ABSTINENCE
Abstinence is a state of nonengagement in sexual relations, whether voluntary or involuntary. It applies to a situation prevailing for months or years, or to a recurring situation, as in periodic abstinence. Abstinence can serve to regulate sexual activity per se, or to regulate one of the outcomes of sexual activity: fertility and transmission of disease. Abstinence is typically a function of age, sex, marital status, fecundity status, and fecundability status. Sociocultural factors influence the prevalence of abstinence, either through these characteristics or by direct influence on sexual activity (e.g., observance of celibacy, virginity, cessation of childbearing at grand-motherhood).
Abstinence prevails before sexual maturity. Where sexual maturity precedes regular exposure to intercourse, abstinence depends on customs regulating age at marriage and tolerance of sexual intercourse before marriage. Abstinence before and outside marriage is often related to gender. Women abstain more than men, most often to reduce the risk of pregnancy outside marriage, which is not tolerated in many societies.
In marriage, voluntary abstinence by women tends to occur during menstruation and pregnancy, and after delivery. Otherwise abstinence occurs principally among women for contraceptive reasons, taking three forms: periodic abstinence methodically timed to coincide with ovulation; postpartum abstinence to delay a subsequent pregnancy; and terminal abstinence to cease childbearing. Involuntary abstinence occurs also among women, influenced by their marital status (single, divorced, widowed) and duration of marriage (frequency of sexual relations declines with marriage duration).
Historically, abstinence was practiced in order to confine fertility to marital unions and to regulate marital fertility, often in conjunction with other traditional methods of fertility regulation such as withdrawal (coitus interruptus), abortion, or even infanticide. It occurs less for these purposes today, except in Africa. In the 1980s and 1990s, abstinence was recommended, particularly to young persons, as a means of reducing HIV/AIDS transmission, but the extent to which this advocacy has altered behavior is not clear.
Historically, long durations of postpartum abstinence were practiced in Africa. Regardless of reported reasons, abstinence improved survival chances of newborns by protecting breastfeeding from curtailment by a subsequent pregnancy. Long durations of abstinence are still found in West Africa; they have shortened substantially in East Africa, and are intermediate in length in Central and Southern Africa.
Postpartum abstinence makes a contribution to nonsusceptibility to the risk of pregnancy and thus lowers fertility, complementing the effect of lactational amenorrhea (suppression of menstruation). In 22 comparative country surveys in sub-Saharan Africa around 2000, abstinence duration exceeded lactational amenorrhea in only six cases. However, the nonsusceptible period was lengthened by abstinence in all cases, because many women who abstain are not protected by amenorrhea (the reverse also holds). In the surveys, amenorrhea ranged from 8 to 19 months, postpartum abstinence from 2 to 22 months. On average in the 22 countries, an abstinence duration of eight months extended amenorrhea by four months.
Four of ten women reporting current abstinence in African surveys are not practicing abstinence to prevent a subsequent pregnancy: An unknown proportion of this nonspecific abstinence may be involuntary. Similarly, in six national surveys in Europe, among all women 20 years and older, from one in four to three in four women who practice abstinence do so for nonspecific reasons that may be largely involuntary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bongaarts, John, Odile Frank, and Ron Lesthaeghe. 1984. "The Proximate Determinants of Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa." Population and Development Review 10: 511–537.
Demographic and Health Surveys. 2000. Country Reports. Calverton: Opinion Research Corporation Company (ORC Macro).
Fertility and Family Surveys in Countries of the ECE Region. 2000. Standard Country Reports (Economic Studies No. 10). New York and Geneva: United Nations.
