ABSTRACT
Men and women have had sexual relations and women have gotten pregnant and borne children since the beginning of time, but during much of that time many women have not had the right to choose with whom and when to have sexual relations and when to get pregnant or avoid becoming pregnant. Their sexual relations and pregnancies have mostly been determined by male demands, not women’s choices. This pattern of male control of sexual relations was codified in the patriarchal family a few thousand years ago. The father in the patriarchal family largely determined when daughters would marry, often at a young age of twelve or fourteen, whom they would marry, and gave the husband ownership of the new bride. The husband then determined when he wanted to have sex with her, not when she desired sexual relations. Birth control was mostly unknown, although some groups of women began to discover ways to do that. But contraception by women was generally frowned upon by patriarchal norms. Patriarchal religion, for example, such as has been taught by the Roman Catholic Church, rejected contraception as immoral and forbidden.
