Religion, Vaginas and Penises

[abaris]

Oh I think there's at least a little more to it than control of desires.  Human sex is dangerous compared to that of other animals.  Absent modern medicine the maternal fatality rate for pregnant women was quite high.  Humans remain infants is need of care and training for much longer than other animals.  In the absence of birth control or modern medicine, it's not surprising we worried more about sex.  It just that established religions are inherently conservative and don't change with changing tech so easily.

Boil it down to what it really is. This got nothing to do with science and everything with a paternalistic society, who wanted their male dominance written in stone. You will notice that the laws concerning men and sex are much more lenient than when it comes to females.

Also, they certainly weren't concerned with high birth rates. With child mortality running rampant, the last thing they wished for was less children. Women you could easily replace if they were to die at childbirth, but children were the wealth and old age insurance policy of the society in question.