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

[cahn]

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!

Comments

Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)

[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?

Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)

[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.

Re: Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe by John A. Lynn (2008)

[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.)