This section is concerned with the attitudes towards modem contraception of the various educational, work status, parity and age groups within the study communities. Attitudes are important as mere knowledge is not sufficient to bring about a change in behaviour. The Ministry of Health makes family planning socially acceptable but contraceptive use must be legitimized. This is done through evaluation of the innovation by the society. This is where attitudes are important in the context of the two communities studied because one's attitude are formulated, changed and reinforced by interpersonal networks in these communities (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955). Behaviour is largely the result of the accepted attitudes of the group. The two communities expressed the same basic concerns regarding modem contraception.
During the initial stages of the family planning programme, a number of Fijians in Koro were confused by the changing policies of the government. A 57 year old man who had served in the army in Malaya in the 1950s complained:
No. 07701: It's funny, this family planning business. Before I went to Malaya, people were encouraged to have a large family because those who had many children paid a reduced provincial rate. When we returned from Malaya there had been an about-turn in this aspect. There was no soli ni luve levu and we were told to have a small family.
The confusion among Fijians in the early 1960s when modem contraception was introduced arose from the fact that, while the family planning campaign was stepped up in 1963 and family clinics were opened by the national government at all dispensaries and maternal centres (Ministry of Health, 1964: 2) the Fijian administration continued to levy a lower provincial tax rate for men aged between 18-60 years with five or more children to encourage a higher Fijian population growth rate (Roth, 1953: 156; Fiji Government, 1960: 1967). In addition, the campaign for inoculation and improved hygiene to reduce the high infant mortality was promoted as a means of increasing the Fijian population also accompanied the family planning programme. The Indians, by contrast, were directly under the national government and therefore were affected by only one set of policies.
The circumstances of the early 1960s were explained by a well-educated high-status retired married 50 year old man with secondary education:
No.05301: This was mainly done for these other people [meaning Indians] not us. Even the doctors have said so. It's our women jumping on to something that was not meant for us originally. I think in the village - there is a very small number who are using these things [contraceptives].
For most Fijians, particularly the older generation, the population problem was not a Fijian problem: it was the Indians who needed to limit their growth. It is indicative also of the fact that contraception is an imported technology.
Older people in both communities did not approve of limiting childbearing. A married 56-year-old Fijian man with six children exclaimed:
No.07701: Here is God giving us this great gift, children, and who are we to stop him? Look at our mothers, they had about ten children - nothing ever happened to them. And now with this contraception, this new thing that has been forced on us, has only brought with it nothing but health problems for our women.
An elderly Indian man with nine children grumbled:
No. 16201: I don't approve of family planning because it increases women's weight and spoils their figure.
Other Indian men asserted that the use of contraception should depend on the health of the woman, while others argued that it should depend on ability of the couple to economically support children.
A 72-year-old Fijian man expressed a common fear :
No.04901: What would they [women] do? They'd just get lazy - this family planning has brought us nothing but empty class one classrooms.
This brief statement on empty classrooms embodies the reality of decline in numbers in schools and the widespread Fijian perception on the importance of numbers. To Fijians, a large party going to a wedding or funeral ceremony was always described in favourable terms, but a small party was always associated with weakness and impoverishment.
An issue that emerged from the discussions with older Fijian men was that they feared the growing independence and free time that women could have if they were not tied down by motherhood. Both men and women felt that even if a woman controlled her fertility, there were few new options available to her. Work was difficult to obtain, establishing a new business demanded capital which most women did not have, and continuing their education was difficult as entry to most courses demanded fees and qualifications as prerequisites. Women in the villages were largely dependent on subsistence activities and sold their products once or twice a week to cover their grocery needs for the coming week, a reduction in fertility would be unlikely to create dramatic increase in purchasing power and the amount that could be spent on each child was rather limited. Villagers only carried sufficient garden and marine produce to market to bring them sufficient cash for their weekly needs which largely consisted of things that they could not produce themselves such as sugar and matches.
The fear of the growing independence and free time that women could have had if they controlled their fertility was never expressed by older Indian men. For them, the economic burden of children over-rode all other factors.
Among the younger men of the villages the monetisation of daily life, higher aspirations for their children, their demand for consumer goods, and the high cost of living encouraged them to accept the importance of family limitation. A young 35 year old married Fijian man with four children with primary education explained:
No.05601: I have four children and I would like them to be educated well. I am not working and I can't afford to have a large family. Four is enough for us.
Likewise, four younger Indian men in Basti were more concerned in in-depth interview with the economic costs of having children and the difficulty of getting employment, and believed that it would be foolhardy to have a large family in the current economic climate.
Both Fijian and Indian men and women supported family planning, particularly its role in limiting family size, but were apprehensive about the use of modem contraception for family spacing. This fear was succinctly expressed by educated, working Indian woman in the study area:
No. 15002032:1 don't want to take anything or have anything inserted or injected into my body. I'd rather have the children I want, then have the operation once and for all.
A Fijian 30 year old primary educated man expressed his view thus:
No.04501: The result of this [use of contraception] is that we have odd looking children and ill effects for our women.
These quotations suggest that a major impediment to family planning was the apprehension regarding the use of modem non-permanent methods of contraception. There was a tendency to use contraception only after achieving the number of children desired. Despite this, there was wide acceptance of the need for birth spacing.
In my discussions with Fijian men in the village, one childless man recommended going back to the long periods of postpartum abstinence that were believed to have been the
practice in the past. This generated an instant response by the other from the other men who exclaimed:
Sa bau wadregal [the literal meaning was 'sticky' but it was an expression used colloquially for anything regarded as impossible].
This suggested that postpartum abstinence had been observed in the past but was no longer consistent with modem attitudes and behaviour.
Two focus groups, one comprising six married men between the ages of 25-50 years and another comprising twelve older married men over 40 years, head of each social unit, were asked whether their reluctance to accept family planning was due to the attempt by Fijians to increase their numbers as claimed by Bavadra and Kierski (1980: 20). This was denied vehemently by the two groups. The responses had a common thread as stated categorically by one of the participants, a thirty year old primary educated man in a group discussion:
No.04501: So much time, energy and thought is spent in village affairs and in trying to get our three meals for the day that it was ridiculous to ever conceive the thought that our primary motive for having children was to boost our numbers because we're worried about some other people [meaning Indians]. ...(Pause) I and most other men in this room have children because we are physically attracted to our wives and, to be frank, particularly after having yaqona. In addition, children are an important part of the family.
This suggested that couples seemed to have had children without active decision making (see section 7.7). Children were a by-product of the physical attraction between couples and the result of societal norms favouring large numbers of children.
Discussions with Indian men were different as it was difficult calling a group together because of the scattered nature of the settlement. Discussions therefore involved in- depth interviews with men randomly selected from the community. In discussions with Indian men on whether increased use of contraception in the Indian community was influenced by their current proportion total population, as claimed by Clegg (1985), the overwhelming response was in a similar vein as described by one 36 year old primary educated man with two children and had recently been made redundant explained:
politics. The number of children I have is influenced by my job. I don't have a permanent job and I can't afford a large family.
A few women added another dimension. In the words of an Indian woman:
No. 15803041: We've been trying to migrate to Australia - even before the coup. My husband's brother is there and the pay is very good. We were turned down but we’re still trying, and the chances of being accepted if we had a large family are very small.
Bavadra and Kierski (1980: 20) had claimed that Fijian men's reluctance to accept family planning was because they feared that their wives might be promiscuous. This was denied vehemently by Fijian men in the village. A 39 year old married man with primary education explained:
No.05103; Any woman that was married and housed by the husband [here the term 'vakamautaki' or married emphasised and implied that the man married the woman] or taken to his parent's house had a different and respectable position that went with the new status and to suggest any promiscuity on her part at this stage in her life was quite inconceivable. Anyway, a loose woman will always be loose and they make up an insignificant number in any village.
Among the group comprising heads of the different social units, the claim by Bavadra and Kierski (1980) was also rejected as in the words of a 40 year old man:
No. 04901: Its an erroneous statement. They must be referring to some other group.
A 30 year old married man with four children presented a positive view of the use of contraception:
No.05601: In my case it is the reverse. I used to have extra-marital affairs lasa i tuba [the literal meaning is to have fun outside] when my wife was pregnant, and this usually caused much fighting between us. Contraceptives, in my case have not only resulted in no more fights but a more stable relationship. There is no more lasa i tuba.