Resumen de Les chemins détournés vers une fécondité contrôlée: le cas du Québec, 1930-1970

Danielle Gauvreau, Diane Gervais

• This paper aims at understanding how French catholic couples in Quebec managed to limit the size of their families within a social and religious context particularly opposed to such practices. Using micro-level data from the 1971 census and information from in-depth interviews, the authors seek to uncover the groups most likely to circumvent catholic rules. The article also identifies some mechanisms, at times surprisingly paradoxical, used by both couples and priests to attain their goal while staying faithful to the Church. These include the search for a more lenient confessor, variable applications of moral principles according to the situation, and justifications based on a double act effect. However, the use of such stratagems becomes obsolete in the sixties with the availability of the pi11 and rhe publication of Encyclique Humanae vitae:

  most couples now act according to their own conscience and assume moral responsibility for the number of children they wish to have and which they actually bear.