Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/111

the clerics are under the impression that it is "natural." It is, however, quite an unnatural method; no natural female animal allows the male entry when she is not "on heat." It is also unnatural because it prescribes the times at which a man is to approach his wife without any relation whatever to his feelings, to her natural disposition and rhythm, or to incidental and quite right stimuli such as anniversaries, romantic remembrances, &c. It therefore tends to thwart the natural and romantic feeling at the time when it may be roused, and tends also to lead to an unnatural sense of duty at the available times for the man to perform the act when he may not be particularly inclined to do so, yet feels that he had better do so when he may, as the opportunity may not be available at the time he naturally desires union.

A similar argument applies with still more cogency to the woman, for the ordinary "safe period" which comes at the inter-menstrual phase is the time when she is less likely to have normal sex potentiality.^[1]

Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church, otherwise so violently opposed to control