Family planning in rural Kwazulu: transition from traditional to contemporary practices
Kies, C.W.
Southern African Journal of Demography 1(1): 16-19
1987
PMID: 12315625 DOI: 10.2307/20853751Document Number: 361230
In South Africa, premarital vaginal penetration was not allowed in traditional Zulu society because illegitimate children disrupted the community. Young people could have external sexual intercourse between the thighs, however, only if 1st instructed in this practice by the leader of each peer group plus the girl's group leader had to approve of a meeting between the boy and girl. In addition, men could not marry before proving themselves in the battlefield, usually between 30-35 years old. Women could not marry until all the women of an older age group had married, therefore women were approximately 25 years old when married. In years past, the Zulu believed that a large enough quantity of semen must accumulate inside the wife's body before a baby would grow. Newlyweds therefore had intercourse day and night for the 1st few weeks until they believed that the wife was pregnant. Frequency of intercourse either decreased or ceased once a women was pregnant. A breast feeding mother could not have sexual intercourse because the fetus would poison the child who was still breast feeding. Children were breast fed for 3 years. Husbands could have sexual intercourse between the thighs with a mistress during the lactational period of his wife, however. Polygynists slept with each wife for only 1 period/month, often not during her most fertile days. They therefore had fewer children/wife than men in monogamous relationships. Today females do not practice abstinence after birth and breast feed their children for 3 years. Additionally, they become sexually active at an earlier age. Only 5% of the respondents of a survey were using modern contraceptives. Due to the nonuse of traditional practices and modern contraceptives, the present levels of fertility are higher than was the case in the past.