Reply #12: The underlying principal is whether or not the "Church" has the

[jemelanson]

right to control women.
"In most primitive societies it was unthinkable that male sexual desires should take precedence over the needs of mothers and their children. Patriarchy everywhere sought to change this, through religious sanction. Women were to serve men's sexual urges even when preoccupied with motherhood. This was the meaning of God's announcement to Eve: 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee' (Genesis 3:16). In this context, "sorrrow" meant labor pangs, as well as the harried life of a mother with children too close together, and the illnesses and injuries caused by spreading a mother's care too thin.
The Judeo-Christian culture insisted on men's control of women's bodies. Wives were not to imitate sexual relations, but they were never to deny their husbands. The Catholic church laid down the law that no wife could accuse her husband of rape even if he forced her with accompanying brutality. Sexual "release" was his conjugal right ( but not hers).
The church interpreted the fable of Genesis as God's mandate to compel women to bear as many children as possible, even at the cost of the children's or the mother's health and welfare. Men refused to deal with the problem of over-production and women were forbidden to do so, by the church's tradition. In pagan times, women used some fairly effective birth-control devices, ranging from vaginal sponges to abortifacient drugs. Many churchmen believed the witches inherited secret knowledge of such things, which contributed to the vigor or witch- and midwife-persecutions." this was taken from the book by Barbara G. Walker "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets"
pages 13-104. Along with this Birth-control was considered as nothing else than mutual masturbation. The church did not view sex as masturbation when it was for a husband's benefit as long as it was not mutually satisfying. In the 17th century the church said that the only purpose of marital sex must be conception and that if the woman receives too much pleasure she cannot conceive.