Birth Control |
Function of Generation
The union is meant not for pleasure, but for bringing forth progeny . and union is a crime when the desire for progeny is absent. (YI, 12-3-1925, p. 88) Once the idea that the only and grand function of the sexual organ is generation possesses man and woman , union for any other purpose they will hold as criminal waste of the vital fluid and the consequent excitement caused to man and woman as an equally criminal waste of energy. (H, 21-3-1936, p.48) It is dinned into ones ears that gratification of the sex urge is a solemn obligation like the obligation of discharging debts lawfully incurred, and that not to do so would involve the penalty of intellectual decay. This sexes urge has been isolated from the desire for progeny and it is said by the protagonists of the use of contraceptives that conception is an accident to be prevented except when the parties desire to have children. I venture to suggest that this is a most dangerous doctrine to preach . Sex urge is a fine and noble thing . There is nothing to be ashamed of in it . But it is meant only for the act of creation . Any other use of it is a sin against God and humanity. (H, 28-3-1936, p. 53) |
Artistic Approach
Similarly, when he pondered over the phenomenon of the
pleasurableness of sexual union, he discovered that, like every other organ of sense, this one of ge3neration had its use and abuse. and he saw that its true function, its right use, was to restrict it to generation had its use he saw was ugly, and he saw further that it was fraught with very serious consequences, as well to the individual as to the race. |
Need for Birth-control
Artificial methods are like putting a premium upon vice. They make man and woman reckless. And the respectability that is being given to the methods must hasten the dissolution of the restraints that public opinion puts upon one. Adoption of artificial methods must result in imbecility and nervous prostration. The remedy will be found to be worse than the disease. It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of ones acts. It is good for a person who overeats to have an ache and a fast. It is bad for him to indulge his appetite and then escape the consequence by taking tonics or other medicine. It is still worse for a person to indulge in his animal passions and escape the consequences of his acts. Nature is relentless and will have full revenge for any such violation of her laws. Moral results can only be produced by moral restraints. All other restraints defeat the very purpose for which they are intended. (YI, 12-3-1925, pp.88-89) |
Over-population
The bogey of increasing birth-rate is not a new thing. It has been often trotted out. Increase in population is not and ought not to be regarded as a calamity to be avoided. Its regulation or restriction by artificial methods is a calamity of the first grade, whether we know it or not. It is bound to degrade the race if it becomes universal, which, thank God, it is never likely to be. Pestilence, wars and famines are cursed antidotes against cursed just which is responsible for unwanted children. If we would avoid this three-fold curse, we would avoid too the curse of unwanted children by the sovereign remedy of selfcontrol. The evil consequences of artificial methods are being seen by discerning men even now. Without, however, encroaching upon the moral domain, let me say that propagation of the race rabbit-wise must undoubtedly be stopped; but not so as to bring greater evils in its train. It should be stopped by methods which in themselves ennoble the race. In other words, it is all a matter of proper education which would embrace every department of life; and dealing with one curse will take in its orbit all the others. A way is not to be avoided because it is upward and therefore uphill. Mans upward progress means ever-increasing difficulty, which is to be welcomed. (H, 31-3-1946, p. 66) Man must choose either of the two courses, the upward or the downward; but as he has the brute in him he will more easily choose the down ward course than the upward , especially when the down ward course is presented to him in a beautiful garb. Man easily capitulates when sin is presented in the garb of virtue, and that is what Marie Stopes and others are doing. (H, 1-2-1935, p. 410) I am afraid that advocates of birth-control take it for granted that indulgence in animal passion is a necessity of life and in itself a desirable thing. the solicitude shown for the fair sex is most pathetic. In my opinion, it is an insult to the fair sex to put up her case in support of birthcontrol by artificial methods. As it is, man has sufficiently degraded her for his lust, and artificial methods, no matter how well-meaning the advocates may be, will still further degrade her.
I urge the advocates of artificial methods to consider the consequences. Any large use of the methods is likely to result in the dissolution of the marriage bond and in free love. If man may indulge in animal passion for the sake of it, what is he to do whilst he is, say, away from his home for any length of time, or when he is engaged as a soldier in a protracted war, or when he is widowed, or when his wife is too ill to permit him the indulgence without injury to her health, notwithstanding the use of artificial methods.
Birth-control to me is a dismal abyss. It amounts to playing with unknown forces. Assuming that birth-control by artificial aids is justifiable under certain conditions, it seems to be utterly impracticable of application among the millions. It seems to me to be easier to induce them to practise self control than control by contraceptives. |
Greater Sin
God has blessed man with seed that has the highest potency and woman with a field richer than the richest earth to be found anywhere on this globe. Surely it is criminal folly for man to allow his most precious possession to run to waste. He must guard it with a care greater than he will bestow upon the richest pearls in his possession. I suggest that it is cowardly to refuse to face the consequences of ones acts . persons who use contraceptives will never learn the virtue of selfrestraint. They will not need it. Self-indulgence with contraceptives may prevent the coming of children but will sap the vitality of both men and women-perhaps, more of men than of women. It is unmanly to refuse battle with the devil. (H, 17-4-1937, p. 84) |
Social Vice |
Insult to Womanhood I take it that the wisest among the protagonists of contraceptives restrict their use to married women who desire to satisfy their husbands sexual appetite without wanting children. I hold this desire as unnatural in the human species and its satisfaction detrimental to the spiritual progress of the human family. (H, 2-5-1936, p. 92) I take it that the wisest among the protagonists of contraceptives restrict their use to married women who desire to satisfy their husbands sexual appetite without wanting children. I hold this desire as unnatural in the human species and its satisfaction detrimental to the spiritual progress of the human family. (H, 2-5-1936, p. 92) Contraceptives are an insult to woman hood. The difference between a prostitute and a woman using contraceptives is only this that the former sells her body to several men, the latter sells it to one man. Man has no right to touch his wife so long as she does not wish to have a child, and the woman should have the will-power to resist even her own husband. (H, 5-5-1946, p. 118) It is the philanthropic motive that no doubt impels many birth-control reformers to a whirlwind campaign in favour of the use of contraceptives. I invite them to contemplate the ruinous consequences of their misplaced philanthropy. Those whom they want to reach will never use them in any appreciable numbers. Those who ought not to use them will, without doubt, use them to the undoing of themselves and their partners. This would not matter in the least if the use of contraceptives was incontestably proved to be right physically and morally. (H, 12-9-1936, p. 244) |
Abstinence |
Courage to say NO I have felt that, during the years still left to me, if I can drive home to womens minds the truth that they are free, we shall have no birthcontrol problem in India. If they will only learn to say no to their husbands when they approach them carnally ..all will be well .The real problem is that they do not want to resist them. It boils down to education. I want woman to learn the primary right of resistance. She thinks now that she has not got it. (AA, November 1935) I do not believe that woman is prey to sexual desire to the same extent as man. It is easier for her than for man to exercise self-restraint. (H, 2-5-1936, p. 93) |
Self-control My quarrel with the advocates of contraceptives lies in their taking it for, granted that ordinary mortals cannot exercise self-control. Some of them even go so far as to say that even if they can, they ought not to do so. To them, no matter how eminent they may be in their own spheres, I say, in all humility but with utmost confidence, that they are talking without experience of the possibilities of self-control. They have no right to limit the capacity of the human soul. And my plea, based on positive experience, is that even as truth and ahimsa are not merely for the chosen few but for the whole of humanity, to be practiced in daily life, so exactly is self control not merely for a few Mahatmas, but for the whole of humanity. And even as, because many people will be untruthful and violent, humanity may not lower its standard, so also, though many, even the majority, may not respond to the message of selfcontrol, we may not lower out standard. (H, 30-5-1936, p. 126) |
Sterilization
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