After I put the call out on Twitter for some Regency Reader Questions to give me some new post ideas, I got a thought provoking reply from @VivRivis:
A big reread of GH prompts questions about how many of our heroines would soon be worn out, or worse, by child bearing. Any evidence of active measures to limit family size, given eg use of wet nurses?
This is an excellent question. And the evidence in history and literature seems to suggest that family planning followed two trends: industrialization and feminism (or women’s suffrage).
A 1954 study of family planning in of the Victorian middle classes showed that a reduction in the number of children followed a recession sometime in the 1870s. The author followed up the study in 1964 with the main hypothesis that as feminism began to rise in the 1850s, family planning began to also become a topic of address until it was more widespread into the 1870s. This was especially true for the middle classes. For those of you interested in reading about the family planning methods of the Victorians, Glamour Magazine did an article a few years ago. These efforts were also going on in America throughout the 19th century, in part spurred on by one revolutionary doctor: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-birth-control-pamphlet-got-its-writer-imprisoned-180963140/. The industrialization comes into play because of the changing structure of the family and work. Essentially, people needed to have less children when living in towns and cities and doing non agricultural work.
There is also some evidence that in the early 19th century, some doctors and medical researchers were also recognizing the need for family planning and that abstinence was insufficient (Woodward, 1977). It is thought there was some universal understanding of the withdrawal method very early on, and that certainly some were practicing it (Langer, 1975). There was also general knowledge of herbal aborticides that were likely used by sex workers and others wanting to prevent pregnancy.
Much of the early work on family planning was done by missionaries, doctors, and others trying to improve the lives of the lower and working classes (Langer, 1975). This was happening as early as the late Georgian era, although often the pamphlets and papers produced were cryptic or faced charges of indecency.
While much of the literature on the topic of family planning in the 19th century comes from mid century, it nonetheless seems clear that family planning didn’t reach the masses until the late 1870s. In some respects, this reflected the social norms about talking about illness, health, etc. It stands to reason, however, that individual persons were likely practicing some family planning methods including, but not limited to, withdrawal, abstinence, and herbal remedies.
(Update) @lookingcat rightfully pointed out on Twitter that I didn’t talk about condoms at all. Which, although they would never make the appearance in a GH novel, a fair amount of mass market authors reference French letters, the early version of the condom (made with leather or skeepskin/guts). The history of the condom can be traced to ancient Egypt and the use of goat bladders for both condoms and diaphragms (Khan, 2013). By the 17th Century, an Italian anatomist, Gabriele Falloppio, who correctly identified the fallopian tubes, also made experiments on men using sheep and goat entrail sheaths to reduce contracting syphilis. He was able to show that the shealths, lubricated with saliva and tied at the end with a ribbon, could not only reduce the spread of STIs, but also reduce pregnancy (Khan, 2013).
In England, there was evidence of people using fish and animal intestine as condoms from as early as the 1640s. During the English Civil War (1642–1651) soldiers were given these condoms to reduce the spread of disease which was a leading cause of soldier death at the time (Khan, 2013). And that brings us up to the Georgian era, when the British and French fought over who first developed the condom, with the French calling the sheaths Redingote Anglaise (English raincoat) and the English calling it a French letter (Khan, 2013). Physician Daniel Turner is credited with coining the term condom which made an appearance in a 1785 dictionary (Khan, 2013). By the end of the 18th century, a person could purchase a condom at a brothel or at Mrs. Phillips warehouse in the Strand (Khan, 2013).
That takes us to the Victorian era, when American inventor Charles Goodyear started to vulcanize rubber during the industrial revolution. One of the applications would be for latex condoms, developed in 1855, which would be more broadly available to the public by the 1860s (Khan, 2013).
So the answer is, generally, that there is evidence of the use of rudimentary measures for preventing pregnancy but that it would not become more commonplace or debated until the 1870s. Many of the options available in the Regency would have been exclusively for the upper classes or for sex workers.
Thanks for the great question! Dear reader, you can ask your Regency Reader Question here. And please do! I always am looking for rabbit trails to follow into history and it helps keep the blog full of the content you love.
Banks, J. (1954). Prosperity and Parenthood: A Study of Family Planning among the Victorian middle classes. Routledge.
Banks, J. and O. Banks (1964). Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England. Routledge.
Khan, F., Mukhtar, S., Dickinson, I. K., & Sriprasad, S. (2013). The story of the condom. Indian journal of urology : IJU : journal of the Urological Society of India, 29(1), 12–15. https://doi.org/10.4103/0970-1591.109976
Langer, W. (1975). The Origins of the Birth Control Movement in England in the Early Nineteenth Century. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5(4), 669-686. doi:10.2307/202864
Woodward, J and D. Richards (1977). Health care and popular medicine in nineteeth century. Holmes and Meier.
