To deliver with good forces

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

To deliver with good forces

IV The passage into the world

 

Delivery is an image, expression, and symbol of The Creation by God; therefore, every childbearing woman partakes in the creation and recreation of the world on a human scale. The reputation of queens depends on her offspring: «She bore five children for the world and three for heaven», wrote a biographer of queen Margaret of Austria.

The language of the time emphasizes the active nature of labour. A good midwife is the one who readies a childbearing woman for delivery.  At the right moment she positions the mother in a way which allows her to draw on all her strength. Women bore children in many different positions: on their knees, on the thighs of another woman (or even a man), in a squatting position, grasping a helping person’s neck, or supported under the arms by two other women (a position thought to have evolved in the orient). They could better put up with birth pain when feeling the comforting hands of a midwife, a sister, friend, or their own mother.

In some picaresque novels delivery is depicted as an effort shared by a community of women, both old and young, who shout out their prayers to the Virgin, to saint Margaret, or saint Raymond Nonnatus, who join in with the parturient‘s rhythmic breathing, all whilst encouraging her to scream. The new-born is often designated as delivery (parto), the act thus being equated with the product. This strong symbolism of the deed of childbearing itself added to the heavy burden of responsibility women had to carry: a handicapped child was considered the fault of the women; it was their delivery. «The Queen knows very well what she has given birth to», a chronicler wrote about the way, queen Mariana de Austria and her courtiers perceived and judged prince Carlos, born in 1661. Carlos entered the world a weak and sickly child. [Wolfram Aichinger]