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Birth Control Theory Essay

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In 1798, Thomas Malthus started the slow trend toward socially acceptable birth control practices in Great Britain, when he published his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus studied the birth rates of animals and found that creatures tend to have more offspring than they can raise. He argued that the control of national birth rates inevitably improved living conditions for city dwellers. Malthus felt that celibacy and controlling the number of children families produced were the best methods to lower national birth rates. In the Nineteenth Century British suffragists started discussing the use of birth control in the planning of motherhood. Early suffragists recommended that women either abstain from sex or use the …show more content…

The Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century and the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century encouraged the belief that women belonged in the home. Male scientists argued that men and women differed both anatomically and mentally. Scientists felt that women were the physically weaker of the sexes which caused ladies to be mentally immature, irrational, and lack modesty. The early Nineteenth Century British female philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft argued that women had the ability to reason and needed to be educated in order to become accomplished mothers and wives. Her 1792 book, Vindication of the Rights of Women, reinforced the place of women in the private sphere. The private sphere discouraged women from using birth control methods to prevent motherhood. During the First World War, women took on roles in society that were once solely occupied by men. Prior to 1918 women could not vote. After years of Struggle, in 1918 women gained the right to vote. In First World War women took on traditional masculine roles like working in heavy industry. The untraditional responsibilities women acquired during the war changed the way women responded to the concept of family. After the war, women needed to assume new roles outside of motherhood to compensate for men that did not return from battle. Dr. Marie Stopes was a scientist in the early Twentieth Century. She argued in her book, Birth Control and Other Writings, Volume 1, that men and women would be

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