Birth control on Safehold?

Years ago a leading gynaecologist told me that the correct medical term for women who relied on the rhythm method was mothers.

Randomiser wrote:On sexual morals, just before he takes his unfortunate tumble on Ahnzhelyk's steps in OAR (pb P261) Archbishop Dynnys reflects, 'While the Holy Writ recognised that human beings were fallible, and that not all of them would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships, it was quite strict on the subject of fornication and infidelity'

A lot depends on how the terms "fornication" and "infidelity" are defined by the church. Fornication can be defined narrowly as sex between individuals who are specifically forbidden to one another or more broadly as any sex between people whose union was not consecrated by Mother Church. Given the first half of the quote here ("...not all [human beings] would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships") I tend to think that it is narrowly defined. Infidelity would be a much clearer definition and of greater importance given that Safeholdian society is still male-dominated and children without recognized fathers are SOL. So infidelity would be severely punished (if you could prove it of course).

thanatos wrote:

Randomiser wrote:On sexual morals, just before he takes his unfortunate tumble on Ahnzhelyk's steps in OAR (pb P261) Archbishop Dynnys reflects, 'While the Holy Writ recognised that human beings were fallible, and that not all of them would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships, it was quite strict on the subject of fornication and infidelity'

A lot depends on how the terms "fornication" and "infidelity" are defined by the church. Fornication can be defined narrowly as sex between individuals who are specifically forbidden to one another or more broadly as any sex between people whose union was not consecrated by Mother Church. Given the first half of the quote here ("...not all [human beings] would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships") I tend to think that it is narrowly defined. Infidelity would be a much clearer definition and of greater importance given that Safeholdian society is still male-dominated and children without recognized fathers are SOL. So infidelity would be severely punished (if you could prove it of course).

Hormonal birth control isn't exactly new, the Romans used a herbal preparation (Silphium) so enthusiastically that it went extinct.

thanatos wrote:

Randomiser wrote:On sexual morals, just before he takes his unfortunate tumble on Ahnzhelyk's steps in OAR (pb P261) Archbishop Dynnys reflects, 'While the Holy Writ recognised that human beings were fallible, and that not all of them would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships, it was quite strict on the subject of fornication and infidelity'

A lot depends on how the terms "fornication" and "infidelity" are defined by the church. Fornication can be defined narrowly as sex between individuals who are specifically forbidden to one another or more broadly as any sex between people whose union was not consecrated by Mother Church. Given the first half of the quote here ("...not all [human beings] would seek the approval of Mother Church's clergy upon their ... relationships") I tend to think that it is narrowly defined. Infidelity would be a much clearer definition and of greater importance given that Safeholdian society is still male-dominated and children without recognized fathers are SOL. So infidelity would be severely punished (if you could prove it of course).

I tend to think that you and Annachie are keen to read a current liberal Western view of sexual morals into Safehold. It seems to me to be much more likely that it has a fairly traditional Judeo Christian view, given how much else of society seems to be modelled on that. here in Scotland, the church wanted all marriages done before clergy, but up until at least 1933 there were various informal ways relationships could get recognised by society. Fornication is probably applied to short term and unstable sexual partnerships, but the church is far less worried about couples who set up as husband and wife without ever getting around to a wedding ceremony. The evidence is lacking for a definitive answer, but the natural reading of the passage I quoted without hair-splitting on the technical definition of fornication, which most readers would not at all get, tends to favour that. IMO YMMV

Lol, married with 10 kids. Yep liberal.

No, in my case the point I'm trying to make is more on history and if we know one thing about RFC it's that he's a historian.

Especially given the number of senior churchmen known to frequent Nynian's brothel in Zion, and Clyntyn's description of another vicar as a pederast.

Randomiser wrote:
I tend to think that you and Annachie are keen to read a current liberal Western view of sexual morals into Safehold. It seems to me to be much more likely that it has a fairly traditional Judeo Christian view, given how much else of society seems to be modelled on that. here in Scotland, the church wanted all marriages done before clergy, but up until at least 1933 there were various informal ways relationships could get recognised by society. Fornication is probably applied to short term and unstable sexual partnerships, but the church is far less worried about couples who set up as husband and wife without ever getting around to a wedding ceremony. The evidence is lacking for a definitive answer, but the natural reading of the passage I quoted without hair-splitting on the technical definition of fornication, which most readers would not at all get, tends to favour that. IMO YMMV

I'll point out that this exists in my family line - the couple was betrothed well out on the Ohio frontier, with a plan that they be wed when a preacher made it to their settlement - a year or so later (the preachers circulated along the frontier at the time). Unfortunately, groom died in an accident some months before the preacher made it to actually marry them. But the family continued as the bride to be was pregnant at the time of his death. It was not considered a problem in the settlement as they had been betrothed.

Annachie wrote:Lol, married with 10 kids. Yep liberal.

No, in my case the point I'm trying to make is more on history and if we know one thing about RFC it's that he's a historian.

Especially given the number of senior churchmen known to frequent Nynian's brothel in Zion, and Clyntyn's description of another vicar as a pederast.

The fact that most of the Vicars etc are not exactly shining examples of how the Writ says God's children should live is kind of fundamental to the plot, don't you think?

Randomiser wrote:
I tend to think that you and Annachie are keen to read a current liberal Western view of sexual morals into Safehold. It seems to me to be much more likely that it has a fairly traditional Judeo Christian view, given how much else of society seems to be modelled on that. here in Scotland, the church wanted all marriages done before clergy, but up until at least 1933 there were various informal ways relationships could get recognised by society. Fornication is probably applied to short term and unstable sexual partnerships, but the church is far less worried about couples who set up as husband and wife without ever getting around to a wedding ceremony. The evidence is lacking for a definitive answer, but the natural reading of the passage I quoted without hair-splitting on the technical definition of fornication, which most readers would not at all get, tends to favour that. IMO YMMV

I take issue with the term "traditional Judeo Christian view" in the context of sex and marriages since there are some very serious difference between the two religions where this is concerned. Judaism does not view sex as inherently sinful as the Christian doctrine perceived it. Indeed, failure to have sex with your wife is grounds for a divorce in Judaism and sex performed within an established relationship is actually a "mitzvah" (act of virtue). Moreover, Judaism originally (and technically still does) permit polygyny and has an entire legal differentiation between wives and concubines (both being perfectly legal statuses). None of this applies to Christianity, where asceticism and abstinence were view as virtues (at least within the Catholic Church). Then there's the concept of bastardy which is quite different as well. In Christian tradition, any child born out of wedlock is a bastard (or at the very least illegitimate) while in Judaism a bastard is a child born out of infidelity on the part of the wife (not the husband - he after all is allowed to have more than one wife) and attaches a steep punishment upon such a child (cannot marry anyone except another bastard or a convert). Again, given the fact that the "Archangels" were still raised within a society with modern sexual mores and practices, I would think that they would not impose excessive restrictions on sex the way more primitive societies do as a way to avoid the social burden of fatherless children.

I meant no disrespect to Judaism and was thinking more about the attitudes to adultery and sex with a woman you were not and did not intend to be married to. Neither exactly commended in Tanak nor later Jewish writings to the best of my knowledge. Certainly Christian practice, which has been borrowed wholesale for the CoGA, would traditionally disapprove of those things.

Of course the archangels would not impose 'excessive restrictions' on sex, but we are discussing what restrictions they might have considered to be desirable rather than excessive.

The Archangels were also brought up in a society that did not impose death by torture on people who had different religious views from the official church but they certainly instituted that on Safehold.

Come to think of it, I don't think we have any actual textev on what sexual mores and practices were in the TF. For all we know they were having a Neo-Puritan period.

Randomiser wrote:
The Archangels were also brought up in a society that did not impose death by torture on people who had different religious views from the official church but they certainly instituted that on Safehold.

Come to think of it, I don't think we have any actual textev on what sexual mores and practices were in the TF. For all we know they were having a Neo-Puritan period.

There is Textev that PICAs were used to swich genders, and I am pretty sure what they were used for in that situation, which would tend to suggest to me, at any rate, that the TF was a sexually liberal environment.