Abstract
This chapter focuses on the appliance methods most widely employed in Greece, namely douche, the sponge and other plugs/pessaries and the condom. This chapter reveals that all methods had been in use for other purposes before they were employed as contraceptives. Some of the materials and techniques—sponge, cotton plugs, douching—had been employed by obstetricians and midwives as part of their everyday practice and prescribed therapies. These were repurposed once the need for contraceptives arose. The evidence also suggests that, among the earlier contraceptors, women were most concerned and interested, using breastfeeding, the sponge and female-controlled withdrawal, as well as encouraging their husbands to use condoms and at times limiting the days on which coitus took place. Among the second generation of contraceptors, men became accustomed to withdrawal and accepting of the notion of fewer children, and eventually took over much of the responsibility for contraception.
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Notes
- 1.
Robert Woods (1987) ‘Approaches to the Fertility Transition in Victorian England’, Population Studies, 41(2), 291, 311.
- 2.
Woods, ‘Approaches’, 297.
- 3.
Robert Woods (1992) ‘Debate: Working-Class Fertility Decline in Britain’, Past & Present, 134, 203–4; Wally Seccombe (1993) Weathering the Storm: Working-Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline (New York: Verso), p. 181.
- 4.
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), 271.
- 5.
John Peel (1964) ‘Contraception and the Medical Profession’, Population Studies, 18(2), 115.
- 6.
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), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38185/38185-h/38185-h.htm#link2H_APPE (accessed 7 July 2019), Chap. 3.
- 7.
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. 44.
- 8.
Pyrros Dionysios o Thettalos (1840) Egkolpion ton Iatron. Etoi Praktike Iatrike, Periehousa ten Ylen tes Iatrikes, ten Farmakopoiian, ten Ygieinen, vol. 1 (Athens: Aggelou Aggelidou), pp. 191–3.
- 9.
Nikolaos Kostes (1849) Egxeiridion Maieutikes (Athens: S.K. Vlastos), pp. 265–7, 289–90, 310, 331, 334, 382, 395.
- 10.
Kostes, Egxeiridion, p. 333.
- 11.
A. Vitsares (1874) Nosoi ton Gynaikon, vol. 1 (Athens: Ermou), pp. 51–2, 54, 59–60.
- 12.
Antonios I. Kindynes (1889) E Steirosis para te Gynaiki kai Therapeia Autes (Athens: Vlastos Varvaregos), p. 181; M. Moyseides (1925) E Gyne: Ygieine tou Gamou kai tes Eggamou Gynaikos (Alexandria: A. Kasigone), p. 72.
- 13.
M. Venizelos (1881) Maieutike (Athens: n.p.), p. 301. For a similar use see also K.N. Alavanos (1900) Odegos pros Exetasin Egkyou Gynaikos (Syros: P. Printezes), p. 96.
- 14.
Venizelos, Maieutike, pp. 267, 301, 303, 557–8.
- 15.
M. Meliareses (1875) O Odegos ton Eggamon. By Frederick Hollick M.D. part b, translated by M. Meliareses (Vraila: M. Pestemaltziogou), p. 95.
- 16.
Meliareses, O Odegos, p. 96.
- 17.
See Kostes, Egxeiridion, pp. 327, 331, 382, for example.
- 18.
Pyrros, Egkolpion ton Iatron, p. 192.
- 19.
Venizelos, Maieutike, p. 558.
- 20.
Andrea Tone (2001) Devices & Desires. A History of Contraceptives in America (New York: Hill and Wang), pp. 37–8.
- 21.
Elias I. Oikonomopoulos (1902) O Gamos (Athens: O Kadmos), p. 68; Moyseides, E Gyne, pp. 52, 57–9, 74–80. Outside Greece, see William J. Robinson (1929) Woman: Her Sex and Love Life, 21st edn (New York: Eugenics publishing company), https://archive.org/details/womanhersexlovel00robiuoft/page/1, Chap. 8; 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, Chap. II. However, see Stopes’ strong rejection of the argument for douching for cleanliness (Marie Stopes (1923) Contraception (Birth Control): Its Theory, History and Practice (London: John Bale), p. 117).
- 22.
N.N. Drakoulides (1956) ‘Ygieine Genetesiou Omilias’, in Paulos Drandakes (ed.) Megale Ellenike Egkyklopaideia, vol. 8, 2nd edn (Athens: Phoenix), p. 187. Similar recommendations were made by the physician Sygkelakes (A. Sygkelakes (1927) E Apokryfe Ygieine tes Gynaikas (Alexandria: Grammata), p. 46). Sygkelakes rejected the use of antiseptics as injurious to the woman.
- 23.
Drakoulides, ‘Ygieine Genetesiou Omilias’, p. 187.
- 24.
Drakoulides, ‘Ygieine Genetesiou Omilias’, p. 187; Moyseides, E Gyne, pp. 58, 72; Dem. Antonopoulos (1926) E Steirosis para te Gynaiki (Athens: Koronaiou, Denaxa and Co).
- 25.
Anonymous (15 November 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Anypomone P. Korinthon’, E Gynaika, 1(21), p. 25; Anonymous (20 November 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Anesyhe Nea’, E Gynaika, 1(20), p. 31.
- 26.
Nikolaos Gyras (1939) Prin kai Meta ton Gamo, 4th edn (Athena: G. Vallianatou); there were further editions of this work in 1944 and 1956 and eight editions by 1956 (p. 106).
- 27.
A. Raymond Mills (1948) ‘Peasant Remedies from the Greek Islands’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 22, p. 443.
- 28.
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), pp. 76, 139, 145, 148–50; Anonymous (1925) ‘Dia ten Praxin=Katheg. A. Forel Mesa di on Kanonizetai e Parakolyetai h Syllepsis’, Klinike, 1(6), 187–9; Antonopoulos, E Steirosis, p. 15; N.N. Drakoulides (1933) E Vlennoroia ston Andra kai ste Gynaika. Synepeies-Profylaxis-Therapeia (Athens: K. Papadogiannes), p. 38; Mihael Nik. Kaires (1939), Akindynos Erotas. E Ygieine ton Neon Syzygon kai e Ygieine Profylaxis ton Neon (Athens: Anatole), pp. 44, 64; M. Yioel (1938) Steirosis e Egkymosyne kata Voulesi, 2nd edn, 1st edn 1936 (Athens: Vasileiou), p. 24. For his fascinating life see Rena Molho (ed.), Oi Anamneseis tou Giatrou M. Yioel, 2nd edn (Athens: Patakis, 2010); Gyras, Prin, p. 106; Anonymous (1954) Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos. Iatrike ton Oikogeneion, Diaitetike, Gynaikeia Provlemata, Kallone, Symperifora (Athens: Papademetriou), p. 307. See also Margaret Sanger (1915) Family Limitation (New York: n.p.), who in her early editions of this work recommended douching as a contraceptive, as long as antiseptics were used. However, by the time of the 18th edition, in 1922, she believed that douching was good only for cleansing purposes (pp. 8–10), https://archive.org/details/39002086349256.med.yale.edu (accessed 25 April 2019).
- 29.
Marestan, To Vivlio, p. 145; Anonymous, Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos, p. 307; Gyras, Prin, p. 91; Anonymous (27 December 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mellousa Kyria’, E Gynaika, 1(24), p. 41, where the gynecologist’s recommendation to the reader was that douching with an acidic solution was a good means of preventing conception but that it ‘needs to take place immediately and not hours or even days after’.
- 30.
Yioel, Steirosis, p. 24. This is the Ogino-Knaus method.
- 31.
M. Moyseides (1932) Malthousianismos Allote kai Nyn. Eleghos Genneseon kai Aposteirosis (Athens: Gerardon Bros), pp. 62–4; Antonopoulos, E Steirosis, p. 32; Yioel, Steirosis, p. 24; Alexandros Tsakires (1954) Megale Sexologia. Anikanotes, Steirosis kai e Syghrone Therapeia ton, 3rd edn, 1st edn 1947 (Athens: n.p.), p. 582; Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 46.
- 32.
Marie Stopes (1918) Wise Parenthood. A Sequel to ‘Married Love’ (London: n.p.), pp. 26–30. A similar position was taken by Courtenay Beale (1922) Wise Wedlock. The Complete Treatise on Birth Control & Marriage (London: Health Promotion), pp. 130–1, who rejected its efficiency as a contraceptive method and also regarded it as a romance killer.
- 33.
See, for example, Mary S. Calderone (ed.), Manual of Contraceptive Practice (Baltimore, MD: The Williams & Wilkins Company).
- 34.
Vasilios Valaoras, A. Polychronopoulou, D. Trichopoulos (1965) ‘Control of Family Size in Greece (The Results of a Field Survey)’, Population Studies, 18(3), 265–78; Moyseides, E Gyne, p. 57.
- 35.
Richard Blum and Eva Blum (1965) Health and Healing in Rural Greece (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), p. 76. It is a pity that the authors did not consider it interesting to explore what methods men were using. Quinine was a very commonly recommended addition to the douching solution (see, for example, Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook, p. 49).
- 36.
Szreter , for example, refers to the ‘expense and impracticality’ of female appliance methods in the ‘crowded, unplumbed working class houses typical before the later inter-war years’, referring to douches, pessaries, caps and diaphragms (Simon Szreter (1996) Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 427). Seccombe, discussing the apparent increase in the use of female appliance methods in the 1920s, refers exclusively to caps and diaphragms, emphasising the major difficulties in using them in the absence of indoor plumbing but also the ‘aversion of touching their own genitals’ (Wally Seccombe (1990) ‘Starting to Stop: Working-Class Fertility Decline in Britain’, Past & Present, 126(1), 169).
- 37.
No. 19 Mykonos, born in 1915, from a farming family.
- 38.
No. 22 Mykonos, female, married 1930, gave birth in 1930, 1931 and 1940.
- 39.
There was a consensus on the part of all informants on this: see, for example, Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and so on.
- 40.
No. 5 referred to always having a WC on the balcony (elite); No. 3 had had one since the mid-1930s because it was a ‘very good house’; No. 17 had had a WC even when they were children (upper class). Most rural residents did not have a designated WC space until the 1950s and beyond (No. 11, No. 12, No. 16, No. 21, No. 26); some urban inhabitants acquired a separate space from the late 1920s, but these did not have running water (No. 7, No. 9, and so on). Urban inhabitants without a WC in their house would use a pot that they would empty into designated holes in the street or in nearby empty spaces (No. 23, referring to her grandmother; No. 18, referring to others).
- 41.
See, for example, No. 4, No. 12, No. 13, No. 14. In rural areas at times there would be only one main living area, with the younger children sleeping in the wooden loft of that room and the older ones, from around the age of 15, sleeping in the barn (see, for example, No. 7, No. 11). These were what some authors referred to as ‘monospita’, described by Aris Konstantinides, Mykonos, cited in Panagiotes Kousathanas (2018) Paramileta Δ (Athens: Indiktos), p. 837.
- 42.
M. Moyseides, E Gyne, pp. 74–80. Similarly complex and elaborate guidelines were offered by Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook, pp. 48–9. Rout made the point that the use of the ‘Douche Can’ was better than syringing but also acknowledged that its use in most houses would be ‘inconvenient’ (Rout, Safe Marriage, Appendix I). Sanger suggested that ‘Every woman should possess a good two quart rubber douche bag called fountain syringe’ (Sanger, Family Limitation, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31790/31790-h/31790-h.htm, accessed 7 July 2019).
- 43.
No. 19 Mykonos; Meliareses, O Odegos.
- 44.
See, for example, Giannes, who was 14 years old when his mother had to perform twenty-five enemas on him during the famine because of the low quality food they had to consume (No. 9 Hios, male, born approx. 1928).
- 45.
Anonymous (21 March 1951) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Agnoia’, E Gynaika, 2(30), p. 49. Anonymous (13 December 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to D.I.M.O.’, E Gynaika, 1(23), p. 19.
- 46.
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), pp. 171–2.
- 47.
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. 214–5. According to Himes, as early as 1797 Jeremy Bentham had also advocated its use (Medical History, p. 211). Himes mentions that the sponge is also mentioned as a contraceptive in the Talmud, dated to the second or third century (Himes , Medical History, p. 217). The sponge appeared in all three handbills published by Place (Himes, Medical History, pp. 217–8).
- 48.
Robert Carlisle (1828) Every Woman’s Book or What is Love? (London: R. Carlisle), pp. 38–9, https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:diz789zox/read/single#page/1/mode/2up, accessed 7 July 2019.
- 49.
Robert Dale Owen (1831) Moral Physiology, 2nd edn (New York: Wright & Owen), p. 66.
- 50.
Knowlton, Fruits of Philosophy, pp. 33–6.
- 51.
M.G.H. (1860) Poverty: Its cause and cure. Pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from their present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity, and independence; and which is capable of entirely removing, in course of time, the other principal social evils (London: Truelove), p. 12, https://www.jstor.org/stable/60203639, accessed 7 July 2019.
- 52.
M.G.H., Poverty, p. 13.
- 53.
Halliday G. Sutherland (1922) Birth Control. A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians (London: Harding & More), citing R.T. Trall (1895) Sexual Physiology and Hygiene (New York: Fowler & Wells Co).
- 54.
Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook, p. 49.
- 55.
Meliareses, O Odegos, p. 96.
- 56.
Kostes, Egxeiridion, pp. 267, 161, 171, 177, 179, 216–7, 220.
- 57.
Kostes, Egxeiridion, p. 267. An identical use of the sponge is also mentioned by Venizelos, Maieutike, p. 354.
- 58.
Kostes, Egxeiridion, pp. 306, 307, 331–3. The term ‘pomasma’ is used by Yioel in 1938, where he explicitly refers to the use of a sponge or a cap inserted in the vagina (Yioel, Steirosis, p. 13).
- 59.
Vitsares, Nosoi, pp. 49, 54, 56–8; Venizelos, Maieutike, 555; Anna Katsigra (1908) E Maieutike en te Praksei (Athens: Auge Athenon), pp. 231–2; Venizelos refers to it as a ‘very new method, first applied by Shole in 1842’ (Maieutike, p. 555). Interestingly, Kostes warned that using ‘capping’ (pomasma)—i.e., inserting a sizeable piece of sponge, cotton wool or lint high into the vagina—would endanger a pregnancy, if the woman happened to be pregnant (Kostes, Egxeiridion, p. 332).
- 60.
Alavanos, Odegos, pp. 97–8.
- 61.
Sanger, Family Limitation, p. 14.
- 62.
Sanger, Family Limitation, p. 14.
- 63.
Place, Contraceptive Handbill, cited in Himes, Medical History, p. 217.
- 64.
Stopes, Wise Parenthood, pp. 16–18.
- 65.
Pessaries are items inserted into the vagina for therapeutic purposes.
- 66.
Rout, Safe Marriage.
- 67.
Rout, Safe Marriage. Stopes also mentions this (Contraception, p. 136).
- 68.
Himes, Medical History, p. 182, citing O.V. Hovorka and A. Kronfeld (1908, 1909) Vergleichende Volksmedizin (Stuttgard: Strecker & Schröder), vol. 2, p. 523.
- 69.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 51, 132, 135–8.
- 70.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 132–3.
- 71.
Stopes, Contraception, p. 133.
- 72.
Stopes, Contraception, p. 136.
- 73.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 136–8.
- 74.
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).
- 75.
Konikow, Voluntary Motherhood, p. 18.
- 76.
Antoinette F. Konikow (1931) Physician’s Manual of Birth Control (New York: Buchholz Publishing Co), p. 71.
- 77.
Szreter cites R. Roberts (1971) The Classic Slum: Salford life in the first quarter of the century (Manchester: Manchester University Press), where Roberts described the use of home-made sponge plugs in Salford in the first quarter of the twentieth century (Szreter, Fertility, p. 439).
- 78.
Szreter mentions that plugs and pessaries were associated with prostitution and therefore their use within marriage was not acceptable (Szreter, Fertility, p. 396). However, writings of the early twentieth century do not suggest so, or perhaps at least by the twentieth century this was not the case. The association of such methods with prostitution seem to have originated with Hime (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), p. 144).
- 79.
The occlusive pessary refers to the rubber vaginal pessary (Marestan, To Vivlio, pp. 76, 136–7).
- 80.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, pp. 72–4.
- 81.
Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 53; Anonymous (1925) ‘Dia ten Praxin’, 187–9; Yioel, Steirosis, pp. 13, 21; Gyras, Prin, p. 91; Konstantinos Metropoulos (1954) Ygieιne tes Egkyou. Enas Polytimos Odegos gia ten Ygieine Diaviose tes Egkyou (Athens: Papademetriou), p. 146.
- 82.
Anonymous, Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos, p. 307.
- 83.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, pp. 65–71. Moyseides mentions that the rubber pessary was first used in 1838 for pelvic stenosis. The same pessary was later modified to become the contraceptive Dutch or Mensinga pessary (p. 64). There is a further mention of the rubber pessary in a medical journal, although this is a translated piece from an English article. The effectiveness of the rubber pessary is given as 96 per cent. However, the instructions for its use are very complicated, with many health warnings (Nik. K. Kerameus (1930) ‘Bauer. Profylaktika Mesa kata tes Syllepseos’, Ellenike Iatrike, 4(11), 1226).
- 84.
No. 4 Mykonos. Marestan also mentioned the immersing of the sponge into lemon juice or acidic solutions (Marestan, To Vivlio tes Agapes, p. 89).
- 85.
Heather Paxson (2004) Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 45. Paxson interviewed Athenians but this does not necessarily mean that the mother-in-law practised midwifery in Athens. Unfortunately this is not made clear.
- 86.
Mills, ‘Peasant remedies’, p. 444.
- 87.
Arnold, ‘Childbirth’, pp. 173, 252. Arnold’s fieldwork took place between the late 1970s and the early 1980s (pp. 8–14).
- 88.
Himes, Medical History, p. 182–3, citing Lorenz Rigler (1852) Die Turkei und Deren Bewohner in Ihren Naturhistorischen, Physiologiscen, und Pathologischen Verhältnissen vom Standpunkte Constantinopels (Wien: C. Gerold).
- 89.
Women from Hios and Tenos were working as servants in Constantinople even in the inter-war years (Violetta Hionidou (2005) ‘Female domestic service on three Greek islands in the later 19th and early 20th centuries’, The History of the Family, 10, 473–89; Violetta Hionidou (in press) ‘Yperetries sten Ellada, 19os-20os aionas: Morfes kai sheseis ergasias’ in Panagiota Mene, Anna Staurakopoulou, Konstantina Georgiade and Ioulia Pipinia (eds) Yperetries kai Yperetes: Istorika Ypokeimena kai kallitehnikes anaparastaseis ston ellenofono horo (19os-21os aionas) (Crete: University Press of Crete); Jill Dubisch (1972) ‘The Open Community: Migration from a Greek Island Village’ (unpublished PhD thesis: University of Chicago)).
- 90.
Arnold’s informants indicated the use of a cloth as a barrier method ‘in earlier times’, presumably referring to the 1950s and before (Arnold, ‘Childbirth’, p. 173).
- 91.
Edward T. Tyler (1964) ‘Sponge and Foam’ in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, p. 196.
- 92.
Tyler, ‘Sponge and Foam’, p. 195.
- 93.
Tyler, ‘Sponge and Foam’, p. 196. The diaphragm here refers to what before the 1940s was called the rubber cap (one of which was the Messinga) as well as to the coil-spring ones (Robert L. Dickinson (1964) ‘The Diaphragm’ in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, p. 165).
- 94.
Tyler, ‘Sponge and Foam’, p. 196.
- 95.
Clarence J. Gable (1964) ‘Sponges and Tampons with Household Spermicides’ in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, pp. 197–8.
- 96.
Kostes, Egxeiridion; Venizelos, Maieutike; Vitsares, Nosoi.
- 97.
Katsigra, E Maieutike, pp. 231–2; Kostes, Egxeiridion, pp. 306, 307, 331–3.
- 98.
Oikonomopoulos, O Gamos, p. 68.
- 99.
Pyrros, Egkolpion ton Iatron, §220 Metritis, p. 142, §108, p. 69.
- 100.
Venizelos, Maieutike, p. 257; Kostes, Egxeiridion, p. 325; Vitsares, Nosoi, p. 56.
- 101.
Katsigra, E Maieutike, pp. 231–2; Blum and Blum, in Health and Healing, p. 76, refer to traditional methods of abortion, including suppositories; see Chap. 4 above; Pyrros attributed the obstruction of the uterus to, among other causes, the insertion of pessaries into the uterus by midwives (Egkolpion ton Iatron, p. 69). Inserting leeches into the vagina was also recommended in the nineteenth century by some obstetricians as therapy for some conditions.
- 102.
Robinson, Woman, Chap. 20.
- 103.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 136–8.
- 104.
William Smellie (1752) A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, 2nd edn (London: D. Wilson and T. Durham), pp. 424, v, vi.
- 105.
See Szreter, for example (Fertility, p. 396).
- 106.
Christopher Tietze (1964) ‘The Condom’ in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, p. 181. See also Christopher Tietze (1960) The Condom as a Contraceptive (New York: National Committee on Maternal Health).
- 107.
Tietze himself admits that the condom was at the time ‘the most widely used mechanical contraceptive not only in the United States, but throughout the world’ (Tietze, ‘The Condom’, p. 181). Similarly, Sanger referred to it as ‘one of the most commonly known preventatives in the United States’ (Family Limitation, p. 9).
- 108.
Eric Chevallier (1995) The Condom: Three thousand years of safer sex (London: Viking); Aine Collier (2007) The Humble Little Condom: A History (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books); Wolfgang König (2016) Das Kondom: zur Geschichte der Sexualität vom Kaiserreich bis in die Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag); Tietze, The Condom.
- 109.
Tietze, ‘The Condom’, p. 182.
- 110.
Knowlton, Fruits of Philosophy, Chap. 3.
- 111.
Allbutt, The Wife’s Handbook, p. 49.
- 112.
Sanger, Family Limitation, pp. 6–9.
- 113.
Stopes, Wise Parenthood, p. 24.
- 114.
Stopes, Contraception, p. 127.
- 115.
Stopes, Contraception, p. 127.
- 116.
Stopes, Contraception, pp. 128–31.
- 117.
Beale, Wise Wedlock, p. 135.
- 118.
Beale, Wise Wedlock, p. 136.
- 119.
Rout, Safe Marriage, p. 69.
- 120.
Rout, Safe Marriage, pp. 32–50.
- 121.
Konikow, Voluntary Motherhood, pp. 11–12.
- 122.
Konikow, Physician’s Manual, pp. 147, 46.
- 123.
Tietze, ‘The Condom’, p. 184.
- 124.
Tietze, ‘The Condom’, pp. 186–7.
- 125.
Mary S. Calderone (1964) ‘Theoretical Effectiveness Ratings of Nonsurgical Contraceptive Methods’ in Calderone, Manual of Contraceptive Practice, p. 232.
- 126.
The Encyclopaedia of the Greek Woman focused exclusively on the effects of the use of condoms on the women: vaginal irritation and inflammation, irritation to her nervous system and ultimately frigidity (Anonymous, Egkyklopaideia tes Ellenidos, p. 304). Yioel also referred to the ulcers and inflammations of the uterus caused by the use of the condom (Yioel, Steirosis, p. 21).
- 127.
I.N. Anninos (1926) Profylaxis kai Therapeia ton Afrodision Noson (Athens: Tzakas-Delagrammatikas).
- 128.
G.L. Filaretopoulou (1901) E Profylaxis ton Afrodision Pathon (Athens: Anestes Konstantinides), p. 38.
- 129.
Georgios Th. Foteinos (1921) Sotheitai apo ta Afrodisia Pathe! (Athens: Ethniko typografeio), p. 57—a publication of the Ministry of the Interior Affairs, Directorate of Public Health, reissued subsequently a number of times, including in 1939.
- 130.
Drakoulides , E Vlennoroia, p. 38, published as part of the series Propaganda of Social Hygiene.
- 131.
For example, two advertisements of named Athens-based physicians who cured syphilis and gonorrohoea but also impotence and women’s illnesses (Anonymous (1 March 1898) Skrip, 3(903), p. 3; Anonymous (1 April 1900) Skrip, 5(1658), p. 6); in Rizospastes, the newspaper of the Communist party of Greece, there were five advertisements on 30 January 1927 for individual physicians or clinics who offered treatment for venereal diseases (p. 2); Anonymous (27 October 1946) ‘Gynaikologika-metadotika-Sexoualika HRHSIS PENIKILLINHS (Gynacological-infectious-sexual USE OF PENICILLIN)’, Thesauros Θ(413), 60; identical advertisements had appeared in earlier issues of Thesauros on 13 October 1946 and 16 August 1946.
- 132.
Euaggelou, O Kindynos, pp. 46–52. Antonios Gregoriades (1949) Afrodisia Nosemata kai Anikanotes. Ygieina Paraggelmata kai Profylaxis ton Neon (Athens: n.p.), pp. 24–5, recommending the condom for protection against syphilis. Kaires, Akindynos Erotas, pp. 68–80.
- 133.
Euaggelou, O Kindynos, p. 49.
- 134.
Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 83.
- 135.
Gyras, Prin, p. 89.
- 136.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 60.
- 137.
Moyseides, Malthousianismos, p. 60.
- 138.
Reusing the condoms was recommended even in the early 1960s (Tietze, ‘The Condom’, p. 187).
- 139.
Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 83.
- 140.
Thomas Sitaras (2012) Pothoi kai Pathe sten Palia Athena 1834–1938 (Athens: Okeanida), p. 17, indicating that the advert was published in 1934 but without any further reference to the sources except to say that most were newspapers and magazines.
- 141.
Mykonos in the 1920s and even more so in the 1930s had a stream of summer visitors. Some were visiting the ancient cite of Delos, which had to be accessed via Mykonos. Others were Mykoniates residing in Athens who returned for the summer to visit family and relatives. Others yet were visiting friends who were Mykoniates, enticed by the beauty of the island.
- 142.
Euaggelou , for example, stated that ‘continence does not harm the young; look at the young men in villages, nothing happens to them due to continence’ (Euaggelou , O Kindynos, pp. 46–7).
- 143.
No. 10 Mykonos, year of birth 1916, year of marriage 1936, two children; born in rural Mykonos, lived in Athens after the wedding.
- 144.
No. 14 Hios. However, not all sailors were keen on using birth control (see, for example, No. 5 Hios).
- 145.
No. 21 Mykonos, wife born 1923, husband born 1911, married in 1946, farmers, lived in rural Mykonos all their lives.
- 146.
That this was indeed happening can be seen in the published biographies and diaries of, usually affluent, men. See, for example, Giorgos Theotokas’ diary ((2005) Tetradia Emerologiou 1939–1953, 4th edn, ed. Demetres Tziovas (Athens: Estia), pp. 348–51, 358, 363, 549, 557–8, 563–4).
- 147.
Anonymous (8 August 2013) ‘Apo te Mpempeka sto Life. Ellenika profylaktika. Ena proion me istoria apo to 1950’, iefimerida.gr, https://www.iefimerida.gr/news/468581/hokingk-zivansi-aritha-franklin-mpoys-milos-forman-ta-megala-antio-toy-2018, accessed 2 January 2019; Apostolos Doxiadis (1926) Grammata pros Meteras (Athens: Greka).
- 148.
Doxiadis, Grammata pros Meteras, no numbered page.
- 149.
Sitaras, Pothoi, p. 195 (no date is given, although it was certainly prior to 1939).
- 150.
Anonymous, ‘Apo te Mpempeka’. The article is an interview of Iordanes Kanonides, whose grandfather set up the first post-World War II company producing locally packaged condoms. On the dominance of the USA and Germany in the production of condoms see Tone, Devices & Desires, pp. 183–202.
- 151.
Anonymous, ‘Apo te Mpempeka’.
- 152.
Sygkelakes, E Apokryfe, p. 13.
- 153.
Anonymous, ‘Dia ten Praxin’, 187–9.
- 154.
Anonymous (13 December 1950) ‘O Gynaikologos Apanta: Reply to Mnestera [male]’, E Gynaika, 1(23), p. 19.
- 155.
No. 2 Mykonos, born 1911, rural resident all her life. Also No. 22 Mykonos, female, born 1905, married approx. 1929. She started using them after the birth of her first child.
- 156.
No. 13 Mykonos, born 1906, married in 1926, lived in rural Mykonos all her life.
- 157.
Books referring to venereal diseases explicitly mentioned the condom as one of the few protective mechanisms against it (Foteinos , Sotheite apo ta afrodisia pathe, p. 59; Drakoulides, E Vlennoroia, p. 38).
- 158.
Ethnos, 2 May 1936, p. 4.
- 159.
No. 14 Hios. The informant is referring to his wife getting pregnant during the famine years. As, owing to the famine, she was amenorhoeic, they believed that they were not in danger of conceiving. Moreover, condoms were scarce during the occupation years, another reason why he did not use one. A similar response was forthcoming from No. 10 Mykonos on venereal diseases.
- 160.
No. 14 Hios, male, born 1914, married in 1938.
- 161.
No. 13 Mykonos, female, born 1906, married in 1926.
- 162.
No. 11 Athens, born in 1938, informant lived most of her life in mainland Greece in one of the Epirus towns, married in 1959. Interviewed in Athens.
- 163.
No. 22 Hios, born 1925, married 1955: she was aware of condoms; No. 22 Mykonos, born 1905, married approx.1929: she was aware that condoms were available on Mykonos; the couple used condoms after their first child was born in 1930 at the husband’s suggestion, and she also douched; No. 21 rural Mykonos, born 1923, married 1946: used condoms; No. 22 Syros, born 1927, married 1947, village of Vari: used condoms.
- 164.
No. 22, rural Syros, married 1945, daughter born around 1953.
- 165.
No. 22 Mykonos did exactly that: they combined the use of condoms with douching (No. 22 Mykonos, wife born 1905, husband born approx. 1896, married approx.1929).
- 166.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 277–8.
- 167.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 277.
- 168.
George Siampos (1975) ‘Law and Fertility in Greece’ in Maurice Kirk, Massimo Livi Bacci and Egon Szabady (eds) Law and fertility in Europe: A study of legislation directly or indirectly affecting fertility in Europe, vol. 2 (Belgium: Ordina Editions), p. 343.
- 169.
See, for example, Anonymous (1967) ‘Dia Olas ta Gynaikas ai opoiai ehoun kathemerina provlemata h Norlestrin didei ten lysin’, Iatrike, 12(3). The advert recommends the medicine for ‘menstrual disorders’. Needless to say, some women were informed and did use them as contraceptives.
- 170.
Anonymous (1967) ‘Syghrona Provlemeta ek tes Hreseos ton Farmakon’, Iatrike, 3(11), 235–7.
- 171.
Anonymous, ‘Syghrona Provlemeta’, 226–43.
- 172.
N. Louros (1967) ‘L’ Influence des Avortements sur le Problème Demographique de la Grèce’, Praktika Akademias Athenon, 42, 402; Eugenia Georges (1996) ‘Abortion Policy and Practice in Greece’, Social Science Medicine, 42(4), 509–19; Paxson, Making, pp. 103, 106–7.
- 173.
Georges, ‘Abortion Policy’; Paxson, Making.
- 174.
See, for example, No. 12 Mykonos.
- 175.
See also Schneider and Schneider, Festival of the Poor.
- 176.
Fisher and Szreter interpret the male-centred responses of their sample as a correction to the female-centred bias of earlier studies and of the birth control advocates at the start of the century (‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”, 280–1). However, I argue that, rather than correcting an earlier bias, their data reflect that women were in fact earliest in attempting to control their fertility, while men were less interested and less inclined to do so during the earlier part of the decline. Needless to say, many men did take measures in the early part of the decline, as many women also did in the later part of the decline, all depending on couple dynamics and information flows.
- 177.
Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 272.
- 178.
No. 1, No. 20, No. 27 Mykonos; No. 2 Hios; No. 22 Syros. Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 273, argued that for their British sample such an attitude specifically related to the use of withdrawal, rather than other methods.
- 179.
Violetta Hionidou (1998) ‘The Adoption of Fertility Control on Mykonos, 1879–1959: Stopping, Spacing or Both?’ Population Studies, 52(1), 67–83.
- 180.
Fisher and Szreter argued that historiography has presented a simplified situation in which couples are dealt with as either contraceptors or non-contraceptors, thus ignoring the possibility of couples moving from one group to the other (Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 275). However, although many have indeed employed such a dichotomous approach, such an assessment is rather simplistic (see, for example, Hionidou, ‘The Adoption’, 67–83).
- 181.
See, for example, No. 9 Syros, No. 11 Syros, No. 22 Syros, No. 1 Mykonos, No. 10 Mykonos, No. 27 Mykonos. See also Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 274, on their informants being ‘accepting of the consequences of failure’.
- 182.
Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal”’, 270.
- 183.
Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal’”, 270, 274.
- 184.
Fisher and Szreter, ‘“They Prefer Withdrawal’”, 280.
- 185.
Valaoras et al., ‘Control’, 271.
- 186.
The use of condoms in the 1930s is mentioned in the diary of a middle-class Athenian, Minos Dounias, who, during the occupation years 1941–44, lamented the unavailability of ‘elastics and the related hygiene products’ that he was using before the war. In early July 1941 Dounias comments that such items had been ‘for quite a while completely vanished’ (Ntelopoulos, ‘Epeita apo 120 Hronia’, p. 55, entry of 3 July 1941). All such products were imported and thus had become unavailable either from the time Greece became involved in World War II, in October 1940 or, more probably, from the start of the war the previous year.
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Hionidou, V. (2020). Contraception and Its Methods, II: Appliances and the Pill. 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_9
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