Maids, Wives, Widows: Exploring Early Modern Woman's Lives 1540-1714 by Dr. Sara Read

Author:Dr. Sara Read
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781473859586
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2015-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Superstitions Surrounding Pregnancy

Thomas Raynalde wrote that if a pregnant woman wanted to discover whether she was carrying a ‘man or a woman,’ she should squeeze a drop of milk from her breast and let it fall on a shiny surface, like a knife. If the milk flowed freely then her child would be a girl, if it was more solid, a boy. Jane Sharp had a similar test which involved dropping some breast milk in a basin of water; if it floated then the woman was carrying a boy and if it sank, a girl. A less intrusive test was simply to note which foot a pregnant woman favoured when she got out of bed in the morning: the right foot indicated a boy and vice versa.

However, the test considered most reliable involved the belief that male babies were easier to carry, so a woman pregnant with a male foetus would walk more lightly on her feet, have a higher rounder bump, and generally look well. Sharp explained, ‘the woman is more cheerful and in better health, her pains are not so often, nor so great, the right breast is harder and more plump, the nipple a more clear red, and the whole visage clear not swarthy.’ Troublesome pregnancies were generally assumed to indicate that a girl was expected.

Medical authorities advised that pregnant women should aim to remain in a happy state of mind. Any ill thoughts and disturbing dreams or even external events were widely believed to have a detrimental effect on the foetus. Jane Sharp commented that many ‘monstrous births’ were caused by women looking at strange or inappropriate objects while pregnant. That women could bear monsters was not just the subject of sensational pamphlets, but routinely believed. Ralph Josselin noted in his diary that a monster had been born in Colchester in May 1646, which appeared like a child and a serpent and a toad all at once.

The power of the maternal imagination to affect the outcome of a pregnancy was widely perceived as beyond the medical texts. Sharp described this phenomenon:

Imagination can do much, as a woman that looked on a blackmore [black person] brought forth a child like to a blackmore; and one that I knew, that seeing a boy with two thumbs on one hand, brought forth such another; but ordinarily the spirits and humours are disturbed by the passions of the mind, and so the forming faculty is hindered and overcome with too great plenty of humours that flow to the matrix [womb].

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