Fertility, STIs, and Sexual Behavior in Early and Mid-Twentieth-Century East Africa

Narratives around fertility and sexually transmitted infections in Africa have commonly been characterized by assumptions of universality. Influential theories promoted by Jack Goody and Jack Caldwell identified African cultures as profoundly pronatalist, with the prioritization of the expansion of the lineage causing infidelity to be tolerated and polygamy encouraged. Caldwell and colleagues expanded on this thesis in light of Africa’s HIV pandemic, to suggest that pronatalism exposed Africans to a high risk of STI infection.¹ Explanations for the delay in population growth until the 1950s across much of Africa similarly typically focused on gonorrhea and syphilis as the primary cause