How did women avoid pregnancy before the pill?

[ericcartman]

How come most families weren't the size of football teams back then? I mean bar any fertility issues or couples stopping having sex what else was there? I know condoms and abortions have been around for ages in one form or another but I doubt either was that common till the 20th century, especially when talking about married couples.

Leland
Thankyou very much for your post that explains an awful lot about why priests aren't allowed to marry - all about protecting the money of the church. I had no idea thats what its truely about.

In the old days priests weren't exactly incorruptible.

Sure, they weren't the hellish den of iniquity that Cromwell's team suggested they were; but there was plenty to suggest they had common-law wives and passed their jobs and stuff onto their sons quite frequently.

Avoiding it's not that simple -- there's certainly been a very anti-flesh/carnality, anti-woman pro-celibacy strand within Christianity from Paul onward, even though the first popes would have been married.

But property and inheritance is certainly part of it, and has been since the 10th or 11th century when there was an investigation into priests' morality (hogging money and benefices for their children), which seems to have fed into the ban on priests marrying (and of course in a different form, later, into the Reformation).

zzzThe Church has huge amounts of money, property etc. Individual Catholic priests generally do not receive a salary, because they are (supposedly) single celibates not supporting a family, and are housed by the Church in church houses tied to their parish assignment, which is not in their control -- they are assigned a parish by the diocese. In Ireland, where I grew up, priests get only the proceeds from a twice-annual parish collection.

Whereas say, C of E priests, who can marry and have children, receive a salary, apply for parochial jobs like anyone else, and are free to move around between parishes to suit themselves and the needs of their spouse and kids.

Priests have no money

Interesting, so how come my friend inherited a luxury house from her priest uncle?

Well don't know seeing as priests are provided a house to live in by the church? Unless he'd been investing in one for years and rented it out.

My granny told my mum that she remembered her own mother hysterically ranting to her father "I can't stand this sny more! I'm exhausted! I can't cope with having a new baby ever other year!" I expect this was a plea for him to stop "bothering" her so much.

My granny never forgot this and only had 3 DCS although it probably helped that my Dgrandad wad in the forces and not home very often.

My mum was married in the 50s and they had re-usable condoms. Anyone remember that old advert? "Like taking a bath with your socks on."

Could the house have been something that he inherited and in turn passed on?

I had a google apparently the church became concerned about falling birth rates in Brazil and Argentina (both strong RC countries) before the 1930 ruling.

Well that and a vow of poverty

There's no vow of poverty for ordinary diocesan priests. There is a poverty vow if they are members of a monastic order like the Capuchins, or if they are members of a order who are also usually ordained priests (like Redemptorists or Augustinians) -- if their order requires them to take a vow of poverty, they have to take it.

But your ordinary parish priest can be as wealthy as he pleases, whether he's inherited money/property, or made it himself in a previous career. He's unlikely to get rich on actually being a priest, though.

Back street abortions

Catholics marry in order to have children.

Catholics are a whole load of different people with different ideas. Many people Catholic or not marry to have children. Not all believe all the nonsense that the church pedals. The two I know well enough to discuss it, one married because her parents were disapproving of her living with her dp and it bothered him. The second didn't have sex before marriage and married to have sex.

Muslims hare similarly large families.

Islam does not prohibit contraception. The utter lunacy of the Catholic Church stands alone in that.

The problem was that it wasn't talked about much so a lot of women were ignorant about contraception

Women really weren't ignorant about contraception! It might have been the case that what they knew was a load of rubbish, but women certainly knew how to try to avoid getting pregnant or deal with an unwanted pregnancy

I don't think Islam has ever prohibited contraception? I vaguely remember learning that since the dark ages Muslim physicians and midwives were knowledgeable about the female menstrual cycle and so could advise when to avoid having sex.

I'm totally curious about other religious and sects within those religions.

My question is which (if any) religions or sects forbid the use of contraception.
And are their leaders free to marry?

Google tells me RC is the only one that forbids it.

I'm fairly sure most RC families use contraception in the Uk or Scotland any way.