cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

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More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

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From:

cahn

Ah, this is interesting!

selenak and

mildred_of_midgard had told me about the plunder when she was looking at Peter Hagendorf's diary, but I guess I didn't think about organizing the results of plunder as being something they'd be all over. That sounds a little crazy! I mean, in a "wow, I'm glad I didn't live back then" kind of way.

Did officers' wives also go with the army?

There's a lot of stuff in the book about the social context of giving birth, both in terms of family and of the surrounding community.

Does this mean in terms of family and community support during and immediately after birth? I had a very hard time after my first's birth, and idk how I would have fared if my mom hadn't been really helping me out. I've wondered how that worked in the past where, well, adverse outcomes were a LOT more common.

Interesting to read about the trials for infanticide, where the surrounding community kept tabs on women they suspected, accusing them and bringing evidence - but also sometimes being kind to women in difficult circumstances, for example female servants made pregnant by their masters.

Wow. I feel like I want to know more about this but I don't know what questions to ask! When did they suspect women of infanticide? Whenever a kid died who wasn't already obviously ill? I suppose it's hard to tell now, but I would think that would mean a lot of women whose kids died of SIDS or something would get wrongfully accused... I'm glad they were kind to the female servants, anyway. Ugh.

ETA: also, sorry about the delay -- I had a busy week, and I know both

selenak and

mildred_of_midgard have even more limited availability this week -- they should be around next week, I think!

Edited Date: 2022-09-17 04:45 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

ETA: also, sorry about the delay -- I had a busy week, and I know both [personal profile] selenak and [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard have even more limited availability this week -- they should be around next week, I think!

Yes, this!

selenak is traveling from Germany to the US, and I have been moving house this week. I didn't even have a computer until Wednesday! I will catch up as soon as I can. In the meantime, thank you,

luzula!

From:

luzula

No worries at all! : )

From:

luzula

No worries at all about the delay, I am also super busy…

Did officers' wives also go with the army?
Yes, but of course there was a huge class distinction in what they did, compared to the working class women. Of the working-class women who were not actual prostitutes, most of them were either married to soldiers or had agreed to partner (sexually and for work) with a particular soldier just for the campaigning season.

Does this mean in terms of family and community support during and immediately after birth?
Yes! There was a socially enforced period of rest for women who had given birth, I think about two weeks. This was called the lying-in period. Even working-class women observed it, and it was often a large financial cost for their families, and something they would ask for money for from charity to afford. The reasoning is apparently that since women were pregnant so often, they really needed this period of rest so that their bodies could recover. Relatives and female friends often came to visit during this period, and they drank caudle together (a hot drink made with wine, gruel, sugar and spices). Women were not supposed to do any work during that time, and also not expected to keep up with their correspondence (if they were middle/upper class).

Re: infanticide, this is basically women who killed a child at birth when they had failed to induce an abortion, often because they had no resources to keep it. Women could be suspected of it if their child died at birth, but of course children being stillborn was also common! So a woman was more likely to be suspected if she had tried to hide her pregnancy and then the child died. Women hiding pregnancies was really something that the community tried to root out. Another key point is whether she had prepared for the infant or not. This was actually a key point in law, where she was often declared innocent if she had clothes ready for the child.

From:

cahn

Ah, thanks! I had heard of the "lying-in period" but had no idea what it actually was.

The reasoning is apparently that since women were pregnant so often, they really needed this period of rest so that their bodies could recover.

I am super SUPER sympathetic to this line of reasoning. Honestly, even if you didn't have that many babies I think this is a very reasonable ask!

This was actually a key point in law, where she was often declared innocent if she had clothes ready for the child.

Ohhhh, that's really interesting. Poor women. Was there any consequence, either legally or socially, from a successful abortion? Or did people just sort of pretend it didn't happen?

From:

luzula

The book does not touch on abortion at all, the subject is just the period around the birth. But this site tells me that during the 18th century, the word abortion was synonymous with miscarriage. It was not illegal to induce an abortion, but there were definitely people who saw it as morally wrong (of course hard to be sure how many). There wasn't a law against it in Britain until 1803, when it became illegal to induce an abortion after the quickening. There was a theological justification for that, since the quickening was seen as the moment of ensoulment. Huh, that's interesting--I have only been exposed to the Christian idea that this happens at conception.

From:

cahn

Oh, interesting, thanks! I'd heard vaguely before about the connection between quickening and ensoulment, but not very much.

(And I suppose medically speaking, the word abortion just means that the pregnancy stops -- a miscarriage is medically called a spontaneous abortion.)