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DanArmak comments on Many of us *are* hit with a baseball once a month. - Less Wrong Discussion
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When the first analgesics and techniques for relieving the pain of childbirth became available, in the 19th century, there was a very big movement in Western society against using them. The arguments given were that the pain 1) is natural 2) is God's just punishment. For decades, these analgesics were not used nearly as widely as they might have been.
Incidentally, IIRC, among the biggest opponents of analgesics were midwifes.
Why should it be good for the woman? It's a punishment. A punishment is supposed to be bad.
Punishments are supposed to be rehabilitative.
The thinking today has evolved somewhat, away from thinking the pain of childbirth is a punishment. Yet there is still a widespread tendency (including amongst nonreligious people) to claim that a painful childbirth is a natural childbirth, and to overemphasize and invent dangers of epidurals.
The idea of rehabilitation is relatively recent. Punishment is just a disincentive: people who do X get hurt, so don't do X or you'll get hurt.
Both recent and ancient; people have gone back and forth between rehabilitation/disincentive as punishment's goals for millennia. Look at confession/penance and the theologic justifications for that. Various penalties described in Ancient Rome and the Old Testament filled either or both those roles. We've had phrases like "teach him a lesson," "now, this is for your own good," and "spare the rod, spoil the child" for quite some time.