In his article Natural Fertility and Family Limitation in Roman Marriage, Bruce Frier discusses the attempt to link modern statistical analysis of rates of fertility in several contemporary and near-contemporary cultures to that of expected fertility rates in Roman Egypt. Frier, using modern statistical modeling, strenuously refutes the argument by John Riddle that Roman families actively limited the size of their families through the use of contraceptives and abortion.
Frier also suggests that the understanding of the female reproductive anatomy was extremely primitive, making successful fertility interruption unlikely at best, and at worst potentially deadly.
Furthermore, Bruce Frier strenuously argues that to even attempt to do so, considering the enormous burden of infant mortality would be cultural suicide, reducing birth rates to the point that population stability would be impossible. Frier leaves open the argument that non-marital fertility rates (prostitution, concubinage etc.) would be open to limitation by contraception or abortion.
Bruce Frier uses analysis conducted by the French demographer Louis Henry. Henry believes that rates of fertility, and expected rates of fertility can be divided between cultures that are Pre-transitional and Post-Transitional. Pre-transitional cultures practice no effective limitation to fertility either through contraception or abortion, nor is there any conscious “family planning” through normal life
Age.........................................Expected Fertility Rates
12-14.....................................................225
15-19.....................................................420
20-24.....................................................460
25-29.....................................................431
30-34.....................................................396
35-39.....................................................321
40-44.......................................................67
45-49.......................................................24
There’s more if you really want it. Drop me an email at
Rabelais@comcast.net and I can send you what I have on natural fertility among pretransitional cultures.