Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Divison of Labour pages 54-55

In the course of their history, women observed the changes in their own bodies and acquired through observation and experiment a vast body of experiential knowledge about the function of their bodies, about the rhythms of menstruation, about pregnancy and childbirth. This appropriation of their own bodily nature was closely related to the acquisition of knowledge about the generative forces of external nature, about plants, animals, the earth, water and air.

Thus, they did not simply breed children like cows, but they appropriated their own generative and productive forces, they analysed and reflected upon their own and former experiences and passed them on to their daughters. This means they were not helpless victims of the generative forces of their bodies, but learned to influence them, including the number of children they wanted to have.

We are in possession of enough evidence today to conclude that women in pre-patriarchal societies knew better how to regulate the number of their children and the frequency of births than do modern women, who have lost this knowledge through their subjection to the patriarchal capitalist civilizing process.

Among gatherers and hunters and other primitive groups, various methods existed--and partly still exist today--to limit the number of births and children. Apart from infanticide, most probably the earliest method, women in many societies used various plants and herbs as contraceptives or to induce abortions. The Ute Indians used lithio-spermium, the Bororo women in Brazil used a plant which made them temporarily sterile. The missionaries persuaded the women not to use the plant any more. Elisabeth Fisher tells us about methods used by women among the Australian aborigines, certain tribes in Oceania, and even in ancient Egypt, which were predecessors to modern contraceptives. Women in Egypt used a vaginal sponge, dipped in honey, to reduce the mobility of sperm. There was also the use of acacia tips which contained a spermicidal acid.

Another method of birth control used widely among contemporary gatherers and hunters is a prolonged period of breastfeeding. Robert M. May reports on studies which prove that 'in almost all primitive gatherers' and hunters' societies fertility is lower than in modern civilized societies. Through prolonged lactation ovulation is reduced, which leads to longer intervals between births'. He also observed that these women reached puberty at a much later age than civilized women. He attributes the much more balanced population growth, which can be observed today among many tribes as long as they are not integrated into civilized society, to 'cultural practices which unconsciously contribute to a reduction of fertility'. Though he criticizes correctly those who think that the low rate of population growth in such societies is the result of a brutal struggle for survival, he still does not conceive of this situation as a result of women's conscious appropriation of their generative forces. Recent feminist research has revealed that before the witch hunt women in Europe had a much better knowledge of their bodies and of contraceptives than we have today.