고대 로마의 임신과 피임에 대한 이론과 실제

Abstract

The Aims of this paper is to examine the Sociology of Contraception in the Roman Empire. Roman parents had available three methods for contraception. No matter how prevalent the use of contraceptives was, there surely must have been countless unwanted preganacies. Abortion was apparently a common solution. When contraception and abortion failed, parents of an unwanted child sometimes resorted to exposure and infanticide. By leaving the infant in a conspicuous place, clothed and with some kind of birth token(usually a piece of jewelry), parents seemed to try to protect themselves against the pain of the act by indulging in the hope that someone else would rear their child. The right of a father to expose an unwanted baby was almost unquestioned. It was after A.D.374 that Roman law made infanticide a capital offense. When contraception and abortion failed, parents of an unwanted child sometimes resorted to exposure and infanticide. There is no way to determine how often parents took this extreme action. Although it is fairly well accepted that deformed and sickly babies were strangled at birth or left in a temple or on a hillside, it is by no means clear that exposure of healthy children was in any sense routine. There is a strong probability that girls were more often exposed than were boys, but at what rate is unknown. Estimates range from 10 to 20 %. It seems likely that rates of infanticide varied over time and according to economic and social conditions. Exposure seems to have been more common among the poor and more prevalent in the East after the 4th century and in the West after the 1st century B.C. This dose not mean that infanticide and exposure was the unique and most common form of family planning. Its meaning is that we should not forget the practice attracted far more attention than contraception or even abortion in the sociological analysis of Roman society.