Womb veil
Encyclopedia
The womb veil was a 19th-century American form of barrier contraception
consisting of an occlusive pessary
made of rubber
. It was a forerunner to the modern diaphragm
and cervical cap
. The name was first used by Edward Bliss Foote
in 1863 for the device he designed and marketed. "Womb veil" became the most common 19th-century American
term for similar devices, and continued to be used into the early 20th century. Womb veils were among a "range of contraceptive technology
of questionable efficacy" available to American women of the 19th century, forms of which began to be advertised in the 1830s and 1840s. They could be bought widely through mail-order catalogues
; when induced abortion
was criminalized in the United States
during the 1870s, reliance on birth control increased. Womb veils were touted as a discreet form of contraception, with one catalogue of erotic products from the 1860s promising that they could be "used by the female without danger of detection by the male."
The use of rubber pessaries for contraception likely arose from the 19th-century practice of correcting a prolapsed uterus
with such a device; the condition seems to have been far more frequently diagnosed than its incidence would warrant, and at times may have been a fiction for employing a pessary for birth control. As with the production of condom
s for men, the development of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear
helped make barrier contraceptives for women more reliable and inexpensive. Other terms for the contraceptive diaphragm were "female preventatives", "female protectors", "Victoria's protectors", and the "French pessary" ("F.P.") or "pessaire preventif". This linguistic variety, some of it euphemistic, makes it difficult to distinguish in the literature among diaphragms, cervical caps, female condom
s, and other pessaries; one form of "womb veil" is described in 1890 as "like a ring pessary covered by a membraneous envelope." Another source in 1895 describes it as "a small soft rubber cup surrounded at the brim by a flexible rubber ring about an inch or inch and a quarter in diameter."
of the Jacksonian era
encouraged the sharing of knowledge about contraception, and contraceptive devices were advertised openly in newspaper ads and in brochures throughout the first half of the 19th century. Among their proponents was the physician Edward Bliss Foote. Foote introduced his device, the womb veil, in a self-published book entitled Medical Common Sense:
Foote appears to have been the first to use the term "womb veil", in introducing his vaginal diaphragm in 1863. The explicitness of his description is regarded as "rather remarkable" for its time. Foote touted his device as "the only reliable means yet discovered for the prevention of conception," and sold it "closely sealed" through the mail at a cost of $6. Foote may have gotten the idea for his device from an 1838 German treatise on cervical caps, or from acquaintance with the German tradition of midwifery
that had been brought to the United States. Although he mentions his intention to obtain a patent
, none is recorded.
"Succinct, straightforward" advertising for birth control devices, as well as for aphrodisiac
s and drugs to induce abortion and cure venereal disease, had been common in newspapers of the 1830s and 40s. But in 1873, the Comstock laws made it illegal to disseminate information about contraception. The following year, Foote was arrested and convicted under Comstock. His pamphlets were seized and destroyed, although his descriptions of the womb veil survive in early editions of his book. In subsequent editions, he was required to cut back the section on contraception to focus on douching
, usually referred to in the literature of the time as the use of syringes. Retailers were subjected to raids, with womb veils among the contraceptive devices confiscated. Although contraceptive information in popular media was curtailed, technical and medical journals and textbooks were not subject to this regulation, and physicians continued to discuss both issues and technologies pertaining to birth control.
The early 20th century saw a resurgence of interest in birth control in the United States, due largely to the efforts of Margaret Sanger
and other social activists. One of the most outspoken advocates for contraception during this time was Emma Goldman
, who openly defied the Comstock laws by recommending the womb veil in leaflets she distributed after her lectures.
as a type of pessarium occlusivum, was considered by some medical authorities to be effective if fitted and inserted correctly. Post-coital douching was often recommended in conjunction with its use. Prolonged use of the device was reported on occasion to produce side effects, some of which pointed toward a need for better hygiene. Serious ulcerations were reported among those who wore it too long or without proper care. In a report to the New Haven Medical Association, one doctor blamed the womb veil for a woman's nocturnal seizure
s. A gynecologist noted that the rubber womb veil might cause irritation or itching, but reckoned that the "opportunity for increased or unlimited intercourse" was the proximate cause. Another physician who promoted contraception as a way to avoid resorting to abortion found that some users had been disappointed in the womb veil; he recommended douching as a more effective means.
One physican found the womb veil to be "harmless" and likely "effectual" in some cases, but thought it relied too much on women knowing how to insert it correctly, with the possibility that it might become dislodged during intercourse. Concerns about displacement of the womb veil, as well as irritation and loss of pleasurable sensation, were also expressed by the author of a 1912 book on human sexuality. The element of unreliability was recognized in the literature distributed by Emma Goldman.
Concerns about fit were addressed by offering over-the-counter womb veils labeled by size, though not in a standardized way: "big" and "small," "one-size-fits-all," and "mothers' size" were some of the terms used. Symptoms such as cramping, abdominal pain, ulceration, and urinary tract infections were likely to have been caused by a too-large womb veil. The risk of dispacement and consequent pregnancy was increased by a veil too small. By comparison, modern diaphragms require cervical measurement and a prescription from a medical practitioner, and range in size from 50 to 95 millimeters.
Noting that "any preventive will fail if not applied properly," the New York physician and free-love
advocate Oscar Rotter
offered these instructions:
Rotter also recommended that the veil be used in conjunction with a spermicide
ointment made from muriate of quinine
and vaseline
. Instructions for removal and hygiene followed.
Rotter was an enthusiastic if careful proponent of the womb veil. Writing in 1897, he recommended pessaries made in England as of the highest quality, with those from Germany also satisfactory. The American in his view were the most poorly made, an inferiority he blamed on the restrictive Comstock laws that drove manufacture and sale underground: "In England, however, where such goods are openly advertised and sold, competition tends to secure the survival of the fittest
, and hence it is better to import them from that country." Until legal prohibitions limiting commercial production and distribution were lessened in the 1920s, reputable companies would manufacture devices for contraception only as a discreet sideline. Small-scale entrepreneurs, not excluding black marketeers, stepped in to produce womb veils among other taboo items intended if not explicitly labeled as birth control. For women too poor to buy quality contraception, Rotter also described how to make a homemade device from a rubber ball.
himself testified that the womb veil was "an instrument of death both moral and physical to the youth of the land."
The use of womb veils, like other forms of contraception, was thus subject to moral condemnation. In his Ladies' Guide in Health and Disease, John Harvey Kellogg
asserted several legitimate reasons for family planning
, but considered womb veils and other technological forms of birth control to be harmful both physically and psychologically, causing women to lose "all respect for the sacredness of the maternal function." The author of a Hand-book to Obstetrics
(1908) opined:
The author finds the rhythm method
ineffective, since "for the female, rut
and menstruation
are the same." He further disapproves of withdrawal
, warning that the latter would lead to "nervous collapse" and noting that "it is infinitely worse than masturbation
." The perceived immorality of contraceptive devices was linked to the fear that they might enhance sexual pleasure; like masturbation, the use of womb veils, condoms, and other appliances might "heighten the feeling," but "there is no contact of the parts, and it is morally pernicious and degrading." Because these devices removed the fear of conception, they were said to foster a "positive invitation to illicit intercourse." Although in general douching was more acceptable, even ads for "syringes" could be condemned as being "as hurtful to public morals and children's education as if they advertised condoms and womb veils."
Although birth control was sometimes advocated as a way for the poor to manage their resources better by limiting the size of their family, it could also be promoted for controlling social groups seen as inferior. Observing that a couple "swept away by passion" might not think to take precautions such as inserting a womb veil, and that "the least intelligent" such as "the rough workman or dull peasant" would be most likely not to exercise self-control, one medical writer advocated intrauterine device
s that could be left in place "if we wish to breed up not down."
Anxieties about "race suicide" also framed opposition to birth control. The average number of births among white married couples is estimated to have dropped by nearly half between 1800 and 1900. Womb veils were pointed to in racially charged rhetoric warning that contraception threatened the white, specifically Anglo-Saxon
, fertility rate. A Missouri physician blamed gynecology as a medical specialty for teaching "young ladies how to avoid conception," claiming that "syringes, sponges, and womb-veils will exterminate the descendants of the Mayflower." An editorial in a 1906 issue of Texas Medical Journal asserted that if all physicians were "both civic and Christian gentlemen"
In fact, indications are that black Americans also practiced family planning to a comparable degree in the post-slavery period, and several factors seem to have influenced a desire for smaller families among various demographic groups in the 19th century.
Barrier contraception
Barrier contraception methods prevent pregnancy by physically preventing sperm from entering the uterus.-History:The earliest recorded barrier methods are those of stem pessaries, found in Egypt. The diaphragm and reusable condoms became common after the invention of rubber vulcanization in the...
consisting of an occlusive pessary
Pessary
A pessary is a small plastic or silicone medical device which is inserted into the vagina or rectum and held in place by the pelvic floor musculature. - Therapeutic pessaries :...
made of rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
. It was a forerunner to the modern diaphragm
Diaphragm (contraceptive)
The diaphragm is a cervical barrier type of birth control. It is a soft latex or silicone dome with a spring molded into the rim. The spring creates a seal against the walls of the vagina.-Use:...
and cervical cap
Cervical cap
The cervical cap is a form of barrier contraception. A cervical cap fits over the cervix and blocks sperm from entering the uterus through the external orifice of the uterus, called the os.-Terminology:...
. The name was first used by Edward Bliss Foote
Edward Bliss Foote
Edward Bliss Foote was an American doctor and author writing about family and social issues and a pioneering advocate in birth control. He was a co-founder of the Free Speech League....
in 1863 for the device he designed and marketed. "Womb veil" became the most common 19th-century American
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
term for similar devices, and continued to be used into the early 20th century. Womb veils were among a "range of contraceptive technology
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
of questionable efficacy" available to American women of the 19th century, forms of which began to be advertised in the 1830s and 1840s. They could be bought widely through mail-order catalogues
Mail order
Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...
; when induced abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
was criminalized in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the 1870s, reliance on birth control increased. Womb veils were touted as a discreet form of contraception, with one catalogue of erotic products from the 1860s promising that they could be "used by the female without danger of detection by the male."
The use of rubber pessaries for contraception likely arose from the 19th-century practice of correcting a prolapsed uterus
Uterine prolapse
Uterine prolapse is a form of female genital prolapse Uterine prolapse is a form of female genital prolapse Uterine prolapse is a form of female genital prolapse (also called pelvic organ prolapse or prolapse of the uterus (womb).Treatment is surgical, and the options include hysterectomy or a...
with such a device; the condition seems to have been far more frequently diagnosed than its incidence would warrant, and at times may have been a fiction for employing a pessary for birth control. As with the production of condom
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
s for men, the development of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear was an American inventor who developed a process to vulcanize rubber in 1839 -- a method that he perfected while living and working in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1844, and for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844Although...
helped make barrier contraceptives for women more reliable and inexpensive. Other terms for the contraceptive diaphragm were "female preventatives", "female protectors", "Victoria's protectors", and the "French pessary" ("F.P.") or "pessaire preventif". This linguistic variety, some of it euphemistic, makes it difficult to distinguish in the literature among diaphragms, cervical caps, female condom
Female condom
A female condom is a device that is used during sexual intercourse as a barrier contraceptive and to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy...
s, and other pessaries; one form of "womb veil" is described in 1890 as "like a ring pessary covered by a membraneous envelope." Another source in 1895 describes it as "a small soft rubber cup surrounded at the brim by a flexible rubber ring about an inch or inch and a quarter in diameter."
Social history
The Popular Health MovementPopular Health Movement
The Popular Health Movement of the 1830s–1850s was an aspect of Jacksonian-era politics and society in the United States. The movement promoted a rational skepticism toward claims of medical expertise that were based on personal authority, and encouraged ordinary people to understand the pragmatics...
of the Jacksonian era
Jacksonian democracy
Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...
encouraged the sharing of knowledge about contraception, and contraceptive devices were advertised openly in newspaper ads and in brochures throughout the first half of the 19th century. Among their proponents was the physician Edward Bliss Foote. Foote introduced his device, the womb veil, in a self-published book entitled Medical Common Sense:
This consists of an India-rubber contrivance which the female easily adjusts in the vagina before copulation, and which spreads a thin tissue of rubber before the mouth of the womb so as to prevent the seminalSemenSemen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
aura from entering. … Conception cannot possibly take place when it is used. The full enjoyment of the conjugal embrace can be indulged in during coition. The husband would hardly be likely to know that it was being used, unless told by the wife. … It places conception entirely under the control of the wife, to whom it naturally belongs; for it is for her to say at what time and under what circumstances, she will become the mother, and the moral, religious, and physical instructress of offpsring.
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
that had been brought to the United States. Although he mentions his intention to obtain a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
, none is recorded.
"Succinct, straightforward" advertising for birth control devices, as well as for aphrodisiac
Aphrodisiac
An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. Throughout history, many foods, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable...
s and drugs to induce abortion and cure venereal disease, had been common in newspapers of the 1830s and 40s. But in 1873, the Comstock laws made it illegal to disseminate information about contraception. The following year, Foote was arrested and convicted under Comstock. His pamphlets were seized and destroyed, although his descriptions of the womb veil survive in early editions of his book. In subsequent editions, he was required to cut back the section on contraception to focus on douching
Douche
A douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself.Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bag is a piece of...
, usually referred to in the literature of the time as the use of syringes. Retailers were subjected to raids, with womb veils among the contraceptive devices confiscated. Although contraceptive information in popular media was curtailed, technical and medical journals and textbooks were not subject to this regulation, and physicians continued to discuss both issues and technologies pertaining to birth control.
The early 20th century saw a resurgence of interest in birth control in the United States, due largely to the efforts of Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
and other social activists. One of the most outspoken advocates for contraception during this time was Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, who openly defied the Comstock laws by recommending the womb veil in leaflets she distributed after her lectures.
Efficacy and side effects
The womb veil, described in medical LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as a type of pessarium occlusivum, was considered by some medical authorities to be effective if fitted and inserted correctly. Post-coital douching was often recommended in conjunction with its use. Prolonged use of the device was reported on occasion to produce side effects, some of which pointed toward a need for better hygiene. Serious ulcerations were reported among those who wore it too long or without proper care. In a report to the New Haven Medical Association, one doctor blamed the womb veil for a woman's nocturnal seizure
Seizure
An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...
s. A gynecologist noted that the rubber womb veil might cause irritation or itching, but reckoned that the "opportunity for increased or unlimited intercourse" was the proximate cause. Another physician who promoted contraception as a way to avoid resorting to abortion found that some users had been disappointed in the womb veil; he recommended douching as a more effective means.
One physican found the womb veil to be "harmless" and likely "effectual" in some cases, but thought it relied too much on women knowing how to insert it correctly, with the possibility that it might become dislodged during intercourse. Concerns about displacement of the womb veil, as well as irritation and loss of pleasurable sensation, were also expressed by the author of a 1912 book on human sexuality. The element of unreliability was recognized in the literature distributed by Emma Goldman.
Concerns about fit were addressed by offering over-the-counter womb veils labeled by size, though not in a standardized way: "big" and "small," "one-size-fits-all," and "mothers' size" were some of the terms used. Symptoms such as cramping, abdominal pain, ulceration, and urinary tract infections were likely to have been caused by a too-large womb veil. The risk of dispacement and consequent pregnancy was increased by a veil too small. By comparison, modern diaphragms require cervical measurement and a prescription from a medical practitioner, and range in size from 50 to 95 millimeters.
Noting that "any preventive will fail if not applied properly," the New York physician and free-love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
advocate Oscar Rotter
Oscar Rotter
Oscar Rotter , also with the German spelling Oskar Rotter, was a German-born New York physician and proponent of free love and contraception. Rotter's books included The Sexes and Love in Freedom and Jealousy, the Foe of Freedom, and he published articles on free love, rebutting the views of Lucy...
offered these instructions:
For introduction, the woman is to sit down, so to say, on her heels, with her legs spread apart, which will bring the womb down as low as possible. Then taking the womb veil into the right hand with the cavity looking upward and compressed from side to side, giving it thus the shape of an ellipse, she has to push it up the vagina as far as it will go. It will then spread out of its own accord and apply itself closely and firmly to the neck of the womb.
Rotter also recommended that the veil be used in conjunction with a spermicide
Spermicide
Spermicide is a contraceptive substance that eradicates sperm, inserted vaginally prior to intercourse to prevent pregnancy. As a contraceptive, spermicide may be used alone. However, the pregnancy rate experienced by couples using only spermicide is higher than that of couples using other methods...
ointment made from muriate of quinine
Quinine
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic , antimalarial, analgesic , anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine which, unlike quinine, is an anti-arrhythmic...
and vaseline
Vaseline
Vaseline is a brand of petroleum jelly based products owned by Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. Products include plain petroleum jelly and a selection of skin creams, soaps, lotions, cleansers, deodorants and personal lubricants....
. Instructions for removal and hygiene followed.
Rotter was an enthusiastic if careful proponent of the womb veil. Writing in 1897, he recommended pessaries made in England as of the highest quality, with those from Germany also satisfactory. The American in his view were the most poorly made, an inferiority he blamed on the restrictive Comstock laws that drove manufacture and sale underground: "In England, however, where such goods are openly advertised and sold, competition tends to secure the survival of the fittest
Survival of the fittest
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...
, and hence it is better to import them from that country." Until legal prohibitions limiting commercial production and distribution were lessened in the 1920s, reputable companies would manufacture devices for contraception only as a discreet sideline. Small-scale entrepreneurs, not excluding black marketeers, stepped in to produce womb veils among other taboo items intended if not explicitly labeled as birth control. For women too poor to buy quality contraception, Rotter also described how to make a homemade device from a rubber ball.
Moral and racialist aspects
The Comstock ban on advertising contraceptive devices, which included womb veils, was not intended to protect consumers from false claims of efficacy, but from exposure to indecency. One editorial writer specifically asserted that even if the ads made true statements, the "anger and indignation of respectable people" at finding such products in their daily newspaper would be grounds to ban them. At Foote's trial, Anthony ComstockAnthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
himself testified that the womb veil was "an instrument of death both moral and physical to the youth of the land."
The use of womb veils, like other forms of contraception, was thus subject to moral condemnation. In his Ladies' Guide in Health and Disease, John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism and is best known for the invention of the corn flakes breakfast cereal...
asserted several legitimate reasons for family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
, but considered womb veils and other technological forms of birth control to be harmful both physically and psychologically, causing women to lose "all respect for the sacredness of the maternal function." The author of a Hand-book to Obstetrics
Obstetrics
Obstetrics is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy , childbirth and the postnatal period...
(1908) opined:
I think there is a growing distaste for the family duties among women … that should be condemned. The efforts of women to equal man in studies, work, etc., while still claiming their sex privileges, with the dissolution of club and society life, are leading to a 'race suicide.' This ought not to be. Woman is anatomically, physiologically, and emotionally evolved for one sole and single purpose, any departure therefrom being done at the violation of her best ideals and a misdirection of energy.
The author finds the rhythm method
Rhythm Method
Calendar-based methods are various methods of estimating a woman's likelihood of fertility, based on a record of the length of previous menstrual cycles. Various systems are known as the Knaus–Ogino Method, rhythm method, and Standard Days Method...
ineffective, since "for the female, rut
Rut (mammalian reproduction)
The rut is the mating season of ruminant animals such as deer, sheep, elk, moose, caribou, ibex, goats, pronghorn and Asian and African antelope....
and menstruation
Menstruation
Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...
are the same." He further disapproves of withdrawal
Coitus interruptus
Coitus interruptus, also known as the rejected sexual intercourse, withdrawal or pull-out method, is a method of birth-control in which a man, during intercourse withdraws his penis from a woman's vagina prior to ejaculation...
, warning that the latter would lead to "nervous collapse" and noting that "it is infinitely worse than masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
." The perceived immorality of contraceptive devices was linked to the fear that they might enhance sexual pleasure; like masturbation, the use of womb veils, condoms, and other appliances might "heighten the feeling," but "there is no contact of the parts, and it is morally pernicious and degrading." Because these devices removed the fear of conception, they were said to foster a "positive invitation to illicit intercourse." Although in general douching was more acceptable, even ads for "syringes" could be condemned as being "as hurtful to public morals and children's education as if they advertised condoms and womb veils."
Although birth control was sometimes advocated as a way for the poor to manage their resources better by limiting the size of their family, it could also be promoted for controlling social groups seen as inferior. Observing that a couple "swept away by passion" might not think to take precautions such as inserting a womb veil, and that "the least intelligent" such as "the rough workman or dull peasant" would be most likely not to exercise self-control, one medical writer advocated intrauterine device
Intrauterine device
A copper IUD is a type of intrauterine device. Most IUDs have a plastic T- or U-shaped frame which is wrapped in copper wire, with the exception of Gynefix, which is a plastic string with several copper beads, affixed to the fundus of the uterus...
s that could be left in place "if we wish to breed up not down."
Anxieties about "race suicide" also framed opposition to birth control. The average number of births among white married couples is estimated to have dropped by nearly half between 1800 and 1900. Womb veils were pointed to in racially charged rhetoric warning that contraception threatened the white, specifically Anglo-Saxon
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
, fertility rate. A Missouri physician blamed gynecology as a medical specialty for teaching "young ladies how to avoid conception," claiming that "syringes, sponges, and womb-veils will exterminate the descendants of the Mayflower." An editorial in a 1906 issue of Texas Medical Journal asserted that if all physicians were "both civic and Christian gentlemen"
we should have no criminal abortion cases, no womb veils, no tubes with buttons to close the os, and the Anglo-Saxon race, instead of being in a decadent condition, would rise in its birth rate and not leave the race problem to the LatinLatins"Latins" refers to different groups of people and the meaning of the word changes for where and when it is used.The original Latins were an Italian tribe inhabiting central and south-central Italy. Through conquest by their most populous city-state, Rome, the original Latins culturally "Romanized"...
-TeutonicGermanic peoplesThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
and coloredColoredColored is a term once widely used in the United States to describe black people and Native Americans...
race.
In fact, indications are that black Americans also practiced family planning to a comparable degree in the post-slavery period, and several factors seem to have influenced a desire for smaller families among various demographic groups in the 19th century.
See also
- History of condomsHistory of condomsThe history of condoms goes back at least several centuries, and perhaps beyond. For most of their history, condoms have been used both as a method of birth control, and as a protective measure against sexually transmitted diseases...
- Timeline of reproductive rights legislationTimeline of reproductive rights legislationTimeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health...
- Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln, section on Mary Todd Lincoln
- Birth control movement in the United StatesBirth control movement in the United StatesThe birth control movement in the United States was a social reform campaign to make contraception legal in America. The movement began in 1914 when a group of radicals in New York City, led by Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger, became concerned about the plight of poor women, who...