The Truth About Pregnancy In Ancient Greece
By Benito Cereno/Dec. 16, 2020 11:22 am EDT
In the Classical era of Ancient Greece, pregnancy and childbirth were seen not only as a biological imperative for the propagation of the human species, but also a social and political obligation. According to Encyclopedia.com, the end goal of marriage was procreation, and the goal of procreation was to produce male heirs who could become soldiers to defend the city-state and participate in its political maintenance. As such, it was a moral, legal, and social obligation for women to start churning out babies more or less as soon as they completed puberty. The frequency of intercourse by married couples was regulated by law.