Contraception

 

 

In fact, contraception is one of the greatest blessings that has happened to humanity in the whole of human history. It is the greatest revolution. No revolution is so great compared to the invention of contraceptives, because it is through contraceptives that women can become equal to men. It is only through contraceptives that the woman can have all the rights that man has always claimed for himself. Otherwise she was almost always pregnant.

 

She cannot work in the factory, she cannot work in the office, she cannot be a doctor, she cannot be a professor. At the most she can only be a housewife, and that simply means a house-servant. And her whole life is wasted in giving birth to children. She cannot do anything else -- she cannot paint, she cannot compose poetry, she cannot play music, she cannot dance. How can you dance if you are continuously pregnant? It is so sickening, so nauseating.

 

But her whole work in the past was just like that of a factory -- to go on giving birth to children. It started nearabout the age of fourteen and it continued as long as the man was potent enough to go on procreating.

 

Two dozen children was not an exception, one dozen was a very normal thing. Now a woman giving one dozen children to the world or two dozen children to the world will not have time for anything else.

 

That was the root cause of woman's slavery. And when she was continuously pregnant and ill and sick because of pregnancy, she had to depend on man -- economically depend on man. And if you depend on man economically you cannot be free. Economics is one of the most fundamental factors. If the money comes from the man, then the money comes with conditions.

 

If we need a humanity where man and woman are equal, then contraceptives should be used as widely as possible; they should become normal. And only then will extra-marital relationships, pre-marital relationships become very simple. The whole problem was that if you were moving in a pre-marital relationship and the woman got pregnant, there would be great trouble. The contraceptive has eradicated that trouble completely.

 

The Pope is afraid that if contraceptives are used then pre-marital relationships cannot be prevented. That was a tragedy to prevent them: the woman was so afraid that she would lose all honor, all respect if she got pregnant; the man was so afraid that if he made a woman pregnant then he would have to get married to the woman. He may not be ready for that; it may have been just a momentary affair. It may have been just fun! But it has become now a great responsibility, a whole life's responsibility.

 

Contraceptives have transformed the very quality of sex: sex becomes fun. Sex is no more such a serious thing as it used to be. It becomes just a playfulness -- two bodies playing with each other, that's all. There is nothing wrong in it. You play football -- what is wrong in that? You play volleyball -- what is wrong in that? Two body energies are involved.

 

Sex is also a game, but it was not a game before. Before contraceptives it was a serious thing. Contraceptives have eradicated that whole seriousness about it. Now the religions are bound to be afraid, because their whole edifice can collapse because of contraceptives. What the atheists could not do in centuries, contraceptives can do within decades. They have already done it: contraceptives have made man free of the priest.

 

Contraceptives are a blessing, but the Pope cannot be in favor of them because his power is at stake -- and not only the Pope but all other religious heads, the shankaracharyas and the ayatollahs and the imams, they will all be against contraceptives. Their whole business is at risk.

 

And I am all for contraceptives. They should be widely used. Children should be taught by parents, by the schools, how to use contraceptives so sex becomes just fun, it loses all seriousness. And then only can woman be liberated. Without contraceptives the woman is bound to remain a slave, half humanity living in slavery is not a good scene to look at.

 

-Osho, “Philosophia Ultima, #3, Q1“