Defoe on contraception

Many people know about Defoe’s ‘Shortest Way with Dissenters’, but here are some lesser-known pieces by him:

+ DEFOE, DANIEL

A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed (1727)

The title continues: "Showing: I. The nature of matrimony, its sacred original and the true meaning of its institution; II. The gross abuse of matrimonial chastity, from the wrong notions which have possessed the world, degenerating even to whoredom; III, The Diabolical practice of attempting to prevent child-bearing by physical preparations; IV. The fatal consequences of clandestine or forced marriages, through the persuasion, interests, or influence of parents and relations, to wed the person they have no love for, but oftentimes an aversion to; V. Of unequal matches, as to the disproportion of age; and how such, many ways, occasion a matrimonial whoredom; VI. How married persons may be guilty of conjugal lewdness, and that a man may, in effect, make a whore of his own wife; Also many other particulars of family concern." From the author of Robinson Crusoe and many other writings. 104 pages.

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+ DEFOE, DANIEL

Religious Courtship: Being Historical Discourses, On the Necessity of Marrying Religious Husbands and Wives Only (1743)