Excellent phrase, that one is. The article that caught my eye was from www.cruxmag.com, which always carries interesting pieces. The nugget was a quote from the first contraceptive ad in 1964:
From the beginning, woman has been a vassal to the temporal demands of the cyclic mechanism of her reproductive system. Now, to a degree heretofore unknown, she is permitted . . . suspension of cyclic function and procreative potential. This new method of control is symbolized in an illustration from ancient Greek mythology: Andromeda freed from her chains.
Whaaat? Did that text really make it past the storyboard in the ad agency and pass muster with women? "Vassal"? "Suspension of cyclic function"? "Andromeda"? Would pregnancy really be seen as "chains" as early as 1964? Leave it to Beaver was still running. Remember the vast shift during that decade, and this is still the first half. (Btw, I'm operating without much first-hand impression, since at that time I was four.) They must have been quite sure of the pulse of their target market [and succeeded, sigh].
Now, to Wendell Berry's fine words:
“Until recently,” [he writes,] “there was no division between sexuality and fertility, because none was possible. This division was made possible by modern technology, which subjected human fertility, like the fertility of the earth, to a new kind of will: the technological will, which may not necessarily oppose the moral will, but which has not only tended to do so, but has tended to replace it.”
“For the care or control of fertility,” Berry continues, “we have allowed a technology of chemicals and devices to replace entirely the cultural means of ceremonial forms, disciplines, and restraints.” It was through these cultural, or ecological, means that our ancestors harnessed and preserved sexual energy. These include the upholding of marriage as the proper context for sex and the discipline of periodic abstinence for the spacing of children.
A woman, with her cycle of fertility, is not a forest to be cleared or a mountain to be strip-mined. Instead, she’s like a garden, yielding her fruits to the patience and care of the loving husbandman. Neither are children pests to be warded off with chemicals. Instead, they’re a crowning gift of marriage, the visible fruits of a love too strong to be contained in just two bodies.
The rest of the words are those of the author, Sam Torode. He recommends a "revolution of love." Beautiful essay, if short. Highly recommended.
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