Recent work with samples of black and white urban American women showed a clear behavioral sequence relating age at menarche to age at first intercourse to age at first birth. This paper shows that the linking of ages at menarche, intercourse, marriage, and first birth is a pattern which occurs in very diverse cultures. We present confirmatory data from the United States, Belgium, and Pakistan, and from Malay and Chinese women in Malaysia. We interpret our findings as indicating a biological process leading to (a) social interpretations of readiness for reproduction, and (b) persisting biological differences between early and late maturing women.

Changes in contraceptive use in Flanders are documented, largely though not solely using data from four surveys conducted between 1966 and 1983. Particular attention is paid to changes in the methods of contraception used. The contraceptive transition observed for Flanders is compared with information for other countries to assess whether a specific pattern can be delineated, Rksumk. La 'transition contraceptive' en FlandresCette note d6crit l'6volution du recours h la contraception en Flandres, principalement partir des r6sultats de quatre enqu~tes r6alis6es entre 1966 et 1983. L'accent est mis sur les changements de m6thodes. La 'transition contraceptive' observ6e en Flandres est compar4e aux donn6es disponibles dans d'autres pays en vue de d6gager ses particularit~s ~ventuelles.

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SummaryIn a follow-up of males and females after voluntary surgical sterilization, the social characteristics of the applicants, their fertility and contraceptive history, their motivation, the indication for and mode of surgical contraception, the physical and psychological consequences of the operation, and the outcome of the selection and counselling procedures applied, were studied in a sample of 275 applications with a total of 540 subjects. The survey comprised the pre-operative examination, the first post-operative evaluation 4 months after surgery and the second after 12 months.The main reasons for applying for sterilization were excess fertility due to contraceptive failures and side-effects of reversible contraceptive methods. Almost all of the patients were satisfied with the operation, one of the highest proportions reported so far. Nevertheless, many experienced a real adjustment period. Notwithstanding the careful pre-operative information and counselling, serious fears were often observed, and many found the operation more severe than expected. For the vast majority of the patients the operation had no influence on their family relations. The sexual relationship too was usually unchanged. If there were changes, the positive effects always exceeded the negative ones.The high response to both the evaluations and the high proportions of satisfied individuals are in favour of the selection procedures and multidisciplinary counselling and follow-up practised.