Jean Marestan (1920) To Vivlio tes Agapes. E Ygieine tou Gamou, translated by P. Paulides from the 110th edn, 1st edn 1910 (Thessalonike: P. Paulides). The title of the edition translated by P. Paulides was Jean Marestan (1910) L’Éducation Sexuelle (Paris: Édition de la Guerre sociale). Jean Marestan was the pseudonym of Gaston Havard. The Greek translation was reissued again in 1928 and 1945. The 1945 edition had the title Sexoualike Diapedagogise e to Vivlio tes Agapes (‘Sex Education or the Book of Love’) and was published in Athens rather than in Thessaloniki, indicating the wider interest in the book.
9.
Hrestos Euaggelou (1924) O Kindynos ton Afrodision Noson. Praktikai Symvoulai pros Profylaxin (Athens: n.p.).
10.
M. Moyseides (1925) E Gyne: Ygieine tou Gamou kai tes Eggamou Gynaikos (Alexandria: A. Kasigone).
11.
See, for example, A. Sygkelakes (1927) E Apokryfe Ygieine tes Gynaikas (Alexandria: Grammata); M. Moyseides (1932) Malthousianismos Allote kai Nyn. Eleghos Genneseon kai Aposteirosis (Athens: Gerardon Bros); Anna Katsigra (1932) Proetoimasia tou Koritsiou sta Genetesia Zetemata (Athens: A.V. Pasha).
12.
In the early 1950s some authors argued that the poor continued to procreate uncontrollably, as did those of lower mental capacity (Pope Speliotopoulou-Mpazinou (1951) ‘Eugonia’, Alkyonides. Deltio tes Panelleniou Enoseos Dianooumenon Gynaikon 1(6), 4–8). The author, using the examples of the USA and Sweden, expresses her anxieties about the addition of dysgenic individuals to the population and urges individuals to behave responsibly towards society and their descendants.
13.
For example, Alexandros Tsakires (1954) Megale Sexologia. Anikanotes, Steirosis kai e Syghrone Therapeia ton, 3rd edn, 1st edn 1947 (Athens: n.p.), p. 535.
14.
Konstantinos Metropoulos (1954) Ygieιne tes Egkyou. Enas Polytimos Odegos gia ten Ygieine Diaviose tes Egkyou (Athens: Papademetriou), p. 147.
15.
Metropoulos, Ygieιne, p. 145.
16.
Tsakires, Megale Sexologia, p. 536.
17.
Tsakires, Megale Sexologia, p. 537.
18.
Tsakires, Megale Sexologia, p. 537. This is essentially the rhythm method, as articulated independently by Hermann Knaus and Kyusaku Ogino.
19.
See, for example, Anonymous (20 June 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mia Poly Eroteumene’, E Gynaika, 2(37), p. 49; Anonymous (7 February 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mia Dystehismenen Syzygo pm’, E Gynaika, 2(27), p. 49; Anonymous (29 November 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to SAPFO’, E Gynaika, 1(22), p. 61.
20.
Anonymous (1954) Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos. Iatrike ton Oikogeneion, Diaitetike, Gynaikeia Provlemata, Kallone, Symperifora (Athens: Papademetriou).
21.
Anonymous, Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos, pp. 306–7.
22.
Paulos Drandakes (ed.) (1956) Megale Ellenike Egkyklopaideia, vol. 8, 2nd edn (Athens: Phoenix), pp. 126–7, 184–5, 187, 605.
23.
Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Agnoia’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49.
24.
Anonymous (27 February 1952) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mikre Afrikana’, E Gynaika, 3(55), p. 60.
25.
Anonymous (13 December 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to D.I.M.O.’, E Gynaika, 1(23), p. 19.
26.
Anonymous (7 February 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Peirasmos’, E Gynaika, 2(27), p. 49.
27.
Anonymous (13 December 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mnestera [male]’, E Gynaika, 1(23), p. 19.
28.
No. 3 Hios, born in 1909.
29.
No. 3 Hios. See also Violetta Hionidou (1998) ‘The Adoption of Fertility Control on Mykonos, 1879–1959: Stopping, Spacing or Both?’ Population Studies, 52(1), 78. Also similar comments by No. 20 Mykonos; No. 28 Mykonos; No. 22 rural Syros.
30.
Georgios N. Makkas (1911) E Thnesimotes tes Paidikes Elekias en Elladi. Aitia kai Mesa pros Peristolen (Athens: Nikolaos Hiotes); Solon Veras (14 June 1930) ‘E Prostasia tes Teknogonias’, Ergasia, 1(23), 19–20. See also Violetta Hionidou (1993) ‘The Demography of a Greek island, Mykonos 1859–1959: A Family Reconstitution Study’ (unpublished PhD thesis: University of Liverpool), pp. 136–7, for references to nineteenth-century Greece, and Michalis Raftakis (2019) ‘Mortality change in Hermoupolis, Greece (1859–1940)’ (unpublished PhD thesis: Newcastle University), for references to the early twentieth century.
31.
K.A. Alexandropoulos (1960) O Thelasmos en te Ellenike kai Xene Laografia (Athens: n.p.); Nikolaos Haliores (1931) Ydreika Laografika (Peiraeus: Sorotou); Hionidou, ‘The Adoption’, 78–9, referring to Mykonos. See also, for example, No. 10 Hios, who breastfed her children for around two years; No. 10 Syros; No. 11 Syros mentioned that children would be breastfed to the ages of 3–4 years. No. 4 Mykonos mentioned that the infants would be usually breastfed for a year or a year and a half. Richard Blum and Eva Blum (1965) Health and Healing in Rural Greece (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), p. 153; E. Georges (2008) Bodies of Knowledge: The Medicalisation of Reproduction in Greece (Nashville, TN: Vanderbuilt UP), p. 145; Vaios F. Kaminiotes (2016) Magisses kai Mageirisses. Diatrofe, Mageia kai Gynaikeia Exousia stous Karagkounedes tes Dytikes Thessalias (Athens: Erodotos), p. 458.
32.
L.D. Hrestovitz (1891) Tittheia e Thelasis kai Diatrofe ton Vrefon (Athens: Nikolaos I. Kazases), pointing to the benefits of breastfeeding but discussing wet nursing extensively; Apostolos Doxiadis (1926) Grammata pros Meteres (Athens: Greka); No. 1, female, Syros, born 1902; No. 23, female, Mykonos, born 1907; On upper-class women employing wet-nurses see Anonymous (15 March 1860) ‘Kanones pros Eklogen Katallelou Tithes (Vyzastras)’, O Iatros tou Laou, 1(6), 85–9; Raftakis, ‘Mortality’, Chap. 7.
33.
P. Paulides (1945) Teknopoiese Thelematike sten Katallele Epohe kai se Peristase Eunoike (Athens: privately printed), p. 4.
34.
G. Vassiliou and V. Vassiliou (1970) ‘On Aspects of Child Rearing in Greece’ in E.J. Anthony and C. Koupernik (eds) The Child in his Family, The International Yearbook for Child Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, vol. 1 (New York: Wiley-Interscience), pp. 433–4.
35.
The same practice is noted for England by Marie Stopes (1923) Contraception (Birth Control): Its Theory, History and Practice (London: John Bale), pp. 66–7, quoting Allen Davenport (25 August 1826) ‘Letter on the Poor Laws’, Republican Magazine, XIV(7).
36.
No. 4 Mykonos.
37.
Georges, Bodies, p. 81. Also from Rhodes is another case observed by a British physician when he was serving in the local hospital in 1945: he noted that he observed ‘children being suckled at the age of three and a half years’ explicitly for that reason (A. Raymond Mills (1948) ‘Peasant Remedies from the Greek Islands’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 22, 447).
38.
No. 12, female, Mykonos, born in 1913.
39.
No. 22, rural Syros, married in 1945.
40.
No. 4, female, Mykonos, born in 1902.
41.
No. 13, female, Mykonos, born in 1906, referring to her stepmother.
42.
Violetta Hionidou (2009) ‘“It Was a Bridge from Life to Death”: Hospitals during the Food Crisis, Greece 1941–1944’, Social History of Medicine, 22(2), 361–85; Violetta Hionidou (2016) ‘Popular Medicine and Empirics in Greece, 1900–1950: An Oral History Approach’, Medical History, 60(4), 492–513.
43.
Nikolaos Kostes (1849) Egxeiridion Maieutikes (Athens: S.K. Vlastos), p. 176. Similarly, in nineteenth-century England a doctor and nurse advised a wife that she would not conceive while breastfeeding, only for that to happen immediately (Stopes, Contraception, p. 66).
44.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 45.
45.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 45 citing Th. H. Van de Velde (1929) Die Fruchtbarkeit in der Ehe (Leipzig: Müller Verlag), p. 331.
46.
For example, No. 3 Mykonos sought and received extensive advice on how to feed and wean her child on Mykonos in the 1930s from one such practitioner she called a ‘giatrissa’ (female doctor).
47.
George Drysdale (1864) The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual, and Natural Religion, by a Graduate of Medicine, 4th edn, 1st edn 1861 (London: E. Truelove), p. 487.
48.
Wally Seccombe (1992) ‘Men’s “Marital Rights” and women’s “Wifely Duties”: Changing conjugal relations in the fertility decline’ in John R. Gillis, Louise A. Tilly and David Levine (eds) The European Experience of Declining Fertility. A quiet revolution 1850–1970 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell), p. 83; Elizabeth Roberts (1995) Women and families: An oral history, 1940–1970 (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 99.
49.
Karl Buttenstedt (1904) Happiness in Marriage (Revelation in Women): A Nature Study, 3rd edn, 1st edn 1900 in German (Friedrichshagen: n.p.); Richard E. Funcke (1906) A New Revelation in Nature. A Secret of Sexual Life. No More Prostitution (Hanover: n.p.), p. 70. Both cited in John S. Haller and Robin M. Haller (1974) The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), pp. 120–1.
50.
Iwan Bloch (1909) The sexual life of our time in its relations to modern civilisation, translated from the 6th German edn by M. Eden Paul (London: Rebman), p. 701.
51.
Courtenay Beale (1922) Wise Wedlock. The Complete Treatise on Birth Control & Marriage (London: Health Promotion), p. 130.
52.
Margaret Sanger (1915) Family Limitation (New York: n.p.), p. 6.
53.
Margaret Sanger (1931) Happiness in Marriage, 10th edn, 1st edn 1926 (Cornwall, NY: Cornwall Press), p. 210.
54.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 64–5.
55.
Marie Stopes (1925) A Letter to Working Mothers or How to have Healthy Children and avoid Weakening Pregnancies (London: Mothers’ Clinic for Constructive Birth Control), p. 6.
56.
Zeynep Angin and Frederic C. Shorter (1998) ‘Negotiating reproduction and gender during the fertility decline in Turkey’, Social Science Medicine, 47(5), 559.
57.
Angin and Shorter, ‘Negotiating reproduction’, 560.
58.
Kari Pitkänen (2003) ‘Contraception in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Finland’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(2), 199.
59.
Pitkänen, ‘Contraception’, 200–1.
60.
Sølvi Sogner (2003) ‘Abortion, Birth Control, and Contraception: Fertility Decline in Norway’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(2), 224.
61.
Sogner , ‘Abortion’, 225.
62.
Sogner , ‘Abortion’, 219. In Norway the 10 per cent decline had been achieved by 1908. For Finland it was 1910 (Sogner, ‘Abortion’, 212).
63.
R.P. Neuman (1978) ‘Working Class Birth Control in Wilhelmine Germany’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20(3), 416.
64.
No. 12 Mykonos and No. 22 Syros.
65.
Sogner , ‘Abortion’, 224–5.
66.
No. 7 Mykonos, male, born in 1905.
67.
No. 10 Mykonos, female, born 1916. See also Hionidou, ‘The Adoption’, 79–81.
68.
Christopher Tietze (1964) ‘Lactation’ in Mary S. Calderone (ed.), Manual of Contraceptive Practice (Baltimore, MD: The Williams & Wilkins Company), pp. 230–1. However, see M. Livi Bacci (1977) A History of Italian Fertility During the Last Two Centuries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 256; Hionidou, ‘The Adoption’; and, subsequently, Simon Szreter, R. Nye and F. Van Poppel (2003) ‘Fertility and Contraception during the Demographic Transition: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(2), 141–54; and the collection of essays in the same issue.
69.
Tietze, ‘Lactation’, pp. 230–1.
70.
Anonymous, ‘Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM)’, Contraceptive Technology and Reproductive Health Series, https://www.fhi360.org/sites/default/files/webpages/Modules/LAM/s1pg14.htm (accessed 17 December 2018); World Health Organization (2000) Improving access to quality care in family planning: Medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use (Geneva: WHO), p. 1.
71.
See Szreter, who has been the most vocal supporter and discussant of this (Simon Szreter (1996) Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 389–441).
72.
Haller and Haller, The Physician and Sexuality, p. 102. Lucy Bland (1986) ‘Marriage laid bare: Middle-class women and marital sex 1880s–1914’ in Jane Lewis (ed.) Labour and Love. Women’s Experience of Home and Family, 1850–1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 128–9; Szreter, Fertility, pp. 389–441.
73.
Szreter, Fertility, p. 394.
74.
Simon Szreter and Kate Fisher (2010) ‘“We weren’t the sort that wanted intimacy every night”: birth control and abstinence in England, c.1930–1960’, The History of the Family, 15(2), 152–3. Others have also discussed abstinence, but this has rarely been interpreted as significant. However, it seems that it may have been important among physicians in the Netherlands in the late nineteenth century (F.W.A. Van Poppel and Hugo Röling (2003) ‘Physicians and Fertility Control in the Netherlands’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(2), 164, 184).
75.
However, this was not the understanding of most, who believed that Malthus advocated abstinence within marriage. See, for example, Marestan, To Vivlio, p. 133. Marestan found the method ‘inappropriate but also inhumane’, as it made love prohibitive to the poor.
76.
Thomas Malthus (1798) An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard), p. 9, http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf (accessed 9 January 2019). Beyond the first edition, he referred to ‘moral restraint’, meaning the postponement of marriage until the couple could afford to support a family (T.R. Malthus (1993) An Essay on the Principle of Population, edited by Geoffrey Gilbert (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. xviii).
77.
Maria Kyriakidou (2003) ‘Female Bodies, Sexuality and Leftist Feminism: The “Personal as Political” in interwar Greece’, Past and Present of Radical Sexual Politics conference, University of Amsterdam, 3–4 October 2003, http://www.iisg.nl/womhist/radsexpol.html (last accessed 14 January 2019).
78.
See, for example, the recounting by Louros—an eminent obstetrician—of an incident that occurred in the 1940s, entitled ‘Caesarean and virginity’ (N.K. Louros and K.N. Alivizatos (1979) Dyo Giatroi Thymountai (Athens: Filippote), pp. 71–2); D. Diamantopoulos (1957) Iatrike Egkyklopaideia tes Gynaikas (Athens: Gerolympou), pp. 28–34; also the reply to a reader’s letter by the gynaecologist who emphasised in his reply ‘the existing social perceptions about the virginal hymen’ (Anonymous (29 November 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to SAPFO’, E Gynaika, 1(22), p. 61).
79.
No. 22 Hios, urbanite, female, married in 1955 at the age of 30.
80.
This is also described by Kaires with reference to parents (Mihael Nik. Kaires (1939), Akindynos Erotas. E Ygieine ton Neon Syzygon kai e Ygieine Profylaxis ton Neon (Athens: Anatole), p. 70).
81.
See No. 16 Mykonos later in the text when asking explicitly whether I was married or not. Similarly, Arnold reported that in the early 1980s, when she attempted to discuss birth control and abortion with ‘childless women’, they acted as though embarrassed and claimed to ‘know nothing’ (Marlene Sue Arnold (1985) ‘Childbirth among Rural Greek Women in Crete: Use of Popular, Folk and Cosmopolitan Medical Systems’ (unpublished PhD thesis: University of Pennsylvania), p. 267).
82.
No. 18 Mykonos, female, middle-class urbanite.
83.
No. 4 Mykonos.
84.
The bi-weekly women’s magazine E Gynaika was replete with articles referring to love and sex. See, for example, Emma Drake (4 October 1950) ‘Ti Prepei na Xerei e Nea Gynaika?’, E Gynaika, 1(18), pp. 12–14, where one of the sections is entitled ‘Conjugal relationships’; Anonymous (18 October 1950) ‘To Thauma tou Eautou sas’, E Gynaika, 1(19), pp. 14–15, where one of the sections was entitled ‘Your sexual life’; Nikoletsopoulos (4 April 1952) ‘Erotas & Sexoualismos’, E Gynaika, 2(31), p. 28. See, for the concerns of the women about their virginal hymen, Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Ktypemene I.A.H.’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49, where the reader is advised that her illness could not have affected her hymen. In another case the gynaecologist discusses the possibility of a broken hymen, suggesting that, since there was no blood, the hymen was not broken (Anonymous (18 April 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Arapina Konstantinoupolen’, E Gynaika, 2(32), p. 52).
85.
No. 5 Hios.
86.
See, for example, K.V-Th.P.-N.D. (1956) ‘O Gamos’ in Paulos Drandakes (ed.) Megale Ellenike Egkyklopaideia, vol. 8, 2nd edn (Athens: Phoenix), pp. 127–31.
87.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 42.
88.
N.N. Drakoulides (1956) ‘Genetesion Enstikton’ in Paulos Drandakes (ed.) Megale Ellenike Egkyklopaideia, vol. 8, 2nd edn (Athens: Phoenix), pp. 184–5.
89.
Anna Katsigra (1932) Proetoimasia tou Koritsiou sta Genetesia Zetemata (Athens: A.V. Pasha), p. 98.
90.
Female desire was confined to the necessity for ‘love, affection, support in life, children’ (Katsigra, Proetoimasia, p. 99).
91.
Drakoulides indicated that this was necessary only after the age of 20 (N.N. Drakoulides (1956) ‘Genetesios Apohe’ in Paulos Drandakes (ed.) Megale Ellenike Egkyklopaideia, vol. 8, 2nd edn (Athens: Phoenix), p. 186); Nikolaos Gyras (1939) Prin kai Meta ton Gamo, 4th edn (Athena: G. Vallianatou), p. 39.
92.
Kaires, Akindynos Erotas, p. 68.
93.
Efi Avdella (2002) Dia Logous times. Via, Synaisthemata kai Axies ste Metemfyliake Ellada (Athens: Nefele); Anonymous (5 January 1929) ‘Ethelese na ten Foneusei dia Logous Times’, Skrip, 32(9218), p. 4; Anonymous (8 May1959) ‘Paredothesan oi Adelfoi foneis oi katakreourgesantes ton stratioten’, Makedonia, 48(15635), p. 3.
94.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 42.
95.
N.N. Drakoulides (1959) Sexoualikes Anomalies (Apohe-aneparkeia-anikanotes-anafrodisia) (Athens: Neotate Iatrike Egkyklopaideia), p. 1.
96.
No. 10 Hios. In the 1930s she spent approximately two years away working in Turkey while in her early 40s and by the time she returned she was going through menopause.
97.
No. 4 Hios.
98.
No. 19 Mykonos.
99.
No. 4 Mykonos.
100.
Kaires, Akindynos Erotas, p. 78.
101.
Kaires, Akindynos Erotas, p. 79.
102.
No. 21 Mykonos. During the forty days following labour women were expected not to leave their house and not to have sexual relationships. During the same period, the woman and the infant were considered particularly vulnerable, especially because of the presence of evil spirits (xotika ) and fairies (neraides). On these, see Charles Stewart (1991) Demons and the Devil. Moral Imagination in the Modern Greek Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
103.
No. 4 Mykonos. This was prescribed by the Orthodox Church, in addition to abstinence on Saturday and Sunday (Anna Matthaiou (2006) ‘Syzygikes Sheseis kai Sexoualikoteta sta Hronia tes Othomanikes Kyriarhias: Kanones, Protypa, Sympsefismoi’, Ta Istorika, 23(44), 149). Similarly, when a woman was to offer the communion bread (prosforo) to the church she had to abstain for three days before starting the preparations of the bread (Kaminiotes, Magisses, pp. 450–1).
104.
For a similar point, linking the wearing of jewellery with a declaration of sexual availability, see Persake’s short story ‘To koritsi’, situated on the island of Aegina in the first half of the twentieth century (Ioulia Persake (2016) Katohe kai Peina. Istories tes kathe meras (Athens: Estia), pp. 59–76).
105.
See, for example, Stopes, who strongly condemned ‘abstinence’ but encouraged, rather, infrequent sex, in order to maximise attraction and ultimately satisfaction (Marie Stopes (2004) Married Love, edited by Ross McKibbin (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 74–7, 48–51).
106.
Kyriakides, Ta Mysteria, p. 159.
107.
Moyseides, E Gyne, p. 88; M. Moyseides (1927) Aunanismos Kindynoi-Profylaxis-Therapia (Athens: Gerardon Bros); Tsakires, Megale Sexologia, pp. 667–73; Antonios Gregoriades (1949) Afrodisia Nosemata kai Anikanotes. Ygieina Paraggelmata kai Profylaxis ton Neon (Athens: n.p.), pp. 20–1, 56–8; Georgios K. Zouraris (1947) Sexoualike Zoe: Apohe, Egkrateia, Akolasia kai e Exasthenisis tes Ormes, 3rd edn (Athens: n.p.), pp. 54–5. Outside Greece at the same time—and earlier—a wide range of authors was also arguing against continence. See, for example, Sanger, who listed continence under ‘Harmful methods’ (Margaret H. Sanger (1917) The Case for Birth Control. A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts (New York: Modern Art Printing Co.), Chap. 6, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54599/54599-h/54599-h.htm, accessed 20 December 2018); and Marestan, To Vivlio, p. 60.
108.
Moyseides, E Gyne, pp. 80–3.
109.
N.N. Drakoulides (1931) E Sexoualike Egkrateia kata ton Polemon os Syntelestes tes Metapolemikes Psyhosyntheseos (Athens: n.p.), p. 6.
110.
Drakoulides, E Sexoualike egkrateia, p. 6.
111.
Paulides, Teknopoiese, p. 7.
112.
Serafeim Papakostas (1961) Agnotes Gamos Gynaika (Athens: Adelfotes Theologon ‘E Zoe’), 2nd edn, pp. 19–20. This particular chapter, entitled ‘Purity’, was a reproduction of an earlier publication that was published in the Christian journal Aktines in April 1946.
113.
Anastasios V. Antonopoulos (1953) E Sexoualike Diafotesis ton Neon (Patras: Synadinou Bros), p. 28.
114.
Antonopoulos, E sexoualike, p. 28.
115.
Antonopoulos, E sexoualike, Introduction.
116.
Genesis 38:9. However, Onanism came to mean masturbation.
117.
Francis Place (1823) Contraceptive Handbill: To the married of both sexes, Form A and Form B, cited in Norman Edwin Himes (1936) Medical History of Contraception (London: G. Allen & Unwin), pp. 214, 217–8.
118.
Robert Dale Owen (1831) Moral Physiology, 2nd edn (New York: Wright & Owen), p. 6.
119.
Owen, Moral Physiology, pp. 80–2.
120.
Charles Knowlton (1877) Fruits of Philosophy. A Treatise on the Population Question, edited by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, 1st edn 1832 (London: Freethought Publishing Co), p. 81, https://archive.org/details/fruitsphilosoph00knogoog/page/n10 (accessed 30 March 2019).
121.
Drysdale, The Elements of Social Science, pp. 473–5. Bergeret subsequently clarified that the French working classes employed this method widely, while the wealthier used condoms (L.F.E. Bergeret (1870) The Preventive Obstacle, or, Conjugal Onanism, translated by P. De Marmon from the 3rd French edn (New York: Turner & Mignard), p. 5, https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=N1RMB5FxX8MC&hl=en_GB&pg=GBS.PA12, accessed 28 December 2018).
122.
Haller and Haller, The Physician and Sexuality, pp. 114–5, citing among others S.G. Moses, ‘Marital masturbations’, St Louis Courier of Medicine, VIII (1882), 168–73.
123.
Haller and Haller, The Physician and Sexuality, p. 115, citing Jacques Bertillon (1874) ‘Mariage Démographie Hygiène Matrimoniale’, in Dechambre (ed.) Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales, 2nd series, vol. 5, pp. 7–83; Ely Van de Warker (1884) ‘A gynecological study of the Oneida community’, American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, XVIL(8), 785–810; and Anonymous (1884) ‘Does male copulation without emission injure female health?’ Medical News, XLV, 240–1.
124.
H. Arthur Allbutt (1894) The Wife’s Handbook. How a woman should order herself during pregnancy, in the Lying-in Room, and after Delivery with hints on Management of the baby and on other matters of importancy, necessary to be known by married women, 1st edn 1886[?] (London: R. Forder), p. 48.
125.
Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook, p. 48.
126.
Sanger, Family Limitation, 1st edn, pp. 6–7.
127.
Sanger, The Case For Birth Control, pp. 185–6.
128.
Marie Stopes (1918) Wise Parenthood. A Sequel to ‘Married Love’ (London: n.p.), pp. 24–5; Stopes, Married Love, pp. 58–9; Marie Stopes (1923) Contraception (Birth Control): Its Theory, History and Practice (London: John Bale), pp. 69–82. Similar claims against the methods continued to be made in the 1970s and even the 1980s, as Rogow and Horowitz eloquently showed (Deborah Rogow and Sonya Horowitz (1995) ‘Withdrawal: A Review of the Literature and an Agenda for Research’, Studies in Family Planning, 26(3), 144–5).
129.
Beale, Wise Wedlock, pp. 121, 80.
130.
Beale, Wise Wedlock, p. 121.
131.
Ettie A. Rout (1922) Safe Marriage: A Return to Sanity (London: William Heinemann (Medical Books) Ltd), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16135/16135-h/16135-h.htm.
132.
Antoinette F. Konikow (1923) Voluntary Motherhood: A Study of the Physiology and Hygiene of Prevention of Conception (n.p.), p. 18, https://archive.org/details/23KonikowVoluntarymotherhood/ (accessed 31 March 2019), pp. 10–11; Antoinette F. Konikow (1931) Physician’s Manual of Birth Control (New York: Buchholz Publishing Co), p. 147.
133.
Bergeret, The Preventive, p. xvii.
134.
Bergeret, The Preventive, p. xv.
135.
Stopes, Contraception, p. 48.
136.
Kardamates, Peri Aunanismou, pp. 4–5.
137.
Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 53.
138.
Gr. Stefanou (1927) O Eros. Fysiologikos kai para Fysin (Athens: Georgiou Vasileiou), p. 352.
139.
Stefanou, O Eros, p. 354.
140.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 47. The same author, in his treatise on masturbation, remarked that mutual masturbation was much more destructive than self-masturbation partly because of the ‘moral corruption’ and partly because of the need it creates for ‘artificially repeated sexual needs’ (Moyseides, Aunanismos, p. 8).
141.
Kardamates, Peri Aunanismou, pp. 6, 10. This is a side effect also mentioned by Bergeret, The Preventive.
142.
Anonymous, Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos, p. 306.
143.
M. Yioel (1938) Steirosis e Egkymosyne kata Voulesi, 2nd edn, 1st edn 1936 (Athens: Vasileiou), pp. 20–1, citing French and British medical authors, referred to the ‘syndrome des frauduleuses’. The symptoms mentioned here were also listed by Bergeret in The Preventive.
144.
N.N. Drakoulides (1936) E Sexoualike Leitourgia (Athens: n.p.), p. 11; Georgios Zouraris (1957) Sexoualike Orme, 3rd edn, first edn 1950 (Athens: Melissa), pp. 53–60.
145.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 47.
146.
Paulides mentioned that semen was useful for the woman’s body, while douching ‘deprived’ the woman of ‘a tonic’ (Paulides, Teknopoiese, p. 29); Anonymous (7 February 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mia Dystehismenen Syzygo pm’, E Gynaika, 2(27), p. 49; Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Neopantremene V. Mika’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49. Interestingly, in his reply the gynaecologist refrains from explicitly naming coitus interruptus, unlike all other methods.
147.
Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Agnoia’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49.
148.
Gyras , Prin. Similar claims were made in 1980 associating the lack of ‘resorption of seminal content during sexual act’ with an increased frequency of breast cancer (Arne N. Gjorgov (1980) Barrier Contraception and Breast Cancer (Munich: S. Karger), p. viii).
149.
Anonymous, ‘Dia ten Praxin’, 188; Zouraris, Sexoualike Orme, pp. 53–60; Moyseides, Malthousianismos, pp. 46–9. Evaggelos An. Averof (1939) Symvole eis ten Ereunan tou Plythesmiakou Provlematos tes Ellados (Athens: n.p.), p. 72, citing a number of foreign and Greek authors.
150.
Kardamates, Peri Aunanismou, p. 9; Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 45; Zouraris, Sexoualike Orme, p. 64, emphasis in the original; Yioel, Steirosis, p. 13. According to Averof coitus interruptus was the most commonly used method in the late 1930s (Averof , Symvole, p. 72). For post-World War II Greece, similarly, the elderly obstetrician interviewed by Arnold in the early 1980s indicated that withdrawal was one of the three most widely used methods, adding that this was detrimental to the woman’s health, causing her to become ‘hysterical and nervous’ (Arnold, ‘Childbirth’, pp. 171–2).
151.
Yioel, Steirosis, pp. 13, 19–20.
152.
Vasilios Valaoras, A. Polychronopoulou, D. Trichopoulos (1965) ‘Control of Family Size in Greece (The Results of a Field Survey)’, Population Studies, 18(3), 271.
153.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 277.
154.
No. 16 Mykonos.
155.
No. 20 Mykonos, female, married in 1927, born in rural area of Mykonos, lived while married in the town of Mykonos, worked as a servant in Athens throughout her teenage years.
156.
No. 4 Mykonos.
157.
Hionidou, ‘The Adoption’, 67–83.
158.
No. 1 Mykonos.
159.
No. 10 Hios, married in 1921; the extended family resided in a Hios village and the informant worked as a servant in Hios town between 1915 and 1921.
160.
Jane C. Schneider and Peter Schneider (1996) Festival of the Poor: Fertility Decline and the Ideology of Class in Sicily, 1860–1980 (Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press), pp. 261, 246.
161.
No. 12 Mykonos made a similar comment.
162.
No. 3 Mykonos.
163.
No. 3 Mykonos.
164.
Angin and Shorter, ‘Negotiating reproduction’.
165.
Himes, Medical History, p. 94, citing Aëtios, Des Affections de la Matrice, ou Discours seizième, edition Skevos Zervos (Leibzig 1901). Interestingly, it was Moyseides who provided Himes with the text.
166.
Similar ideas are expressed in books published at the time: see, for example, Zouraris, Sexoualike Orme, pp. 65–6.
167.
Anonymous (29 November 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to SAPFO’, E Gynaika, 1(22), p. 61.
168.
Anonymous (20 June 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mia Poly Eroteumene’, E Gynaika, 2(37), p. 49.
169.
Zouraris, Sexoualike Orme, p. 64, emphasis in the original. Zouraris argued against the use of coitus interruptus due to its health implications.
170.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 270.
171.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 271.
172.
Abortion was incorrectly classified as one of the contraceptive methods in the presentation of the results (Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 275).
173.
This appears to have been written sometime in the 1950s. The translated version I consulted does not indicate the precise date of its publication (Elisabet Sjövall (1964) ‘Coitus Interruptus’, translated by Christopher Tietze, in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, p. 202).
174.
Sjövall, ‘Coitus Interruptus’, p. 202.
175.
Sjövall, ‘Coitus Interruptus’, pp. 204–5.
176.
Elphis Christopher (1980) Sexuality and Birth Control in Social and Community Work (London: Temple Smith), p. 148.
177.
Rogow and Horowitz, ‘Withdrawal’, 150.
178.
World Health Organization (2000) Improving access to quality care in family planning: Medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use (Geneva: WHO), ‘Coitus Interruptus’, p. 1; ‘Overview’, p. 2.
179.
Kate Fisher and Simon Szreter (2003) ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’: The Choice of Birth Control in Britain, 1918–1950’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(2), 280.
180.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 277.
181.
Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 271.
182.
See for example Yioel, Steirosis, p. 24; Gyras, Prin; Paulides, Teknopoiese, pp. 19–31; Georgios K. Zouraris (1947) E Steirosis eis tous andras kai tas gynaikes kai to thauma tes syllepseos, 2nd edn (Athens: n.p.), pp. 19–29; Tsakires, Megale Sexologia, p. 537; Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Agnoia’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49; Anonymous (27 February 1952) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mikre Afrikana’, E Gynaika, 3(55), p. 60.
183.
Anonymous (27 February 1952) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mikre Afrikana’, E Gynaika, 3(55), p. 60.
184.
Zouraris, E Steirosis, pp. 19–29; Anonymous (16 February 2001) “‘Efuge’ o Zouraris”, Rizospastes, 11(7901), p. 8.
185.
Serafeim Papakostas (1947) To Zetema tes Teknogonias (To Demografiko Provlema apo Hristianikes Apopseos) 2nd edn (Athens: Adelfotes theologon ‘E Zoe’), pp. 122–3.

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Violetta Hionidou

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Hionidou, V. (2020). Contraception and Its Methods, I: Natural Methods. In: Abortion and Contraception in Modern Greece, 1830-1967. Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41490-0_8

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